Bitcoin Forum

Hello Bitcoin Community,

I would like to discuss the topic of "virgin" bitcoins. Specifically, I would like to discuss the possibilities of being able to purchase a private key to coins mined directly to paper wallets.

• Is this a niche market that only a few zealots would be interested in or this is more appealing to a broad range of Bitcoiners?
• What kind of premium, if any, could be associated with virgin coins?
• Would you consider a service that sells virgin coins for non-virgin bitcoins a laundering service?
• Is a service like this appealing for payment via meat space methods including wire and cash?

I've always found this topic to be interesting and I look forward to your responses.

Best,
James

Can you mine bitcoins to an address where you only got the public key?
If only i had the private key i would maybe pay like 101 BTC for 100 BTC mined to my address.
So yes there could be a market  :)

It seems kind of cool to me, but I wouldn't pay much of anything, and probably only be interested in like one block if I even wanted to bother.

I could see the tiny fraction of people caring become a lot more people than there are fresh blocks eventually so the premium could go up, so there is some speculative value. However, while you can buy a virgin block you can't safely sell it once you buy it. You pay people to mine to your key, but then once you've got it if you give the key to someone they have to trust you forever or else move it and destroy it's virginity. So... I'm thinking overall it's mostly a no go.

Indeed you can. :)

With very little creative marketing, I envision this endeavor viable.

~Bruno K~

Eligius and P2Pool do this now.

I get the feeling if I took this seriously I'd be trolled LOL :D

I'd get 1 for the novelty of it

I'm also interested in whether there would be a market for such a thing.

Giga, while I wouldn't call it laundering, it certainly would be used for that.

I've pondered this question on an off for a good year now...   My thinking is that at the moment, a 50 or 25 virgin block is worth about 50.1 / 25 coins ..  in 20 years however, the Numismic value of a virgin block (technically the private key for said block) will be off the charts ...This is simply because of the rarity and the fact that from now till the end of eternity, nevermore will a 50 virgin coin block be minted. 

Just take a look here:  http://cointrackers.com/blog/13/most-valuable-pennies/  ... there a lowly pennies out there worth $100,000

Soo.. anyone out there with virgin 50 coin keys they wanna sell?

Sigg

Oh baby that makes a virgin block worth what $5m, yeah right so begins the latest scam lets see where the shills come from like you proclaiming how this is yet again the best thing since sliced bread. A virgin coin is worth the same as any other damn coin out there it is all bits on a computer.

The problem is that any buyer would need to trust that the seller wouldn't spend the funds after the sale.

Sending the coins to a new address will still have numismatic value but it is not the same as what existed previously.

But yes, there have been buyers who have paid a premium:

How much does the Fed charge for freshly minted coins?

Pretty sure it's nothing above face value... not sure why bitcoins would be different.

These are not newly minted coins.  These are old coins minted in the past just like minted old US coins.  But like old US coins they are worth more if the coins are in uncirculated conduction.

Correct. This is why I've stated that the coins would be mined to paper wallets (most likely laminated) or mine directly to the buyers address.


Sending the coins to an address is not the idea here. Only a generation transaction to an address.


Thanks for the link.

Thanks SAC.

If I ran a pool, or had a big solo rig, I'd have an ongoing auction for each block to see what premium can be raised.

Each bidder would send a requested address and (25btc + premium) to an address provided. This is the only way you could guarantee the block is paid. They can request a refund at any time and if they don't win the bid is held over to the next block.

At block discovery the highest bid is used for generation address and the bidders deposit is used for pool payout.

Of course, with many virgin blocks like this, the specialness factor would go way down quickly and presumably the premium.  8)

I've seen an idea like this before somewhere, I think there would need to be a lot of transparency around the bidding process and current bids. This does add the element of competition though which is always interesting.


At first I was thinking the same as you here, but the numbers quickly change if you wanted 500 or 1000 coins (aka multiple blocks) generated to a single address.

You might want to use waterproof and tear-proof paper like this - http://toughprint.com/ - and make them into kind of a banknote maybe?

I'll still take 1 for novelty....let me know your BTC address and how much you want.

You can have bitcoins generated directly to your address by mining at a pool that does it's payouts like that. P2Pool and Eligius might be the only ones, here (http://blockchain.info/tx/a5339ddb21d4b7650901cf20e9cf00174cf0a81aa4bbc13225af646b965e5d2d)'s an example of an Eligius payout. But that's still not the same as having the whole block reward generated to you.. or is it? I don't really know what's the value-adding thing here.

The value add is in finding the morons willing to pay over the odds for a bitcoin block and as I expected the usual suspects are in with how great this can be hold onto your wallet their at it again...

Yead I'd like to be able to buy whole virgin 25.00 blocks on a paper wallet made into a basic bank note made from http://toughprint.com/ paper.  That paper would probably last longer than normal paper laminated as its waterproof and tear-proof.

http://www.bitmit.net/de/img/trade_uploads/06-20-2012/25-btc-casascius-bitcoin_19369_1.jpg
or on nice heavy brass coin  ;D

What kind of bitcoins goes on those 'Casascius coins'.  The ones you use to purchase them or something else because it'd be good if you could get whole virgin BTC25.00 blocks on them  :P

That is definitely an interesting idea. Although, it would probably be over 25 coins with the transaction fees in there.

Good idea on the tough print paper. I was thinking about regular paper with lamination but I'll need to look into this more.

I wonder if there is a similar company in the US.

Yeah you can buy the paper on eBay so I'm sure there is a US supplier.  It'd be better than laminate as it doesn't even tear when wet.  I've seen some other similar papers and they have a more canvas type feel which might be good for a btc bank note but I don't know if the canvas ones are as tough as that waterproof and tear-proof paper.

This is the cotton paper - http://www.theinkjetpapergirl.co.uk/a4-260g-cotton-matte-real-canvas-waterproof-20-sheets-177-p.asp - so it'd feel more like a bank note but its only water resistant and tear resistant while the other one is waterproof and tear-proof even when wet.

I hadn't even thought of the fees. That would make any bidding on a block a small gamble as well. You'd never really know how much premium you paid until it won, and the miner wouldn't know if they were going to get more than just fees. Perhaps users would pay a higher fee to be in a famous virgin block just as they did for the halving.

I don't see how this is different than coin collecting. Collectors always pay more than face value for anything considered rare or special. Is it moronic to pay for fun, entertainment or simply enjoying something besides calculating your net worth? What a sad life that would be.

Even from a strictly investment pov one has no idea what value a virgin block may someday have. People collect the weirdest things. If someone would pay 124,000 Euro for this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_shit) then why not a virgin block?

SAC,

Please refrain from personal attacks on these forums. If you want people to give you respect, you should respect other people.

Some peoples garbage are other peoples treasures.

For those of working on the front lines of Bitcoin, sometimes these small novelties and memento's of Bitcoin excite us. We have the right to enjoy what we work so hard on every single day.

If you can't see the value in a free market economy, and true value by someones own accord, there is a bigger problem here.

-Charlie

Whatever free market manipulating more like it but you people are used to that anyways. So in short if your fine with these scammers pulling another one give it your full support.



Indeed as old PT said there is one born every minute and all these collector fools are just a shinning example of it.

Oh, who's got too much angst and an internet connection  ::)  People have always collected things and when those things are rare things the collection can become valuable.  Certain gold coins coins are worth >x10 the magnitude of 'spot' price.

I made a vanity address (https://blockchain.info/address/1ELiZABETHdzGTuQeg2RnCcWBMVo3ySfTz) for my niece & would perhaps be interested in funding it this way for a reasonable premium, maybe others would too - I wouldn't be surprised if it was being planned for a long term investment &/or gift.

Edit: I collect coins & have sold 2 since 2010 for between $80k to $100k each, they weighed 37.22 grams Au each, melt value approx $2k each.

Very cool vanity addy. That one must have taken a while to make!

I'm glad to see that most seem to think that this is a novel/interesting idea.

Generating for an address is a better idea.  I mined a few 50 BTC blocks before the reward halving and moved the private keys to a longtime storage wallet.  I had envisioned selling the private key but see that requires trust that I would remove that key from a wallet...

I think this is why mining directly to paper wallets is key for pre-generated coins. I am starting to agree that the less trust approach would be for customers to make purchases before hand and then mine directly to their address. They would know that they would be getting 25 BTC and whatever transaction fees come with the block.

The paper wallets are good if you want to receive something in the mail. I personally like receiving things in the mail and, if done right, I think others would like it too.

It is also good to be able to mail (and have customers sign for) something if you are accepting meat space methods of payment.

Usually it's just the one used to purchase them, but I would be happy to make 25 BTC coins out of virgin coins if there were buyers willing to pay extra to make the effort worthwhile.  Part of the problem is that everyone agrees they'd be neat but wouldn't pay much more than a couple percent premium to get one.  I'm open to be proven wrong, but am somewhat resigned to the idea that bothering would barely be worth the effort.

If someone wants to arrange it themselves, I'd be very open to it... in other words, you buy the coin and then instead of saying "OK it arrived please fund it", you'd say "OK it arrived and I funded it myself so you don't have to, so now please refund me my original 25 BTC at address X".  I already do deals very similar to this from time to time when buyers want to fund them with bitcoins from a specific origin.

Sure they are that gold in there has them super special atoms never to be found again ...

I was lucky enough to receive the first bitcoin transaction, and then I was careless enough to spend it accidentally. I probably still have the key sitting on a switched-off computer, so I could auction off the key. Usual caveats about making sure I delete it when I sell it...

That is both awesome and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Oh? Another personal attack? No wonder people don't take you seriously!

Dude, its simple:

1. Seller lists something
2. Buyer wants it
3. Buyer pays for it, everyone is happy.

If there is no buyer, there is no sale


If your gonna make a dumb comment like that, at least back it up with sources and proof.

'you people' - who is you people?
'used to that anyways' - used to what?
'scammers' - what scammers? Who is scamming you?

- Charlie

Or if you can reach an agreement with a miner/pool that they trust you, then why not sell the coin, and when the block is confirmed mined onto the coin's address you send the 25btc to the miner instead of putting it on the coin. In essence you act as escow between the miner and bidder, and perhaps automate it, and take a small fee to make it worthwhile.

I could see Virgin Casascius coins as quite interesting because they bring a physicality to the idea of a pure block. I could see down the road people being interested in such a coin being more collectible than others. The difficult part is how such an item could be traded if the private key is not trusted to be destroyed. I come back to the same as your other coins - perhaps the trust of Casascius destroying the key is better than the trust of the first buyer doing so?

You sound like a real bore; hung up with a super dull idea of value. I say "Thanks" to all the imaginative and visionary people in Bitcoin, technology companies, artists, art dealers and just about anyone who isn't quite so dull - for making this world a more interesting place to live. What I can't understand is why you bother wasting your super-valuable time being so critical of people.

Most certainly I believe in value for your money spent not this pie in the sky BS most around here seem to think of as normal, it does not turn my crank at all. And I hate fucking scammers with a passion and that is all this is just one more opportunity for them to ply their trade. In case any of you have not noticed it is pretty much always the same group of people who show up in these threads designed to separate people from their btc short a few members now that pirate, nefario, patrick among others are gone but still out in force when they come up with new one.

Scam? What scam?
Anyone looking at buying a virgin block knows what they're getting and that it may never be worth more than 25 btc. It would only be a scam if they didn't get what they paid for or were sold a private key that was later emptied on them.


That's way out in left field. As far as I see the people posting in this thread have been mostly ongoing trustworthy community members. Casascius, Yankee, gigavps, Hal - I've never heard of any of them pulling any scam. I guess you mean offering something that you don't think is worthwhile?

Being kinda anal... I'd want my "25-coin" to be exactly 25.000... bitcoins.   Is it possible for a miner to split the 25 bounty into one address and put the fees into a different address?

Sigg

I believe with the pool setup correctly, this could be done. I'm pretty sure it can be setup to fill an address to an exact amount or over a specific amount.

I'll make sure to add this to the feature list.

This will be very interesting.

Giga, neat idea. To me, your proposal sounds like GPUMax though. Am I missing something?

I guess you could consider that GPUMax was doing something similar but they used other's hashing power to back the service. You would only get "virgin" coins if you directed your hashing power to a pool that allowed coins generated directly into your wallet.

So just pointing hashing power to say ozco.in, would get you nearly virgin coins, but there would still be transactions leading from the generation.

What about a mining pool strictly designed solely to mine virgin coins, whereupon all those contributing to the pool receive a 10%(?) premium?

~Bruno K~

If this idea proves out, that might be an idea. I wish there was more time in the day.....

Im down to throw my new ASIC's toward that pool if such existed....

It's funny to see everyone in this thread basically reinventing Eligius and P2Pool.

IMO, there are many more people who do not mine than do. So virgin coins are accessible to only a small portion of the bitcoin user base.

My idea is to simply give non miners a chance to also own coin without a transaction history.

My original questions still stand, the implementation of such a service is not as important.

Sure encourage parasite blocks that are of no benefit to the BTC network get enough of them no transactions get done, hardly surprising you would come up with this idea though based on your "business" dealings of the past fits you to a tee.

You usually make sense but what exactly are "parasite blocks"? How is mining and finding blocks of no benefit to the BTC network?

SAC, did you take your medications today?

I still like the idea of "solo pool" where the highest hasher wins everything and everyone else gets nothing.

A block with no transactions it only takes and gives nothing back to the host (the btc network if that did not filter into your brain) hence a parasite.

Who ever said to make a block with no transactions? We are talking about COINS with no transactions.

Let me give you an example, maybe that will help you understand better.

http://blockchain.info/tx/3ea44e636930806ef302022f6e770ec6e4b6edcbd1dd965cd0ca0731d388a1f8

Take a look at the link above and you will see "No Inputs (Newly Generated Coins)". This is what I mean about COINS without a transaction history.

Make sense?

I think it's a great idea.

The premium on this service isn't terribly high, if you're lucky, maybe as high as 5%. This is mostly because services/methods like the Blockchain.info mixing service and Litecoin swaps exist and charge under 2%, and the novelty benefit isn't worth much more than that. But these aren't blocks, maybe blocks themselves would be worth a lot. I offer no evidence as to why I know this, but that's my input regardless.

And, that's not to say such a thing couldn't or won't change. Maybe they'll be worth a fortune someday.

I just thought it was funny as this is like a rehashing of what's already been done with Eligius and P2Pool. If there was a high demand for virgin coin, you would see people request it more often.

Not at all that block is greater than the 50 it was supposed to be so has old coin included in it to be a virgin block it has to have no transactions. As I have said before this is just another scheme to separate people from their BTC nothing else.

The pool could also "pimp your block" with comments in the coinbase field  ;D.  Note the link above was mined by /Coinlab/

Too bad virgincoins.com is already taken. Imagine if Sir Richard Branson put his name on such a project.

This could be a service pool operators offer.

• Bids are placed by depositing bitcoins and specifying a payout address
• When a block is mined a bid is filled starting with the best offer.
• Mined bitcoins are sent to the bidder, bidders bitcoins are send to the miners.

Already suggested above... by me.

giga would mine them for you then once hes done so extort an apostille that you wont spend them illegally.

Bump - mining away (solo) and would be happy to offer the next block for an 8% premium (27 BTC).

One would just need to send me the BTC and address to mine against.

A Virgin Coin that has been moved once isnt worth anything more!

Exactly why I would mine it to a BTC address provided - which should obviously be a new address.

As to what premium the market will bear - I guess that is for us all to learn...

Bump - any interest or is this a dead horse?

100% of Atlas's coins are virgin, just like the owner.

Hehehe

OK - dead it is....

I might be interested in a fraction of a block. Say, if the coinbase transaction split the 25 BTC evenly among 5 different addresses, one of them being mine.

Out of curiosity though, how often do you find a block mining solo?

Will need to do some reading on multiple addresses for the coinbase transaction.

it's for sure possible (see p2pool payouts) i wouldn't be of any help on the how-tos though sorry!

Eligius pool also sends out many payments from the coinbase. So just look at one of  it's blocks (http://blockchain.info/block-index/357006/00000000000003941050c4c4b84189bebbcf194df74345bc7785787d605b9937) and see how the coinbase is done. It's probably just a regular transaction on the outputs side.

dunno why it was bumped.

but maybe there is a slight premium for coins that have less then 4 hops from a miner, so that they are atleast classed as clean.

even bank notes leave the mint. the delivery driver 1 drives it to the central security vault. another driver moves it cross country. the bank teller counts it up before putting it into an ATM.

so even those wanting to trade dirty bank notes think there is value in ATM new notes.

no need to reply

Figured I would bump this -- with the pricing now - a 50BTC block is almost > $40K.  A nice collector's item...

An example  -- https://blockchain.info/address/1KuD3f15jnMby9ULMbxgyrWjmS2Q7ieEZN

I am perfectly happy to sell mining contracts to your address on eliguis, for a 10% premium. Have 2x avalon, full bitfury, and many usb miners.

It seems to me there are additional benefits to be had with 'virgin' coin.  Were you to do this, it would be completely untraceable. A paper wallet you had never touched. Random 'clean' coins sent to it.  Handy in case of emergency, eh?

Any one interested in selling virgin coins ?

Does it mean it can never be f***ed...up???B-)

Here was me thinking Richard Branson was launching an alt coin for a quick pump and dump max keiser style  ;D

Sadly now barely $20K  :'(

Get them while they are cheap...  :)

I think as time progresses, this idea may get more and more merit.   This would only be pertinent to a small niche of people.  I would say that 75% or more of the people in BTC only care about the price, because they want the $500 they invested to be worth $10,000 or more.  I think "virgin" coins as you call them would be exceptionally cool once all the coins have been mined...

I think this would be incredibly risky. The seller of the directly mined bitcoin could easily sell the private keys twice (or more) or they could sign and broadcast a TX out of the address at a later time, and there would be nothing the buyer could do about it because of how difficult it is to determine where a TX came from.

A possible alternative would be to sell bitcoin whose inputs are from the block subsidies for a presidium (you would actually send the bitcoin to an address that the buyer controls). My concern about doing this however is that it would put the fungibility of bitcoin into question.

That is a good businesses to sell one thing twice.

A virgin 50BTC block is rather cool -- but as you say trusting the seller to discard the privkey (securely) is paramount.

IMO it would be impossible to know for sure that the seller actually disregarded the private key. Not only that but if the coins are moved to an address that you do not control without you signing a TX to move them, you really do not know if it was the seller moving them, if your private keys were somehow compromised or if there was a "collision" (although this is extremely unlikely).

It is no different than owning Casascius coins. You had to trust that Casascius didn't keep all of the private keys on the holograms. He was very up front and transparent which lent a lot of credibility.

Well they certainly don't make them anymore. Should be worth more than 2 x 25BTC blocks.

You can't trust that, for a premium, mine your own

Are you trying to buy or to sell? Buying a private key doesn't sound like a great idea. Can't the miner send coins to your own address?

All bitcoins have the same value. They don't become more valuable just because they're 'fresh'.

That might be the case today. The question you need to ask is whether bitcoin will continue to be completely fungible.

If it does not remain completely fungible then it's useless as a currency just as dollars would be. I would no longer use dollars if I had to stand at a store cashier line and check each bill against a ledger before accepting it.

This topic was discussed extensively a couple years back here on forum so you may want to search there. The Eligius pool always used to mine directly to your address. I think they still do as I checked their most recent block and it has a split gen transaction. I haven't used them in years. Other than that you would need to make a deal with a miner or pool and to my knowledge there hasn't been any settling on premiums.

You'd have to trust the person you're buying the private key from to not know it in any which way shape or form.
Instead, use a split key generation method. This is similar to split key vanity addresses, with the only difference being that you don't really need to bother with the 'vanity' aspect (though you still could, for a premium, say). Google around for how that works.
I don't know what premium would apply to minted coins - especially since the service in question would still be involved.. could just as well use a tumbler.

Whether that, in turn, would constitute a laundering service depends on who you talk to.
If the service does use split key, then it would not be appropriate for meat space, due to timing constraints.

You only need the address for mining not the private key. The problem is that most mining pools do not disperse shares directly from the generation (coinbase) transaction, so for most pools you would get some mix of non-virgin coins. As mentioned above Eligius and P2pool both directly split the coinbase into shares paid. The downside is this takes 120 confirmations before they can be spent (unless that was changed, I haven't really followed it). In any case whether you or someone else mines the coins go to an address provided.

If you wanted to provide a service providing virgin coins then you would accept a customer's address and mine to that address for them. If you wanted to pre-mine such that they can just buy them (without waiting) then they have to trust you as any split key method would requires they provide a public key such that you generate a shared private key that is trustworthy. In which case why not just mine to their address.

Even when mining, bitcoins come from the pool's website. They are not truly virgin coins. Unless you had one of these massive Chinese facilities full of miners, solo-mining would likely not be profitable. It could take many decades before finding a block.
I don't think people would pay a premium for virgin coins. Many people already pay extra for coins on LBC, craigslist, and BTM's. Adding another premium for virgin coins just doesn't seem worth it at that point.

I believe it is actually 100 confirmations now, but this is not the point. You always need to have the block "mature" before the mined coins can be spent, this will always be the case.

There is already somewhat of a market for this, is is leased mining hashpower. See betarigs.com and leaserigs.net - you can "rent" other people's miners to be used at the pool of your choice.

is there any parsing way to see "virgin" bitcoins?

https://blockchain.info/block/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f411475428afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048

"No Inputs (Newly Generated Coins)"

I have approx 300 eligius coins, willing to sell.

I hope something like this never catches on, it would ruin the fungibility of Bitcoin, and would disqualify it from ever being called money.

Are these technically any different from p2pool coins? I have a quite a bit of those. I don't think there is a premium for fractional block virgin coins though.

Nonsense. Like other virgins, they don't regrow their hymen. Once transferred, they are no longer virgin, and therefore their previous virgin status is irrelevant. Their unique value proposition is destroyed upon the first transfer.

To maintain virgin status that is why the privkey would be transferred and not the coins.

I will contact Sir Richard Branson. If he has awaken with the right feet that morning, he could jump on it. And Virgin Empire adopting BTC...
This could be the start of a very crazy, headline-filled , super funny story.  ;D

And the trust factor is why the privates should not be shared - especially for virgins.

Amidst the slightly obscured truism, there is a funny anecdote lurking, but I can't quite tease it out.

I know a person that mines specifically for this purpose.

How many would be you willing to sell and where are you located ?

A friendly bump back from the dead  ;D

Curious if opinions have changed and whether a market exists today.

Sure. I'd be interested, but how to accomplish it?

I'd be willing to deposit oh... say... 13.5 BTC with a trustable escrow of mutual choosing. Release to miner upon block solved with coinbase block reward to that address. Release back to me as to null and void if unfulfilled by the block halving. All address and other details to remain private, known only to miner, escrow, and me.

I was speaking of this in the past tense - blocks already mined.

There is no way to transfer existing virgin coins unless one is willing to put full trust in the source not to spend them out from underneath. Even the scheme I list above requires putting trust in the source not to reveal the address or other parts of the transaction.

And as was noted earlier in the thread, what about Casascius coins?  They too required trust, no?

True. But Mike has already proven himself trustworthy. As an aside, I ain't got none a thems.