member
Activity: 60
Merit: 10
There are a number of mints that can have the coins made and to make a 'cheap' coin is quite achievable, but with any wallets, security has to be of paramount importance and needs to be carefully thought through.
Think we obtained quotes from 4 or 5 coin manufacturers and ended up picking the most expensive for a number of reasons.
- Chinese manufacturers obvious choice based on price, but can you guarantee they wont sell fakes? (which would obviously be hugley lucrative to them and disastrous for a real manufacturer)- believe a major name has suffered from this already.
- US manufacturers seemed risky given over-regulated area/ potential for them to pull the plug given risks etc (also found the 2 we contacted as very hard to deal with), so we ruled them out
- Quality has to be key (again to protect against forgery) - all our coins are made from different dies for each denomination and had to order special machinery to achieve a level of detail in the coins which would make them hard to copy (never going to be impossible unfortunately).
We do not disclose manufacturer (inadvisable for security reasons?) and came to the conclusion that we would not divulge exact methodology of generating keys either (obviously done offline, but we trialled various software options, many of which we thought would be acceptable eg pipex wallet generator/ ubuntu)- to disclose exact methods would make software/us a target for hacking and perhaps jeopardise the 'randmoness' of key generation which is the most crucial part of any offline wallet generation. We also keep our office location (for manufacturing) secret as much as possible for obvious reasons and security for storage/ transport of supplies/ finished goods is also a nightmare (we received some very useful feedback on dangers of keys being x-rayed- whilst we do not consider this a serious 'everyday' risk (advise customers to secure coins safely away from others) - regularly travel with loaded coins through airports, so we always have to ask for them not to be put through xray machines (have interesting conversations with security about why/ what they are adn it invariably can lead to extra delays/ suspicion!!)
Trademarks also crucial if you want to do it 'properly' which is expensive (in case of forgeries), holograms if used, need to be detailed for security reasons again and advisable to look into extra security possibilities (deliberate hidden errors/ an element of being hand-made as we do cutting out windows in holograms/ numbering coins). We also had to invest substantial amounts in legal advice (patent advice (purely to ensure we weren't infringing on any), trademarks, local regulatory advice (especially for T&Cs) and also tax advice (we have registered for VAT (sales tax), but calculations are very complicated (bitcoin value is not VATable)
To make unloaded coins is quite straightforward, or to sell small denominations of loaded coins is fairly simple. Making 1btc coins or higher value coins (we make 10btc & 20 btc coins) is a little trickier given need to comply with various regulations (which vary depending on which country you are selling to/ where you are based).
We spent 4-6 months looking at market, potential target audience and working out financials. Need to consider are you targeting coin collectors (grading important), bitcoin community (2FA/ MFA could be important) or general public (we set out with mission to spread bitcoin ownership/ awareness, so have always tried to keep coins affordable/ as simple as possible)?
We invested in anlaysing competition (so have casascius, titan, lealana, silver wallet and a number of the purely novelty/ decorative coins you see plastered all over the media, plus have given away probably 40-50 aussie btc 0.01 btc coins to family/ friends/ legal/ accounting partners/ various government officials etc to explain concept)
key for us was ensuring keys are 'readable' years into the future (glues, paper etc likely to seep/ wear over 5 or 10 years?), which is why we went down the engraving route- but are you looking at coins for long term storage, easy access or purely a a commercial concept?
Our 10/ 20 btc coins are made from solid silver (.999) and are individually hallmarked by a decent assay office (Birmingham, UK), whereas the lower denominations are made from a cheaper brass alloy (as we engrave coins had to steer away from softer alloys, but this required extra costs in terms of machinery)
Reasoning for this is we did not want to be charging 1btc for a 0.5btc coin or 2btc for a 1btc coin (which you would probably have to do if using solid silver) to bring bitcoin to a wider audience and we wanted to keep our pricing as close to the bitcoin value as possible (solid silver is not a 'significant' cost for a 10/20btc coin, but obviously would be for a 0.5/ 1btc coin).
Another consideration is facing the question of 'how do I know you havent copied private keys'? We have procedures and require at least 2 people to oversee production/ sign off on a certificate which comes with each coin saying all records of private key in question have been destroyed (though in reality in comes down to trust/ reputation which have to be earned).
All the above is subjective, a lot is debatable and these are just the conclusions we came to given our own aims, chosen location, experiences of those involved and feedback (every manufacturer will have thier own opinions and choices should be specific to those involved and their aims).
Feedback/ specific requests suggests there is demand for unloaded coins, including for solid silver (or even gold) wallets, but have ignored this because a) there are already a number of companies making these and b) does not fit with TGBEX ethos/ objectives
Would add, anyone trying to make a lot of money from physical bitcoins is likely to be disappointed:
- selling smaller denominations means hard to generate much revenue (without huge volume, margins would need to be set at a level where you will get a lot of people complaining you are trying to rip them off)
- selling higher denominations means setting up properly / will require sales of 200- 300 coins which is unlikely to be achieved in first year or two, especially given selling in the USA (which would be largest market, based on interest we have received) is impossible given need to register as a money transmitter in each state (cost of this could be anything from $500k-$1.5million and unless everyone suddenly wants a physcial bitcoin, unlikely to ever make that back (even ignoring ongoing costs to monitor changes in requirements/ licences etc)
ie it needs to be a 'labour of love' and something you really want to do. Generally (unless crowd funded/ accepting pre-orders which is dangerous (see various examples of this in threads here)) will need a substantial capital investment/ outlay and legal/ regulatory hurdles are not simple (and constantly changing!).
Big fans of all offline wallets (scratch cards/ wooden wallets/ paper wallets/ coins etc) which we think are ideal (perhaps crucial?) to bringing bitcoin to non-tech experts, so happy to help with any questions/ in any way we can, if you would like any specific advice (that wouldnt compromise our security in any way!)
