I have not published how many I have sold. This is intentional. Most buyers of this item value their privacy. I have offered them without a requirement to fund them with bitcoins, so a blockchain analysis won't lead to the true total sold.
I will offer the following information:
- I made 50, they all said 2012 and 1000BTC, and that despite my earlier suggestion, none of them have been destroyed, at least not by me. I don't plan to make any more with those dies. Any future gold Casascius coins will have a smaller denomination and a newer year.
- There are no unfunded gold coins issued without holograms UNLESS they are 2-factor. I am willing to sell hologrammed 2-factor gold coins without funding (they are fundable, at the owner's option). However the holograms are permanently and prominently laser-marked to indicate they are 2-factor coins. For several reasons, someone wanting to buy a 2-factor coin second hand can't positively verify the correctness of seller's passphrase without ripping open the coin and therefore must trust the seller anyway, and I can't see someone buying such a coin without looking at the block chain, so I see it as pointless to put anyone's 1000 BTC at risk of loss in the mail by requiring such coins to always be sold funded.
I assume you mean "There are no unfunded gold coins issued with holograms UNLESS they are 2-factor"
Speaking of 2-factor, I really don't understand buying a casascius coin with 2-factor. The great thing about casascius coins is that you can trade them freely and the buyer only has to trust one person: Mike Caldwell. If you buy a 2-factor casascius coin with a password you choose, you can no longer sell that coin. Because there's absolutely no reason why anyone would buy it when they have to trust both you and casascius. So 2-factor casascius coins are not tradable, which defeats the sole purpose of having the coin. A buyer of a 2-factor coin can only use it to store bitcoins himself. And if that's the case, using a paper wallet from bitaddress.org is a much safer and cheaper way to do that. Just my 2 cents.
Well I want one for life and was interested in the 2fa. I have no intent to ever sell it. My friend who also wants one is the same. Before BTC we were gold coin collectors.
Same here. The coin to have used to be the high relief gaudens. Now, it's definitely this coin... at least for me.
Here's where 2-factor shines:
1 - the unfunded savings bar. It makes sense. In this case, the product is a pretty 2-factor paper wallet.
2 - It's not entirely impossible for a 2-factor item to be certifiably tradable. Upon observation that a 2-factor item has been properly funded, I can issue a signed message containing a BIP38 confirmation code that would allow a third party to verify the passphrase they were given corresponds to a coin I issued at the matching address. I just have never offered such a thing in the past. The confirmation code is like the private key, but contains G*factor instead of factor, so it's only useful for calculating the bitcoin address (and proving the passphrase is correct).
3 - part of the reason one might want to own a gold bitcoin is simply to collect it rather than redeem it or sell it.
4 - there is no need to trust in me on a 2-factor item, the only element of trust is one must trust I didn't screw up the production. I can't steal the coins, period. And I even make checking the production mostly verifiable. When I sell a 2-factor item, I typically print 8 private keys, and use 1 of the 8 to make the item, and include the sheet with the remaining 7 in the shipment (there will simply be two holes in the page where the two private key halves were punched out to put in the product. I typically make pen markings on the page before punching out the circles to provide a visible indicator through the hologram window that the circles in the product are the same paper that came from the page). The remaining 7 keys are complete , encrypted with the same passphrase, exposed in plain sight, and can be funded with 0.01 and used to test the 2-factor system. It's overwhelmingly likely that especially if funds can be retrieved from any of the first 7 codes, the 8th one is going to work too.
Yeah, I can see that for savings bar. But for a gold coin, even if I never plan to trade or sell it, knowing that I can't reduces the value for me. Maybe that's just me.
Good to know that you can prove that the passphrase is correct. Wonder if someone would ever ask you to do that. And don't get me wrong, I think you are providing a great service to offer 2-factor coins. It's a cool way to not have to trust you.
) this coin will be worth more than the nominal GDP of Nauru, Tuvalu and Montserrat.
