Topic: [NEW] The Bitcoin Block, full block reward from BTCC Mint (Read 4504 times)

Yes singles and halves.  They are nicely done.  I havent personally seen the other products of higher denominations.  And there is a tracker that i believe anduck made.  Cant find the link but in sure someone here has it

Has anyone purchased these coins? Can vouch for quality?

Are they tracked on blockchain explorer in any cool way like Mike's coins?

Sure. For all of you interested in some official mintage statistics of our BTCC Mint coins:

As the block halving is now over, we have finished making all pre-halving 2016 "2-star" coins.
That's it!  It's done.  No more can be made!

One Bitcoin, 2016 V Series (2-star):
- 100 Artists Proofs, of which 97 are Gold-plated alloy, and 3 are Titanium (blocks 394051, 394111, 405240, and 405251)
- 1,350 Regular Titanium coins
- 25 Titanium coins, in "Twins" (double-funded by sequential blocks 413851 and 413852)
Total made: 1,475

Five Bitcoin, 2016 V Series (2-star):
- 5 Artists Proofs, "Baby" sized 43mm Titanium (block 416067)
- 500 Standard 50mm Titanium coins
- of which only 21 of the 5-set were made, where all 5 coins in the set are mined from the same block
Total made: 505

thanks,
Bobby

Quick question, whats the count for 1btc and 5 btc coins left of the pre halving coins?  Thanks.

We have shipped our Bitcoin Blocks!  They went out via DHL on Friday, July 15.
They should arrive at your doorsteps early this week.  

Please note that we have requested that the purchaser directly signs for the package!
The customs value was declared at USD $100.

For all of you interested in some official mintage statistics of our BTCC Mint Bitcoin Block:

As the block halving is now over, we have finished making all pre-halving "2-star" blocks:
That's it!  It's done.  No more can be made of the 2-star ones!

Bitcoin Block, 2016 N Series (2-star):
- 93 Titanium blocks
- of which 8 pairs are sequential blocks, sold as "Doubles" (rest of 77 are regular "Singles")
- 1 Error block, double funding (blocks 418419 and 418427)
Total made: 94

Late last year in December 2015, in anticipation of our launch of the Bitcoin Block, we mined a bunch of newly-generated coins into special addresses made exclusively for the Bitcoin Block.  Here are the stats for the 2015 version of the 2-star:

Bitcoin Block, 2015 N Series (2-star):
- These were all mined in December of 2015, and made into Bitcoin Blocks now
Total made: 16

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Will someone post some nice unboxing photos please?

thanks,
Bobby

This is great,

I've always wanted to have a full block on a physical metal. The ecosystem just wasn't mature enough for it back when it was 50BTC reward. Small miners had no financial ability to manufacture these things.

Buying these means that the buyer will have to align their interest with BTCC and continue their survival. The way I see it from the business stand point is that there are no bad consequence of keeping the private key without destroying them. The only potential bad outcome is if Chinese government decides to raid BTCC and found the private keys. Remember that Mike of Casacius coin got a visit from FBI as well, so if he had kept the keys back then, I am very sure that the FBI has access to those and all of them should've ended up in Mark Force's secret wallet by now.

Pure business wise, the reason why Bobby will not use the private keys for his own gain is because if he does, the reputation hit to BTCC will be too great. Which means that their financials will have to be so bad that they need the cash flow from these blocks to tide over the year.

I look at bitcoin the same way I looked at the old roman empire when they started minting their coins with composite metal instead of pure gold and pure silver. What happened was that the pure ones gets taken out of circulation and hoarded while the newer composites gets used in daily transactions. When the shit hit the fan, the pure old coins can always get melted down and converted to the next currency while the newer composite with no precious metal content is worthless.

There's more and more debate about taint and colored coins. What we need to understand is that a newly minted coin that has never been passed around can always be trusted as something pure, that's never been used for nefarious purposes. The court cannot argue that it is used in drug trades if it is a minted block that's never been used.

As for BTCC, I have a request for these blocks. Can you also send a certificate of ownership chain like what Mike did to his customers?

...However as we have seen with Casascius 25 BTC coins these things eventually sell out and they become more valuable than they originally cost, so it is very tempting to want to sell. What if in the future (after BTCC allows people to use their own addresses) there are some cases of theft, how is that going to reflect on BTTC and on the physical bitcoin market in general?

Thing is some of the buyers are going to re-sell the BTTC blocks, many will keep them I'm sure. As a potential new buyer who is to be trusted more: BTCC (which is a publicly known company) or some private who created their own address and private key? For your own cold storage being the only one who has the private digits makes sense. However as we have seen with Casascius 25 BTC coins these things eventually sell out and they become more valuable than they originally cost, so it is very tempting to want to sell. What if in the future (after BTCC allows people to use their own addresses) there are some cases of theft, how is that going to reflect on BTTC and on the physical bitcoin market in general?

You've got a very good point.

Thing is some of the buyers are going to re-sell the BTTC blocks, many will keep them I'm sure. As a potential new buyer who is to be trusted more: BTCC (which is a publicly known company) or some private who created their own address and private key?

sounds very thourough, but i can only imagine how difficult it would be to wipe/destroy the harddrive at the end knowing it has everything you need to access thousands of bitcoins. even to keep it safely hidden in secret for 20 years could make you redonkulously wealthy if/when you decided to access even just a few of the keys.

can a buyer submit thier own address (ideally BIP32), or allow you to produce the BIP32 address for them? it would eliminate the risk of theft by BTCC or after-sales theft from wherever the buyer keeps his block

Hi all,

Yes, I'm happy to explain this.

The manufacturing process for the Bitcoin Block is somewhat different than for the other BTCC Mint coins.
The reason is how the final product looks like, where the Block number, the BTC amount are laser etched onto the nugget.
(We call it the bitcoin nugget!)

First of all, I've set aside and created a bunch of dedicated private/bitcoin addresses to make these nuggets.  The private key creation is all done on an offline computer, and the files are never sent electronically over the wires, nor do they ever touch an online computer at all.  The private keys are all stored securely on a spinning HDD.  The drive is encrypted, and the file is held inside an encrypted volume on the drive.  The hard drive is always kept in a safe, only accessible by me, and not touched by any other members of the company.  The drive will be erased, wiped, and physically destroyed once the printing of keys have been done after this batch of the 25 BTC nuggets.  For reasons obvious to all members of this forum, the handling of the hard drive and electronic file containing the private keys is a very sensitive affair.  I am fully aware of the dangers and security risks associated with this, and I have taken all these steps to ensure the safety of these funds, and the reputation of BTCC.

The corresponding public address have been used to make the hologram stickers, where the address is printed onto the sticker, just like the other BTCC Mint coins.  However, this is a different, second generation sticker, specific for the N Series, and has a few more anti-counterfeiting features, such as micro printing and some 3D effects of our logo.  

Here is the assembly sequence:

1) We mine the block into the address.  We check and double check, to make sure the addresses, block height, and amounts are recorded correctly.
2) We then laser etch the information of the mining details onto the top side of the physical block, including the corresponding QR code of the bitcoin address.  Optionally, we would laser etch the Forever message on the backside of the block, if that was custom ordered.
3) After the block is made, we check again, to ensure the bitcoin address, block number, and BTC amounts all match.
4) Then, in a private setting, I would personally print the private codes, machine cut them into the small circles, and then attach to the block with the hologram sticker, one block at a time.  (This whole step is done by me completely, with at most one senior company management team member helping, but never leaving them alone with the sensitive private ket material.)
5) Once the full block is made, it is wrapped and then sent for storage in a safe/vault, before being sold or shipped.

Please let me know if you guys have any other questions.

thanks,
Bobby