Topic: Bobby Lee is back, with Ballet (and new products!) (Read 1857 times)

Indeed it is. Good thing Bobby is not a random stranger.

Hi Corrosive,

Thanks for your constructive feedback.

I've since posted a detailed update in the other thread dedicated to the Bitcoin Block:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54308384

You'll see my explanation about these "stickers".
It's actually should have been more appropriately described as "electroforming metal sticker badges".  See the above post for more details.

thanks,
Bobby

The TRUST is strong with you, young Skywalker.  




Thanks for clearing that up.
So we need to trust your anonymous employees...
Luckily it never happens that anonymous employees get other jobs, 5 or 10 years from now.

 
Thanks for the detailed response.  It was not my intent to spread FUD, I was responding to your description of the manufacturing process and it looks like I wrongly assumed you were using third parties for the printing process and then assembling them in house.  I apologize for that, I don't usually make assumptions, I should have asked more questions.  From your response it sounds like you have adequate control over the process and I trust you are taking all steps to limit exposure to the secrets and taking necessary steps to ensure that the information cannot be assembled and broken at a later date.  Thanks for continuing to make collectible coins.
  
Edited this after review because I did ask the right questions.
  

Trusting the private key generation for a 14 btc item by random strangers on the internet sounds kind of risky.

Hi，Bobby lee

I am interested in the post-halving Blocks,with 6.25+ BTC .I am looking forwards to seeing it.

Hi Hellot.

You're obviously a very well respected member of this collectibles community on BitcoinTalk forum. And thus your comments carry a lot of weight in people eyes. For that reason, I am compelled to respond in length, to clear up the confusion and potential misunderstanding. It may not have been your intent, but your comments are creating FUD here (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), so I will clear things up for everyone.

First of all, I know you to be a long-time member of this community, as I recall you were my customer of my BTCC Mint products. Thank you for support us during those years from 2016-2018, and for your continued recognition of the BTCC Mint products in the secondhand market in the subsequent years. It's good to have loyal customers and fans, and I feel honored.

That said, I don't think I know you personally, and I don't recall knowing your background. If we've happen to have already met in person, then my apologies in advance, for not making the connection between your face and your username here.

As a seasoned CoinMaker, I do have quite some extensive experience making physical bitcoin collectibles and protecting users' private keys. I've done it professionally for 3 years, from 2016 to 2018, and I personally built the BTCC Mint business, and made over 22,000 coin/bars/chips, containing over 8,700 BTC in value. I take pride in having done a good job, with zero safety lapses and security issues. In essence, BTCC Mint coins have never been hacked or "swept", and they never will in the future -- you have my word here. And the fact that people found my BTCC Mint products to be innovative and high quality; that's just a cherry on top.

In comparison, I dare assume that you probably do NOT have this level of CoinMaker experience as compared to me. If I am mistaken, and that you have legitimate CoinMaker experience rivaling my background, then please share, and I would gladly tip my hat to you.

As the CoinMaker for BTCC Mint, I indeed was fully involved for every step of the private keys under each and every coin/bar/chip. This has been elaborately documented over the years, as I've made many postings here explaining the process, and how I took operational security seriously, to prevent any hacking, theft, and sweeping of coins. Even though I was the CoinMaker and I personally generated all of the private keys (using offline computers and software), the manufacturing process did indeed involve other people -- namely my trusted staff in the BTCC Mint team. (I hope you did NOT wrongly assume that I personally and single-handedly created, packed, and shipped all 22,000+ coins/bars/chips.) For the critical steps, where the private keys are "exposed to air", I only involved the most trusted of my team members, and I was practically always there to supervise the process and procedures. And as history will prove itself over time, there were no rogue employees making surreptitious recordings and photographs of the private keys.

So technically speaking, if there were dishonest employees, thieves, or a corrupt CoinMaker, the BTCC Mint coins would end up not being safe at all, and would have likely already have been swept and hacked by now. The value of all BTCC Mint products, at over 8,700 bitcoins, would exceed USD $60 million today, and at the peak of Bitcoin in late 2017, that's close to $200 million (including all fork coin values).

At Ballet, through much brainstorming, research & development, we have come up with an even BETTER solution that what the market offers: the 2-factor private key approach to physical bitcoins, AND with a multicurrency solution. This has NEVER been done before, and we have actually filed multiple US patents on this invention. (Our first patent, U.S. Pat. 10,554,401, was issued just two months ago, on February 4, 2020.) The main point is that now, we are able to make physical bitcoin collectibles, using a 2-factor private key, where the private key components can be made in 2 geographically separate facilities, by two different sets of personnel, to make the process and resulting physical bitcoins even SAFER than before.

As an veteran CoinMaker and expert in this field (I've been in Bitcoin for 9 years now, since early 2011), I can and will attest that generally speaking, a two-factor private key is SAFER than a single-factor private key solution for physical bitcoins.

I am the Founder and CEO of Ballet, and I invented this Two-Factor Key Generation (2FKG) approach to making physical bitcoin wallets, with the dual manufacturing location aspect. I created this process to improve on an already great process at BTCC Mint. Without a doubt, I can tell you that our new 2FKG products are at the least, at the same highest safely level as done compared to BTCC Mint. You have my word here.

And to further address your comments:


The two facilities you're referring to are both at my company. My USA company is called Ballet Global Inc. It's a Delaware Corporation, headquartered in Las Vegas, NV, where we have our manufacturing, packaging, and logistics facility. The other facility is in Shanghai China, where I run the company Shanghai Mintery Networks Limited, a wholly foreign-owned company setup in China, that is 100% owned by Ballet Global Inc. These two facilities you're referring to, are NOT third party contracting facilities the likes of FoxConn, etc. In other words, we do NOT contract out our manufacturing. We do all of the critical steps in-house, done by our own employees (and not done by some nameless / faceless factory worker). As I'm only one person, for obvious reasons I can only be at one location at any one time, but rest assured: I have personally designed the manufacturing process for both of these locations, and I am personally involved with all of the critical steps at each of these two facilities.

Hellot, since we have not met in person, and I have not give you the tour or a detailed description of the manufacturing process at Ballet, I urge you to please do not spread any unsubstantiated rumors and FUD about Ballet. Like I have already offered several others on this forum, I openly invite you to visit both facilities and learn about our process first hand, so you can get a better and strong understanding of why I truly believe that Ballet's solution is top-notch.


There is no such thing as having complete control of the private keys, unless literally, I did everything from start to finish.  This did NOT happen at BTCC Mint, as I did involve my select trusted employees for several of the critical steps where the private key was "exposed to air". (And besides, even Mike Caldwell openly admits that he got help from others in making his Casascius coins.)


Yes, correct, but like I've said earlier: I personally designed and oversee all of that process, and I still am the single person doing the key generation at both locations, running the program, adding human entropy, and generating the BIP38 passphrases (in Las Vegas), and generating the Encrypted Private Keys (in Shanghai). Without revealing too many of our trade secrets here, I can assure you that I'm directly involved at each of the critical steps, such that I can monitor that no one else is able to surreptitiously secretly record down the private key components.


Again, I disagree with your logic here.

As told before, my whole staff of the most trusted key personnel at BTCC Mint is now with me here at Ballet. The people involved in the most critical procedures at Ballet, are the exact same people who helped me while at BTCC Mint.

Your theory that my staff in Ballet's Shanghai office can secretly collude with the Ballet staff in the Las Vegas office is preposterous. My staff are well compensated, have equity stock ownership in the company, and are considered founding team members. If they can steal the private keys at Ballet through collusion, then by your logic, they could have just stolen the private keys while at BTCC all WITHOUT doing ANY collusion.

My conclusion is simple, and this is an EXPERT opinion:
The attach surface vector is MUCH smaller now at Ballet, through the use of two-factor private keys, made at two different facilities around the world.


Well, all I can say is that you made that judgement without knowing me, without having met me in person, and without truly understanding the process at Ballet.

Now that I've given you a deeper explanation, I hope I've changed your mind.
We have extensive operational procedures at Ballet, involving many laborious steps, to make private key security of the utmost importance.  This is all possible because of my 3+ years of CoinMaker experience, one of the most trusted in our space.

Thank you all for reading this long post. I felt compelled to write this extensive post as I don't want the misinformation to taint the image and reputation of Ballet. Time will prove us right, and that's how we will continue to build our reputation.

thanks,
Bobby

Sorry, but you are wrong.  The attack surface is not smaller.  Before it was 1 man taking complete ownership of the process and staking his reputation on it.  Not only do you now have to trust Bobby, but you have to trust the two "facilities" he's contracting the work out to.  It's not like it was with BTCC where Bobby had complete control of the keys.  There are now two additional systems in play here generating media using the keys and their passphrases and using people and computers to do it.  You have to trust that the people behind the facilities won't collude, won't be compromised by an outside party and that they will destroy every trace of the data they handled when the job is done.  I'm surprised Bobby even went this direction.

80K trusting the private key is not compromised in the process...

Imho one should create their own private keys.

What's to keep the two facilities from colluding and breaking the security?  Or a hacker accessing both separately?  I preferred it when you were the point of failure and your reputation was on the line.  Now the attack surface is bigger and that's not necessarily desirable.

Im really trying not to be overly critical here, and to be honest this product is something I personally couldn't afford, however, the whole DIY side of this doesn't seem to be ideal at this price point. As someone who eyeballs for fine detail I dont think I could deal with this kind of imperfection on such a highly priced product.

At first glance, everything looks OK bit on closer inspection, pictured below, you can see the blobs of glue coming out from the numbering. Whilst i have no doubts that these are extremely secure, I cant see how this method wont be somewhat messy....





The reason I bring this up is because of the nature of this being a DIY product, people will have to do this part themselves and if you cant do it without looking less than perfect, I cant see others doing it any more cleanly.  Even when it comes to centering the numbering for final positioning, I would hate myself if it was even 1mm off!

Hopefully you can see this as the constructive criticism it is intended as.
Regards, Corrosive

Otoh,

We've soft-launched for everyone in this forum to preview and order:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ballets-new-pre-halving-2020-bitcoin-block-you-can-order-now-5237283

and regarding your concern about the DIY part of applying the stick-on lettering for the Block Height and Block Reward, I've posted detailed photos and videos here. Hope you like it.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54140873

Be sure to watch the 2 short video clips!

thanks,
Bobby

Hi Bobby,
Just an idea. Please take it or leave it. First congrats to yourself and your loyal team trying hard to bring something sexy back to our world. I'm a huge fan of Ballet and BTCC as I own some items of both your Ballet and BTCC projects. I want your team to all succeed. Having said all that do you think it might be better to skip the pre-halving 12.5 blocks and considering you've already done them previously(sure it's a bit different but they've been done) but with the the 12.5 blocks being so rushed and not being able to get the best and most proper feedback from this community on what we'd all or atleast the majority of us would want to see implemented into the future project(s) and then use this feedback to make a much more desirable and better post halving product with the 6.25 block and even perhaps more variations? Just food for thought. Thanks again and appreciate all you're trying to do for the community!

iBHK8

Hi tweetious, good feedback. Thanks for giving me a chance to address these important questions.

We are purposely reusing our tried and tested product technology from the Ballet REAL Series of physical cryptocurrency wallets. The main reason is to reduce manufacturing uncertainty and prevent delays.

Regarding the scratch-off surfaces, we will do our best to keep it intact and high quality.

The stickers on the Block is already tamper evident, and will leave behind a hexagon pattern if pealed. It cannot be reaffixed to the block without leaving a visual trail.

Most importantly (as mentioned in my previous posts), we want to preserve the spirit of the past 2016 version of the Bitcoin Block from BTCC Mint days, and make minimal changes. Yes, two important changes were made (the 2FKG and shipping blocks empty), but we felt those were necessary.

thanks,
Bobby

I was wondering why to have the private key printed on the sticker, instead of engraving it on the titanium block, and cover it with a sticker/holo etc. (for extra durability, since paper sticker/print could deteriorate). Would the engrave part might be considered a security flaw? (i.e. someone is able to see the private key through x-rays etc.). Prolly cover it with a titanium sticker? (LOL  ). With a 1BTC premium (and the 12.5BTC+ loaded value), I was looking for a better (more durable) storage solution for the private key.

Since this is a collectible (that can be traded in the secondary market) and not a private wallet (for personal usage), I was wondering if the 2 stickers private key approach (similar to the ballet wallets) is an appropriate implementation here. (i.e. peel the top sticker, view the private key underneath, and attach it back again).

Concerning the "scratch off spot", what if you replace the "scratch-off" material, with a (more durable) hologram sticker. Scratch off the area is a one-way process (it can not be undone). Hence, peeling the hologram will have the same effects.

I agree with @teeGUMES that those scratch-off surfaces (if it's the same scratch-off material as the ballet wallet) can be easily, unintentionally and accidentally scratched.

just my 2 satoshis

Thank you Otoh.  Appreciate your comments, your good questions, and your support.

I'm in Las Vegas, so it's 2:00 am for me as well.  Good night.

We are working hard to get the web pages launched by Wednesday afternoon. The ordering process should be up and ready by then as well.

This audience, on the collectables forum, will be the first to know about this product. It'll launch on:
https://block.balletcrypto.com/
(It just redirects back to the main home page for now, but once launched, that'll be the entry point for the Bitcoin Block.)

Once launched, please be patient with us as we fix minor errors and add more clarifications to anything that we may have omitted. 
I appreciate the constructive feedback from everyone on this forum, so that we can have a good launch, and build a great product for everyone.

Some additional insights to share with everyone:
- Since early 2019, after starting Ballet, I've wanted to carry over from BTCC Mint and create a 2020 version of the Bitcoin Block, so that we can have blocks both before and after the block reward halving even in May.
- For this Bitcoin Block, we got started in earnest in January, refining the designs, etc.  However, the coronavirus situation in China put a pause in the work and we didn't get to resume on late February. There were some significant delays, but thankfully, we'll still make it in time, for having blocks made before the halving event in mid-May.
- Thankfully, the titanium hardware is already in manufacturing, and we will receive our first samples soon. (The downside is that we won't have time to make additional changes...)
- There are 2 major differences from how we made the Bitcoin Blocks back at BTCC Mint in 2016:
   1) We are using Ballet's new 2FKG process, to have 2-factor private keys, instead of the single private key during BTCC Mint days. We strongly believe that this is a *safer* approach to manufacturing physical bitcoin collectables. This means that the manufacturing will take place in two countries (China and USA), and this there's additional time delay built in, to transport the parts around the world, especially during this coronavirus shutdown time.
   2) We decided to ship the blocks to customers first, before mining the bitcoins into it. The reason is simple: the value is too great now, to allow for shipping loaded physical bitcoins. There are all sorts of insurance and customs and tax issues, if the product was sold & shipped as loaded. Now, we're able to just sell the empty Bitcoin Block, where the customer pays the mining pool for the loading of the block, all done after the customer receives the block. Again, this also adds time to the process.

In any case, the main point is that we are cutting it close, in terms of scheduling.  There is a real concern that we won't be able to make that many blocks pre-halving, given the timing constraints as revealed above.

So this is genuine advice:
Order now if you definitely want one. Quantities are limited. Every pre-halving Bitcoin Block will be made-to-order, and we will NOT create any excess inventory for sale later to walk-up customers.

And yes, we know it's expensive. A cheaper version will come after the halving...

thanks,
Bobby

Thanks for your response Bobby, it's 2 AM now for me so I'll let others comment or not on your offering regarding the now disclosed DIY part of it Etc, still wishing the best for all your efforts in the crypto space of course...

Regarding that image of the Bitcoin Block, we've done our best to render it like how it'll actually be.

The DIY stick-on numbers (block height and block reward amount) will indeed look like that, as currently shows in the photo render.
You'll just have to wait if you want to see the final photos... but unfortunately, we don't have that available yet.

thanks,
Bobby

Otoh, you're a long-time and respected member of this community, so I'm a bit confused by your line of questioning, regarding how anyone can tell a physical bitcoin collectable is what it purports to be? if you don't believe the craft of the physical bitcoin collectable (the design, the fit & finish, the actual metal coin/bar, the certificates & instructions, the packaging, etc), then by definition, you can't prove the coins are there until you peel the sticker and try to move the coins on the blockchain using the private key. Right?

On our Bitcoin Block, the sticker is tamper evident, and using the Ballet Crypto mobile app, you will be able to scan the QR code on the Bitcoin Block, and it will show you the details of the block, including the block height, and the block reward amount.  The app will easily allow you to check the balance and the USD value (or other fiat currency), and one day, if you choose to move the coins, the app will allow for that as well.  

The coins are store on this Bitcoin Block via the passphrase-encrypted private keys, and it's industry standard (BIP38) and non-proprietary to Ballet.

Maybe please clarify your concern here?

And regarding the lack of critical information, it was certainly not my intent to deceive or be purposely lacking of critical information. We are busy getting this product prepared for a launch on our website. I had thought that this audience would appreciate the early photo tease and my early conversations with you all, to describe the details.  But again, communications is a process that takes time.  (Sorry I didn't have 100% of the information to dump into a long post here on day 0.)

Thank you for your patience...

thanks,
Bobby

The product picture you posted doesn't show a DIY stick on block number/reward strip (or at least nothing like I'd expect to be able to achieve on a first attempt), so it's misleading & for a > $82k product this really doesn't look too promising to me at all  

https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FPcaauAV.jpg&t=611&c=16tgUNuNjggX6g