They definitely look good. But now I realize that it's really just a silver coin with a bitcoin commemeration on it. That's also cool. Just not what I was thinking of when I first saw the qr code/coin.
I think that given the QR which links to the current value in fiat on a web page, why not remove the 0.25BTC? Especially since, as far as I can tell, that value is off by nearly an order of magnitude.
The coins are minted with their value denominated in BTC at the time of minting. Personally, I'm holding on to one .25 BTC silver specie as a collectible.
Oh, I see. So the design on the OP is actually a little different depending on the time of minting. Does the value stamped on the front get rounded to the nearest mBTC or something?
Lots of people have suggested not putting a value on the piece. But we will likely always do that anyway. There are many reasons for that. There isn't network everywhere, and one of the benefits is not to need to have our gizmos out every time we want to make a small purchase. This is especially true for Point-of-sale transactions where there may be a line of folks waiting. It is for the quick, truly anonymous, point of sale transaction.
The value on the front is the nominal value, put there for historical reasons. It is the designer's best guess from the year before as to what the average BTC / Ag value is averaged over the year.
If Bitcoin is around many years hence it will serve as a marker for what we were doing with Bitcoin 'way back when'. That it raises the question of what BTC is worth in silver is (we thing) also a good thing, as that changes over time and highlights the merit of Bitcoin as a store of value. The real-time value is the value that ought be used commercially as indicated by the QR code link to http://colhardca.sh/ag
All the pieces from a single year will have the same design. There are however a good number of "special" pieces made in any given year for the folks that are collecting them, but they are really not meant as collectibles, but are made to be pocket change for Bitcoin currency.
Like pocket change folks should be spending and circulating them rather than hanging on to them. It is one of the many ways to address the issue of block chain bloat for small in-person transactions.