Bitcoin Forum

I have good news for everyone.

The meteoric BTC price rises have had two discernible effects on the collector community:
- Interest in collectible coins has increased, on both the buy and sell side
- BTC premiums have largely stayed the same, meaning that USD collector value of Casascius coins have doubled or more.

As usual, Casascius coins receive the bulk of interest.

In the past two months I have seen an increase in website views on www.coinfirm.org that is in line with the increase of interest in BTC. Perhaps more surprisingly, it seems that visitor are spending progressively more time on the website.

To me, this strongly suggests that as more people learn and begin to follow the crypto-space, the more will be drawn to the collector community. This means that if BTC grows significantly, we can exact huge growth in this community/hobby/cottage industry. This also seems to confirm the idea that at least in the case of Casascius coins, prices are determined in BTC / premium percentages and are largely not related to USD valuations. This might change in the future, but it appears that the coins are holding their BTC value well.

https://i.imgur.com/MHlpYIK.png

We may need a cheaper paperback version of your book soon so that more people can get info on what's out there.

We plan to have much cheaper paperbacks with the next version, if and when that is ready.

That said, there is the free eBook which is about 1/3rd of the actual book. Unfortunately, very few people are reading it from what I see on site stats.

When people ask me about Bitcoin and wanting to buy some, I tell them they should learn about digital cryptocurrencies, or buy a Casascius coin and put it away for a long time.  I imagine there are many people wanting to invest in the Bitcoin market but feel more comfortable with physical coins.

Plus they are a great way to HODL!  They have successfully kept me from selling out many times!

At the end of the day, that's really it. I've lost regrettable amounts of BTC to scams, thefts, exchange hacks, and terrible trading decisions. But I've never lost any bitcoins I have in solid form.. well, except that one Casascius coin that I left on a park bench (damn.. ).
I can totally see why people like to own physical coins for the security.

Physical bitcoins were my entry point into the BTC market for that very reason.  It's definitely easier to wrap your head around the idea that a token has value rather than just a long string of numbers and letters.

i can't say i've seen recent auction results here reflect that. the premiums seem to have dropped dramatically.

Agreed. The premiums have taken a serious nosedive recently.

You could make the case both ways.  For example, I sold a 0.1 Silver Cas for 1.65 BTC back when BTC was about $230.  Recently they're selling for what, around 0.4 BTC?  That 1.55 BTC premium was ~$350 whereas the 0.3 BTC premium now is ~$750. 

It's important to note that BTC is destroying EVERYTHING else as an investment and can not be used as a determination of an object's value over time.  In the few cases where things have appreciated in BTC terms over this recent rate increase, I would suggest the market is acting irrationally.

Agree. Even though, the market is flooded with many coins, I am sure the Casascius coins will be as valuable as early mint  american eagles, especially errors and silvers.

Nice, I think some guys are really happy about that, if they did not sell the coins too early, especially those bought in the first batches.

Up compared to that dirty dirty fiat. I love seeing Bitcoin finally starting to spread its wings and crush the old status quo. I think now is the best time to be buying physical coins because once we stop reaching new ATH every day the premiums will start heading back up.

This is still a niche (extremely niche) market for crypto let alone physical crypto coins.  If, well when, it becomes more mainstream i like to think the physical market is going to be real hot.  When bitcoin is bulling it is a great time to buy some missing pieces.  Could be wrong but thats where im at.

I definitely agree with the sentiment that this is a buyers market. It has been for quite some time. Premiums (with exception to kialaras) are at their lowest ever, and people are just holding on to their coins. Now is the time to pick up what's missing from your collection, or grab those special coins you've always wanted.

i may or may not have an elusive 2011 casascius double error (1 of 5) available for sale to the right bidder...

It feels like that's the way the market moves for sure. Back when BTC sat at $600 this section of the forum was more or less dead. Same old faces dealing with each other.

As for the encyclopedia, I'd like to see it in a pocket format if that would be possible? I know I'd like to have it on the road and show people what it's all about. Rather than dragging around a book (have not seen it in person so not sure of the size, might be making a fool of myself here).

Other than that, I'm happy we are seeing this increase in interest and the influx of both new and old members striking deals and creating collections.

The hardcover version is huge and heavy as it is supposed to be, for your coffee table.
The paperback version is smaller but still may require you to carry it in a backpack.

Interesting observations Elianite. The latest stats I've seen are that Coinbase is signing up 100,000 new users every few days at this point. Google trends is showing there are more searches for Bitcoin than ever before (we finally eclipsed the peak interest from late 2013). 

As more people enter the space, I think some % of these people will turn to collecting bitcoin memorabilia to supplement their crypto holdings.  One thing I try to do when meeting bitcoiners in real life is to bring my paperback Encyclopedia with me, and perhaps a Satori coin or BTCC poker chip to give away.  They are usually very much unaware of how deep this aspect of the hobby goes, and all want to start collecting physical coins of their own.  These physical coins are an important aspect of Bitcoin, as we can see with every news article that uses the standard pile of Casascius coins to visually represent bitcoin.  Along with the rest of you, I'm excited to be a part of this hobby as it grows from an extremely niche group within bitcoin to a larger market of collectors and hodlers alike.

The hardcover version is nice but it has some issues with the wrong photos being printed for certain coins. Some carefully glued correction photos would be nice for any misprints in future editions.

I would like to see a pocket flip book style with less backstory and a focus on differentiating fakes from real physical cryptos.

Sounds interesting.
I'd be interested in a pocket edition of the encyclopedia as well. :)

Elianite, thanks for sharing your data! It's always interesting to see the analysis someone is doing related to bitcoin interest (if not adoption).

A question and a comment for you;

(1) Have you been able to normalize for the traffic that goes to your site with interest in your book vs. those looking at the coins you're selling (on behalf of others)? Do you think these two separate numbers would tell different stories or make different implications about the interest?

(2) I've visited your site multiple times in the last month to consult the free Casascius-only version of your book to reference mintage numbers for specific coins. Since the spotcoins.com/bitcoin/casascius site has gone offline there's no other quick, accurate summary of Casascius mintage

Looking forward to receiving my copy of the hardcover version of your book!!!

Thanks.

Anyone looking for cas information can go here too

https://casascius.uberbills.com/

Dont know how accurate but i know people use it for a guide

User Naypalm set up the site, here's the original thread explaining (some) of how the data is compiled, with Mike's collaboration on the thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52537.80 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52537.80). The tracking site and thread was established in 2011 but Naypalm commented on it recently, s/he could probably speak to it's continued accuracy.

For me it seems like that the market gets flooded with cas coins!  :o

It will get interesting when btc rate goes down again in the coming weeks...

Buy now  ;D