I am 100% against selling 1 btc coin with seals without actually have the listed btc in them (that's actually committing fraud) or allowing buyers to apply the seal themselves( for obvious reasons ). Both horrible horrible ideas.
I am actually more likely to just have the hologram say "ZERO BTC" to make this clear. I already have used holograms of this sort for the bars etc. I had originally considered "SELF FUND" but I'm not at the point where I'm irreversibly committed to the text, and "ZERO BTC" twice, next to the address, is probably more likely to send the right message to a broader audience. The word "SELF" might be misinterpreted (who's self? myself? yourself?), and so might "FUND" (verb? noun?)... but "ZERO" has a pretty clear meaning, and so does "BTC".
All such holograms will still be applied by me, not by the buyer, and self-applied Casascius holograms have never been proposed or offered.
And this probably doesn't need to be said, I don't agree with your argument that offering an unfunded version of a coin is fraud.
If that's how it's going to be going forward, please use a different design and don't call them casascius coins.
I will definitely use a different design, but let's be clear: Casascius is a word that identifies me as the origin of the item, and is not an indicator of anything else.
My mistake on the self-applying seal, read it wrong from previous posts - understood now its a non-issue.
Mike, are you saying the new self fund casascius coins will NOT have the word "1 Bitcoin" on the brass side also? in addition to the hologram saying zero btc or something similar? That would make it a bit better but i still think it's a bad idea - looking at the tree instead of the forest sort of thing. The US dollars have "in god we trust", casascius coins lets face it, is "in mike cadwell we trust". It took you 2+ years of hard work to build casascius brand and make it the most valuable physical btc - there is a reason why people pay 2x for casascius and not other coins.
I just think this cheapens the brand to the point of no return if they can be sold as blanks with no value and not viable as a long term strategy.
If in person delivery is okie, maybe it's better to wholesale in person to a few reseller as distributor ( i am sure there will be plenty people willing), can also have 0.1 0.25 0.5 denominations given the current price. Anything but flooding the market with blanks that has no value after working so hard to make casascius a highly desired collectible item.
Of course just my opinions, ultimately it's your call.
