Topic: casascius and other physical bitcoins is a fraudulent idea - page 2. (Read 5917 times)

Sometimes the process is the punishment. FinCEN, DHS, etc. know this. A simple inquiry can be as effective as a cease and desist order. A good example is how Dwolla just caved-in and is now discontinuing all bitcoin related transactions.

I think it's important that you win this, and that any compliance requirements don't shut down coin production. Keep us posted.

How are casinos able to put these silver rounds in slot machines?



Upon winning them, you're able to redeem them at the register or sell them on eBay.

Here's what I'm thinkin'. Don't sell them, but give them away via a carefully constructed raffle, where everybody that enters wins.

Just thinkin' outside the box on this one, albeit it may not work. Sorry to read about your situation, Mike.

~TMIBTCITW

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that happened. Everyone knows how much you did/do for Bitcoin awareness. I hope you get it straightened out soon. If you don't the collectible value of my Casascius coins will skyrocket but don't go out of business just for me. lol

Good luck with your fight.

I did get contacted by FinCEN... I probably can sell still, might have to KYC and/or report anything beyond $10k to Feds.  Possibly might be other ideas to steer way clear of any definition of money transmitting. Don't know yet, and I need to err on side of caution. Will learn and then see what to do. Am still taking steps toward production of 2014 coins and a Bitcoin-enthused legal team working on it in the mean time.

What I got out of this thread was that Mike can't sell his coins anymore. Since when? Were you contacted by some three letter government agency or did you find something written in legal code that made you question the legitimacy of your business? Can you still sell to the free world or because you're based in the Unraveling States of Americunt you can't do business anywhere?

I didn't even take the time to read the Newbie's posts prior to me penning my satiric post.

~TMIBTCITW

Call me crazy but I am a little suspect of the agenda of a 2 day old newbie with 7 post all related to trashing physical Bitcoins and implying that Casascius, a member with a stellar reputation is less than trust worthy. I have had Cas Coins since the very early days and currently have quite a few and never have had any issue trusting him.

If you don't like them, don't buy them.


~BCX~

Much like the invisible hand of the free market one of the weakest points of Libertarianism.

Mike has earned the well-deserved trust of the bitcoin community over the past few years - as well as being the creator of a key enabling technology that makes bitcoin safer and more useful for millions of users (the BIP38 encrypted key protocol). This protocol is used for encrypted paper wallets and will also be an important component of upcoming POS applications.

If you don't trust casascius coins there's a simple solution: You don't have to buy them!

Some have actually suggested the uBTC be called a 'Mike' (not completely sure if that's related to Mike's contributions or not though )

I trust you Mike, mainly on external observations.

a. I have seen your reputation grow for years in this community
b. I have personally met you and thanks for the free coins!
c. While you seemed interested in profit I believe you have no desire to have to flee the country and be pursued for fraud and etc...
d. There have been plenty of opportunities for you to abscond with all the private keys and you have not.

I think I actually have these covered.

I was RNG-paranoid from the start, so all my keys were generated via output of purportedly_secure_RNG xor output of SHA256(salt + n), where salt is a long string I mashed on the keyboard and didn't record, and n is an incrementing number.

Order form NSA can't compel me to transmit keys I didn't keep.  period... I see keeping the keys as a bigger threat to my safety than any possible good that could ever come from keeping them.  so while (consistent with theory) I can't prove I didn't keep the keys, the case that it's in my rational best interest to not have kept them (or to destroy them presuming that I had) only gets bigger as time goes on.

Funny you say this and make that suggestion that I spend time promoting paper wallets, because I believe there is a decent possibility that nobody in the world has spent more time on promoting that very idea than me.  I realize you're relatively new here, but why don't you use the forum search feature to search for all posts containing "paper wallet" ("wallets?") by username casascius.

Bitaddress.org does paper wallets in a large part because of my influence and suggestions and bounties.
The idea that paper wallets should be artistic and have an abstract resemblance to bank notes is something I introduced myself.
The ability to produce encrypted paper wallets that require zero trust from the manufacturer is also something I published on my own.
I don't fault you for not knowing any of this - everybody has to start out new at some point.  So, welcome.

I really have made sure to point out that a physical bitcoin maker should not be trusted, that there should always be recourse in case of fraud.  You are making a good point about an important principle.  But just to be clear, and as others seem to have pointed out, your point is going to be more respectable if it doesn't purport to be putting people in their place with a dose of "shame" backed only by self-issued respect.  Feel free to share your message - I agree it's important - I would just recommend you remember to use your manners at the same time.

Haha good one!

I trust Mike the maker, too. BTW, Goat, is Mike on your default Trust List?  (couldn't resist)

~TMIBTCITW

It's even worse. Even if you don't doubt Cas' integrity, there are other ways in which your private key may be compromised, such as a bug in his RNG or a gag order from NSA to transmit all private keys to them.

How much of this are the same Bitcoins being traded back and forth?
And we are not talking about "just" 100k but in the order of 1-2M, if you pay attention to the rest of the post.

It basically boils down to a choice.

If you trust the creator of the coins, then okay.

If you don't trust the creator, then don't buy them. Simple as that.

Vote with your wallet is what I say. I'm okay if people do not buy my coins, I've said that from the first day I started selling them.

Its funny when people completely new to the scene "discover" old things.

Definitely not. How many BTCs he is having? I am sure that must be <100,000.

The BTC China volume is ~150,000 / day. So if he want, he can cash out in 24 hours.

Statistics here: http://casascius.uberbills.com/

Casascius has produced $104 Million worth of Casascius coins, and thats not even taking into consideration the 200+% premiums some coins have. If he had been saving the private keys, this would by far be one of the longest cons in history. However, hes making a pretty penny on the coins, so he has no reason to scam. As long as he keeps making the coins, he has guarenteed millions in income.

That being said, the issue is about the feasibility of physical coins as you have said. First off, it is true that the tamperproof seals can be removed. It was done once by professionals, but iirc it took a significant amount of time and expertise. He also took their feedback and improved the coin security I do believe. As far as storing Priv Keys, I could have sworn he had a key generator which autodumped the keys after printing and were completely erased. If those things are indeed correct, all we have to do is trust that Mike isn't lying about his key generator.