Wow, really? These things are getting cheap. I wonder if they’ll ever get a collectors premium again.
If that's true then it's now less than the value of the shitforks plus selling the empty coin. Throw in security and shipping concerns and you'd have to be a true believer, and somewhat charitable, not to peel it instead of selling.
Looks like the peel price on a 0.5 BTC Casascius Coin is currently about 0.525 BTC. Peeling and selling the empty coin would likely be more profitable and less risky but a bit more of a hassle. I'm curious if we're beginning to see a discount for reasons like fear of damaging during peel, being unable to claim correctly, no faith the BTC is really there, etc... Prefork BTC are only becoming rarer as the days pass. You'd think that would make for a premium at some point.
Yeah I've been thinking about this ever since the unique hybrid Cas/Lealana sold for face value:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/wtf-auction-10-unique-5-btc-hybrid-coin-lealana-casascius-5250832The risk of shipping is such that I think we will see more and more coins just get peeled. The other side of the argument is that the kind of people that collect coins are probably more likely to take a small hit so as not to destroy part of bitcoins history.
What's going on it the world right now is probably also having an effect. I know I didn't bid on the above, purely because I don't trust international postage right now, I've had some 1
BTC coins take nearly a month, it's too stressful. Plus throw in less people with extra bitcoin to spend in uncertain economic times / more people needing cash for one reason or another, bitcoin at reasonable prices historically, especially in non US denominated currencies, lots of headwinds for the time being. I know I won't be able to travel internationally for at least a year, which means certain coins are just off the agenda. If bitcoin does another 10x, I probably would not bid on anything greater than 0.1.
Lots of uncertainty right now, which always means people are more conservative with their money. I know I have been tracking a few coins I want to add to my collection, and going through past auctions there have been a few in the last 6 months which didn't sell at auction, and when I look them up they got peeled soon after.