Even though I already have my own hologram, count me in, I would like a share of whatever holograms you come up with.
Is this going to be factory thermal printed (sort of the same way I put ONE BTC on my labels)?
Yep, there will be a coin logo with the domain name of the printer in circular text on the bottom of the coin. It will be factory thermal printed, and I will have no holograms that don't have a domain name printed on them.
Hmm.. but if one of the participants does compromise the system (inadvertently or otherwise), it stuffs it up for everyone. ie Weakest link...
Indeed. The holograms will be all the same except for the thermal printing of the domain name. The base hologram will not be branded in any way specifically (just a bitcoin and some frillery to make it hard to clone and look good). I will do some diligence in checking on who is receiving these, but I have to expect that if there are enough producers, there is decent odds that one will scam users. In which case, it is his name on the hologram, and it is his reputation that will be tarnished.
When buying physical bitcoins you are buying trust in an individual.
This will also open up the possibility of two or more producers working together to produce bills where neither party knows the private key of the of the bills.
See:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/elliptic-curve-math-question-53177and remove this major problem with physical bitcoins.
The only thing a custom hologram does is strongly verify that the person who applied the hologram is the person identified by the name on the hologram. I am opening this up for multiple parties so that cost of this identifier becomes less of a barrier to entry.