Bitcoin Forum

It is time to announce our newest project, Denarium Bitcoin (https://denarium.eu). Here is our international press release:

https://denarium.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Denarium-Bitcoin-10k-bits.png

Denarium Bitcoin is the newest project of 3-year old Finnish Bitcoin startup Prasos. The company operates Bittiraha.fi, the largest Bitcoin exchange in Finland, and Bittimaatti, the largest Bitcoin ATM network in the Nordics. Now Prasos is making its way into the international scene with Denarium Bitcoin, the next generation of physical bitcoins.

Helsinki 10.4.2015

Mike Caldwell created the first Physical Bitcoin in 2011 under the name Casascius and this taught us that people have a clear need to identify bitcoins with something physical. Bitcoin as a concept is hard to understand if it is envisioned as something purely virtual. A Physical Bitcoin is a great conversation starter - the perfect gateway to explaining Bitcoin. There has been only one problem - cheap & affordable coins have all but disappeared from the market.

– Ever since US manufacturers ran into regulation issues, low price Physical Bitcoins have been a thing of the past. Years ago I used to give them out to friends & family but nowadays it’s simply not possible because the coins are too expensive. We decided that we have the expertise and the right kind of regulatory environment to bring them back and eventually we came up with Denarium Bitcoin, says Prasos CEO Henry Brade.

The coins from Denarium are designed to have easily redeemable private keys. In addition to storing the private key in plain text, it is also stored in QR code format. This way the bitcoins inside a Denarium Bitcoin are easy to redeem and spend online. Denarium products are shipped worldwide and they come in two valuations, 1/10 of a bitcoin and 1/100 of a bitcoin. Both loaded and empty coins are available.

– Asia has a number of emerging bitcoin markets with huge volumes of potential adopters. Just as in the West previously, a tangible bitcoin is a great first step into bitcoins for millions of new users, and makes the whole concept easier to understand, states Ville Oehman, who is bringing Denarium Bitcoin to Asian markets.

The pre-order of Denarium Bitcoin starts on Monday 13th of April at 12:00 UTC (London). This is 8 AM in New York and 8 PM in Singapore. All pre-order sales are done through the main website of Denarium, https://denarium.eu/. First batch of Denarium coins are scheduled for delivery in June 2015.

Additional information & interview requests:

Henry Brade
+358 41 501 4485, hbrade (at) denarium.eu

Ville Oehman
+65 90 094 078, ville (at) quantified.sg

Prasos is a Finnish Bitcoin startup that was founded in March 2012. Their exchange services at Bittiraha.fi currently process around 1 million euros of trading volume per month. Prasos has an ongoing funding round at Nordic equity crowdfunding website Invesdor.

Henry Brade has been a passionate Bitcoin enthusiast since 2011. In 2012 he co-founded Prasos and has been in CEO position ever since. Before learning about Bitcoin Henry was a professional online poker player.

Ville Oehman is a Singapore-based investor, focusing on early-stage Fintech start-ups in Europe and Asia. Ville is a member of the company advisory board and the wholesale partner for Denarium Bitcoin in Asian markets.

2 days 19 hours until pre-order launch. Follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Denarium-Bitcoin/409674935852238) and/or Twitter (https://twitter.com/denariumbitcoin) to get the newest updates.

Is there any info on how your coins are tamper proof? I mean besides the hologram, has anyone (perhaps independent) tested how good it is?

Not yet. There is not a single Denarium Bitcoin in existence yet. We've only done tests with samples, the final product will see light of day during May. And we ship in June. Now we're taking in pre-orders.

Our coins are very similar to Casascius coins and should offer similar protection. The hologram is susceptible to certain liquidation methods but as far as I know none of them can be done without leaving any marks. Generally speaking the focus for these coins is simplicity and affordability, we're not even aiming at making them super secure.

We have premium coins in the roadmap which will include all sorts of features: even better physical tampering protection and of course the option for a BIP38 2-factor key.

Article on Cointelegraph: http://cointelegraph.com/news/113925/physical-bitcoins-are-back-finnish-exchange-targets-asian-market

I would also like to know how tamper proof those coins are. I had bought some psysical coins from shibemint and I'll have to admit that the quality wasn't the best. They gold plated ones got scratched and damaged too easily. I'm assuming that a brass coin would show some better resistance, but I'd also love to know if someone reviews the coin's hardness (etc.) after getting it on his hands.

In terms of durability and physical feel overall, our coins are very similar to 1 BTC Casascius coins. Those coins are very durable, the only thing that happens to them through time if used a lot is they lose their shine and become much dimmer in color. Our coins are very shiny in the beginning and will remain that way if stored correctly, but if used a lot they should become dimmer.

Our tampering protections are also similar to Casascius coins. Suspectible to certain liquids but it's very difficult to pull off without leaving any physical marks. Looking carefully at the hologram, if there is doubt, should reveal a counterfeit coin.

So, any tests done with original Casascius coins should, at least in theory, apply to our coins as well. Our focus has been affordability and simplicity, with the first product we're not aiming at super security. We feel that what we have is enough for a low-cost and low-value coin.

We're going to publish more advanced coins in the future, but those will of course be much more expensive.

Independent tests on our coins will have to wait until June but I'm sure they will pop up at that point.

More physical manufactures! Sincerely, I don't think the demand can keep up with the offer, the market is really slow now and nearly all vendors offer the same thing. (Coin with key inside) Innovation is the key to success, (see Kialara)

I have to correct you on this. Kialara coins, for example, are very expensive art pieces. One Kialara costs at the moment $129. And it's an unloaded coin. Our coins, with a loaded value of 0,1 BTC, cost at the moment approximately $33. If you buy one of our coins unloaded, it will cost only around $9. Not only that, we have volume discounts available as high as 50%.

These prices are VAT excluded of course so the total price will depend on where we sell to - but it's undoubtedly clear that our product is very different from what is out there.

Our product is similar to what Casascius coins used to be in 2011-2012. We're bringing back the concept of a cheap Bitcoin gift item, which was great in my opinion.

Let me correct you then, you are not the first to come up with "an affordable physical Bitcoin",

This guys did it first:
Crypto Imperator:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=818791.0

and

Bhcoins:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=951699.0

and I am sure there are more...

So I really don't see your product differentiation, bring back Casascius from 2011-2012?, looks like it has already been done.

You had me here, however there is one thing that will differentiate us. That is marketing. I've been living and breathing Bitcoin since 2011 yet I've never heard of either of these examples nor do I know anyone who has one of those coins. This is an area where we believe that we can succeed.

We are not trying to only copy the concept of the original Casascius coins in terms of technology & economy, we're going to be the brand that becomes bigger than Casascius or anything else in the Physical Bitcoin market.

It's also an issue of trust. Especially with a 1-key coin, trust is quite important. Obviously this is not as clear for people in the US for example, but in the Nordics we're known as an experienced and very trustworthy company. Some of the other manufacturers I would categorize as "random".

LOL, looks like you have not done any "Market research" at all, you only have to hover to the "Goods" section and see all the physical coin trading it's done there (I've own a lot of them and I trade/sell/buy with assiduity there). As well as many of the available manufacturers. And the Statement of becoming bigger than Casascius... you are competing with a brand that no longer produces coins, and even in that conditions I really doubt you will be more known than it.



As you say only in the Nordics, as before this post I had no idea your company existed, so I currently don't trust you nor the coins. Categorizing your business rivals as "random" is vain, they've been around here selling coins much more than you! I'm sure they have experience and knowledge your company will have to look for elsewhere...

We have done plenty of market research, but not at Bitcointalk - I will admit that. Our market research has been based on which brands have good visibility in search engines and social media. The "goods" section of Bitcointalk has NOT been of interest. However I may underestimate the importance of Bitcointalk but the bottom line is that we're looking at this from a much wider perspective than Bitcointalk. In terms of becoming more known than Casascius, not easy and is going to take years. But as it is with all our other Bitcoin projects, we're in this for the long run.


I highly doubt this. We've been one of the largest resellers of Casascius coins (confirmed to me by Mike Caldwell in person) and we've also sold Recalescense coins and Lealana coins. We've been reselling Casascius coins since 2012 and we still do - there is a quite a healthy inventory at BTC Store at the moment.

We haven't sold at Bitcointalk, that is true, but we've had lots of sales through our online store (BTC Store).

From the perspective of the Bitcointalk ecosystem, many of the things you say make sense. However I'm not looking at it from that perspective, we've been looking at it from other angles entirely. From the perspective of an active Bitcointalk coin trader it's quite clear we're not that unique, but that perspective is limited.

In the groups that I communicate nowadays, no one uses Bitcointalk any longer. Reddit, Twitter and other channels have mostly replaced it. This is one of the reasons Bitcointalk is a secondary channel for us, not a primary one. I used to be very active here in 2011-2012 but recently haven't really used this for anything other than promotion.

It may be that concentrating more on Bitcointalk would be a smart move. And I am posting here quite a bit right now. I prefer a total approach - we want to market it everywhere where there are Bitcoin users.

Less than 24 hours to pre-order start! Our announcement with important information can be read from the main thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1021159.msg11064763#msg11064763

Product looks interesting.

I was going to order 8 x 0.01 BTC coins for fun but the shipping is a bit much for me:

Registered letter / Post packet / UPS delivery: 0,3574 ฿

At current fiat prices that is US$84 to send 4 small coins!

If you are focused on affordability please find cheaper shipping methods.

Please tell which country you tried to order to. Our couriers have restrictions on some countries which have resulted in abnormal costs for said countries. We are optimizing them as we speak. For example UK is a country where we made a significant improvement, you can now order up to 20 coins with a significantly cheaper method.

Article on CoinDesk: http://www.coindesk.com/finnish-startup-denarium-launches-low-cost-physical-bitcoins/

Denarium update: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1021159.msg11109661#msg11109661

Great new article on Denarium at CryptoCoinsNews: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/denarium-promotes-bitcoin-physical-coins/

New interview published: https://coinreport.net/denarium-produces-low-cost-physical-bitcoins/

Humm, how goes this project? 

Any guesses on how much shipping to Canada would be?  These seem like very well priced items. I have wanted a few of these just for fun.

Just a quick update on this thread.

Denarium is going strong, we recently had a new product launch (http://medium.com/@Technomage/the-first-multisig-physical-bitcoin-8769f2e7e3b3#.dx0qlfhsu).

There is an ongoing auction (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1217357.0) for the first coins of our flagship 1 BTC Series.

The general thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1021159.0) for Denarium is at the Goods section.