Topic: CASASCIUS PHYSICAL BITCOIN - In Stock Now! (pic) - page 54. (Read 130354 times)

Nice job on the coins, they are cool. However the trust factor is way to high. I went down this road myself when I created the gold plated CoinBit http://CoinedBits.com.

The original consumer has to trust that Casascius isn't selling them a zero value coin. The circle of trust then gets wider if the original consumer tries to trade the coin. The second person receiving the coin now has no way of verifying the coin originated from Casascius.

Counterfeiting this coin would not be difficult, and would be extremely lucrative if the Casascius coin gained adoption.

This is why I ended up keeping the CoinBit as a novelty or souvenir coin.

This.

Hi did you get my PM from yesterday?

Interesting idea and you just showed me that these are way cooler than I first thought!!  In theory I can make one of these coins worth as much as I want to, right?  I just can't make it worth less.  This proves that these coins are, in fact, one way WALLETS - not just coins.  All I have to do is:

Lookup the entire public key in the block chain.
Send more to that key.
Let's say I send 99 coins to the address.  Wala!  A 100 BTC coin.
I can then give the coin to someone and tell them it is really a 100 BTC coin.
They can verify my claim in the chain.

When they "crack it open" then can transfer all 100 BTC to their account (or wherever).

Also another very useful application is that you can give the coin to someone and then transfer more to it over time AFTER they have it, like give one to a nephew and then transfer more on each birthday - or whatever!

You can meet someone face to face once, give them a coin and from then on you can make payments to them and you know the payments are going to the intended destination, the bitcoin address you gave them!

It looks like these are a very cool way to store (and transfer) any amount of value "off line" - just like the paper wallet idea!

I hit the post office about 2 hours ago, all orders paid prior to then have been shipped.

This is one of the coolest bitcoin related items I have seen.  Can't wait to get mine.  I plan to put them in my safe for now since I do not want to damage them and then possibly give them as gifts to those "hard to shop for" coworkers and friends on my shoping list.  How many I give away and to whom will depend greatly on how much they are worth come Christmas   They eventually may end up as a novelty but they may end up worth a whole lot some day - who knows.  Great idea!

Did you send out the first(?) batch?

I can't wait to get mine. They look great!

PGP-signed list of a portion of addresses I pre-generated for this project (all coins made thus far are within this list).

http://pastebin.com/XebW67V4

I can knock out maybe 80 to 100 in an hour.  I have plenty of supplies.

How many of these coins do you have available / how long does it take to produce them?

I am a bitcoiner and what is this ?

DO WANT !

This is very cool, and one of the best projects for bitcoin I've seen yet. Thanks for your work and I can't wait to see what happens with your idea in the future.

1 - I chose a hologram with the name Casascius on it, because that would be prohibitively expensive ($thousands) for someone else to duplicate.  And if they're going to go to the effort, they may as well make their own legitimate coins (clearly there's a demand) rather than perpetrating a fraud that would get quickly found out.

2 - Each coin has the first 8 characters of the bitcoin address on it, which is enough for Block Explorer to find it.  When I load bitcoins on coins, the transactions are fairly distinct - lots of outputs of 1 BTC to lots of addresses wrapped into a single transaction.  So if someone were to vanitygen one (the odds of it happening purely at random are 2.2 trillion to 1) you could find the right transaction.

3 - it becomes a piece of metal, not quite as desirable, but still cool nonetheless.

4 - I could probably put together QR codes, but I favor readable codes for several good reasons, the most significant being that most people don't know how to scan them into a program without retyping them anyway (typical joe will scan with his iphone and type into his computer what he sees on the screen, defeating the purpose).  And second, if the code gets torn or damaged, your eyeball will do a much better job of piecing it back together than a phone that will just say it can't read the code.

5 - Probably no smaller amounts.  Maybe bigger amounts (such as 10 or 50 BTC in larger, more ornate coins).  This is fairly time consuming for me as it is, and I fear that demand could outstrip my ability to supply them.  It's hard to want to delegate it, as I can make sure that all of the codes are legible and correct and match the address on the outside, but somebody else might not take that so seriously.

6 - Others have asked about durability.  I don't know yet - haven't had them that long.  The adhesive is quite strong and they will probably resist water just fine, but what would really ruin them is if they sat in your pocket and got jingled around with your keys.  I would treat them as delicate until proven otherwise.  I am experimenting with spraying on a layer of polyacrylate which adds significant protection to the hologram, particularly at the edges, but it will take me several days to really know for sure how that will end up.  Seriously though, I hope somebody copies my idea and does a better job and makes a wash-proof key-proof bullet-proof coin for less.

Money is whatever the parties to a contract agree it is. It would be more correct to say it isn't currency.


Still... what's the durability on these suckers?

No. It is NOT money, for if it were, the maker would get his ass tossed in jail.

It is a piece of property, like a baseball card, that you hope will be worth a lot or will trade for some other property.  You're hoping that every Bitcoin you purchase will end up like a mickey mantle rookie card or that you can simply trade with all your other non-rookie cards.

Casascious, I applaud you for this innovation as I can imagine it being useful for places with limited internet connection. As far as I understand there is a physical coin made of brass and then there is a hologram/sticker on the back of the coin that contains a pattern. On the other side pf the sticker there is a print of the small address which is a bitcoin private key for a bitcoin address loaded with 1 bitcoin. Phew, sorry that was all in one sentance.

Just like to ask a few questions:

1 - How does one verify that it was you who made the coin?

2 - How does one verify that there is, indeed 1 bitcoin loaded in without 'destroying' the coin?

3 - Once the bitcoin is redeemed what happens to the coin? (just seems a terrible waste of preciois metal)

Next just a discussion, alot of people are suggesting QR codes. Would using them make any difference? Apart from making it harder?

I love this idea, though! Will you be making coins of smaller amounts?

Many thanks

A bulk order is being collected in the German board. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/beendet-ware-jemand-bei-ner-sammelbestellung-dabei-bitmunzen-42003

Chance alone is very unlikely, but I'm willing to pgp sign a list of all the Bitcoin addresses used in this project.

I approve of physical bitcoin.  It's amusing for a coin to be backed by digital currency, instead of the other way around.