>>Received two free non denom BTC notes as promised. Thankyou!Most welcome - we are sorry for the trouble for US customers which we are currently unable to serve, and we felt it only proper with the small token gift - with the time and effort you spent when this was unclear.
For everyone else - yes - the shopping basket is now online, so it is possible to do a mixed order of different certificates.
>> I know you have higher denominations. Its a shame the only way to buy them will be loaded. But do you really think anyone will load a paper wallet not made by themselves with 10BTC? That's quite a lot of money to trust someone else who made the private keys.We cannot stress it enough: Never ever buy a product with 3rd party generated keys from 'someone' on the internet, and use it for storing large amounts of cryptos! Not even when they, like we do, have a 3rd party audited & notarized production process (
https://files.bitcoinsuisse.com/assets/pdf/Public_Deed_Confirmation.pdf). This leaves 2 questions
1) Why do we enforce loading of denominated certificates?
2) Why do we offer lg. denominated certificates at all, given the 3rd party generated key problem, audited or not? When we even warn against it?
As to
(1) - we have been making '3rd party passable pater wallets' aka. 'physical bitcoin' since 2014. Originally we allowed them to be purchased 'unloaded'. Unfortunately it did not take long before we had people approaching us with a "I bought this 1 BTC certificate from someone for 560 USD - now please load it".... From then on - we decided to enforce loading 'when buying' - except for the generic, non-denominated certificates. Casascius himself also learned this the hard way.
As to
(2) - In Europe we are the oldest and largest crypto financial service provider, broker and custodian in the market, active since 2013. Basically we are the Coinbase or Gemini of Europe. Certificates / paper wallets are not a part of our core business, it is a (historic) service we provide with a view to a) marketing b) serving a niche need of our clients.
For about 10'000 clients, we store almost 2Bn of crypto assets including about 2% of every Bitcoin every mined. For those of our clients where we have worked together for years - and who trust us with millions of dollars of assets, it is not a big leap of faith to order a 10 BTC note, and use it for perhaps a significant present to their children, business partners or as a rare collectible.
Please also note what we have 10 milliBit and 100 milliETH certificates on the way - a more manageable amount.
For the rest of you, who do not know us - yes - it makes no sense what-so-ever. Nor should you ever trust any person or company with 10 BTC or even 1 BTC - unless you fully know who you are dealing with!
Still you have the option of using the generic certificates, with or without loading small amounts on them, as a cool way to make a present or an offline transaction - and perhaps afterwards show the receiver, if not already in the know, how to sweep the wallet. And you at least have the benefit and peace of mind of knowing, that no-one to our knowledge the past 5 years, had a bad experience with our paper wallets.
Take the certificates for what they are nothing more - and we certainly do not hide the risk involved with 3rd party generated keys (see opening post). Yet, just as many people for a specific reason or with a specific need turn over their assets to centralized exchanges or service providers, as can it make sense to do it on paper wallets in a few, limited use-cases, even with the risks involved.
>> Have you considered perhaps selling them unloaded if they are never sold in the future?Historically - we always sell out. But as stated, this is not a business for us - rather a service and a labor of love.
>>And if so to protect against any scam perhaps stamp unloaded in a neat way on the side or across the face diagonally?That would of course be possible. If clearly and unmistakably marked in a permanent way that the certificate is unloaded - we could provide you such a note, unloaded. But we wouldn't produce then in scale as a product, as you are the first ever such request we had.