Bitcoin Forum

I'm pleased to present an artwork sample produced by the hologram company to be made available for a combined hologram order!

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/images/en/thumb/9/9b/Bitcoin_hologram_proof.jpg/800px-Bitcoin_hologram_proof.jpg

View in full resolution: https://en.bitcoin.it/w/images/en/9/9b/Bitcoin_hologram_proof.jpg

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW HOW TO INTERPRET THIS IMAGE.  IT LOOKS GREEN, BUT THE HOLOGRAMS WILL NOT BE GREEN!  THE ACTUAL HOLOGRAM WILL LOOK LIKE GOLD OR SILVER FOIL (YOUR CHOICE).  The colors in the image are not the actual colors that will appear in the hologram.  The colors simply represent where the contrast will be - remember that holograms cycle through the entire rainbow of colors - other than silver or gold, no specific color is associated with any part of the hologram - only the contrast ratios.

Anyway, I simply need $3000 worth of commitment to start a combined order.  Everyone who orders will have the text of their choice lasered into the hologram (the sticker will be TRANSPARENT where the lettering is - so for example, if "..." - three periods - are lasered, that will be rendered as three see-thru dots on the sticker itself where there is no foil.)  This laser etching is done during production and affects only the foil - the plastic is intact over the lettering.  (Gold stickers will have the gold tint remaining on the transparent part, since the gold is done with a color layer over top of silver-colored foil)

A $500 commitment (plus shipping costs) will get you at least 1600 stickers, but most likely 2500 stickers (if you choose 1" or smaller), assuming this deal goes through.  Casascius Coins use a 1" round sticker, just for reference sake.

Plan on a percentage of the stickers being "bad" - up to 10% (just being conservative, it's really much less if you're careful).  They aren't bad, but the tamper sensitivity on these is so damn good that you'll regularly ruin a few without trying.  This is a feature!  They would gladly oblige if we asked them to reduce the tamper sensitivity, but having it hair-trigger-sensitive means a more secure product.  Anyone ever successfully gotten one off a Casascius Coin intact yet?  I didn't think so. =) Small price to pay for something that works right.

Those are beautiful. I wish I'd have a use for them.

Hi Casascius, how will we be able to get private and public keys onto the hologram? Is that going to require that we have our own laser-engraving equipment?

It looks like if you had your own laser etcher that matched what the printing company does (and if it can be done to the final product and not exclusively as a mid-production step), you would be making the area transparent, not printing on it. Not good for private keys.

So essentially, I'd be able to send people a public key, and they would imbed the private key on their own?

You can stick the tamper-evident hologram wherever you want, but the way it works on Casascius' coins is that top of the hologram is inkjet printed the "firstbits" of the address (so you can look up the balance), and underneath the hologram (inside the coin) is a little card with the mini-private key for that address. To digitally redeem the money in the address, you must remove the tamper-evident hologram to get to the private key.

For example on Casascius Coins, the private key is on a piece of paper that faces into the coin.  The hologram simply indicates that the paper hasn't been accessed.

You won't put private keys on the hologram, you would use them to cover a private key.

As it turns out, I actually do own a laser engraving machine.  But I am not lasering the holograms, the factory is.  I am pretty sure they laser the foil layer before it gets attached to the plastic layer of the sticker.  The foil presumably requires a much higher temperature to vaporize that the plastic would never withstand.  Where they mark at the factory, you see a complete absence of foil with no side effects to the plastic.

I have experimented with my machine... if I laser the stickers, I melt the plastic and create a sort of glittery effect as the plastic and the foil sort of melt together.  There is no feasible way for me to have any effect on the foil without having a much greater effect on the plastic.

My laser equipment is particularly handy for cutting pages of private keys into little circles that precisely fit the hollowed out portion of the coin that holds them.  But a good oversize hole punch would do the same thing (and worked for me before I got the laser machine).  I suppose with a hole punch, you play a guessing game on getting a perfect fit, where with the laser, I can cut any size I want.  (That is why, for example, I now put 30 characters in my coins instead of 22 - more precision means more usable printing room.)

If you're doing a coin like mine, you would generate your own keypairs, sell the coins, and load the value yourself (by sending BTC to the bitcoin address you generated).  Assuming you properly destroy your copy of the private key, the value stays entirely within the coin until someone peels the hologram and is able to re-import the private key into a wallet.

Series 2 has a small transparent window so you can see the "firstbits" on the same piece of paper that the private key is printed on.  This completely cuts out the small possibility that the wrong private key gets put into a coin (e.g. one that does not correspond to the firstbits on the outside).  A small detail, but if someone were to use their coin as a bitcoin wallet and when they went to redeem their balance it contained the wrong private key, their loss would be catastrophic and unacceptable.

Windows will be available on these stickers (it's just factory lasering, just like text).

I actually have no qualms about other people creating Casascius Coins just like mine, as long as they don't say Casascius on them.  I would be willing to sell my token blanks for that purpose.

The transparent part should be put in a region where the private key won't be visible.  On the bottom edge, for example (if doing a rectangle).  The purpose of this etching is to distinguish your holograms from somebody else in the same order.  So MyBitcoinMint's holograms are distinct from PrintCoins.com for example.

It seems if you are doing a group buy, you MUST only do it if you laser the purchaser and/or unique BTC amounts in the perimeter of all holos. Otherwise I would be able to buy JoeBob's 5BTC coins, get the private keys out of the currency, and re-label them with my identical but un-identifiable group-buy holograms.

Sorry, I did not get it. The purpose of holograms is to prove (or at least indicate), that the thing is genuine. How will this work if anyone can order the same hologram from this combined order?

Because you can't order the same hologram that is factory-printed with somebody else's name, nor can you reproduce the unique transparent printing the way it is done at the factory.

Yes - having a lasered name on all holograms would be necessary and is intended.

Lasering the amount is optional and is up to the purchaser.  I lasered the amount in mine because I could do so at no extra charge (I was already lasering a window) but doesn't serve any urgent need.  I did it so that I could offer gold-plated bricks where I add the denomination after the fact by selecting the right sticker, while minimizing the opportunity for an attacker to add a bogus denomination himself.

Let me know as soon as we are ready to place the order, Casascius.

I need $3000 in commitment - refundable up until the time I place the order.  As soon as I have at least $3k in commitment, it's a green light and the order will be placed right away.

To place your commitment, make a bogus order on my physical bitcoin website (submit real contact info, an empty shopping cart with nothing but shipping), put in the notes it's for a hologram deposit, ignore the total, and use the BTC equivalent of your commitment at the moment of payment (in multiples of 500 USD).  Your commitment is in USD, so if not enough commitment to place the order and refund is made, it will be converted back to BTC at the exchange rate at the time of refund.

After production, I will ask for a second payment to cover actual cost of shipping.  (they are not heavy, shipping will be reasonable)

Also specify:
- text to laser on your stickers and where
- round or square?
- size?  (affects yield... pick any size you want, you'll get 2500 stickers if using either of the sizes in the sample)
- gold or silver?
- window? (like series2 casascius coin)

All lots of $500 have to be identical.  So if you want two styles, commit to two lots.

If you want to make Casascius Coins, you'll probably want a 3/8" circle hole punch to cut private keys out of a page.  I searched high and low to find this size.  M.C.Mieth Manufacturing has one.

Status: $500 commitment received and paid, $2500 to go!

Be aware there is a 4-6 week lead time on production (since, as new artwork, it requires a new hologram master shim to be created), I'm basing this on my prior experience.  This 4-6 weeks starts when I pull the trigger on the order.

Update: 2 shares confirmed paid.  2 more shares I believe are paid for (I am accepting USD, just pending confirmation of payment).

Also, if I can get 8 shares worth of commitment ($4000), I can bump the order up a bit, and in the process, everybody can get 25% worth of yield added to their order at no extra cost (so, everyone expecting 2,500 holograms would get 3,125 instead).  The response has been good - from the looks of it, this might actually happen!

By the way, I have been thinking about how you guys will generate private keys if you are making Casascius Coins.

I would offer pre-printed private keys, but I don't want there to be any chance where there is any ambiguity as to whether or not I have kept a copy of them.  It doesn't bother me for my own coins - since if there any compromises, there's no doubt the blame is on me.  But I wouldn't be comfortable with a scenario where if I sold private keys to someone and they were compromised by the buyer, that 50% of the suspicion would be upon me.

So... here's a random proposal.  I offer to sell full service private key generation at a cost of 5 to 15 cents per private key (depending on the quantity, but should be in the thousands or tens-of-thousands).

This would be on the condition that someone come here to Salt Lake City and spend a whole day here and assist with and witness the production of the key circles from start to finish, and be willing to swear a notarized statement that they supervised the whole run and that there's no chance I kept your keys.  The service would include laser cutting to absolutely any size of your choice - a task that is a pain in the ass if you have to do tens of thousands of them by hand with a hole punch.  I would also personally verify that there existed no more than one copy of each key, and that they all properly corresponded from front to back.

We'd begin by formatting a brand new computer (a bare motherboard plugged into a monitor and hard drive) to generate the keys offline, and in the end, we'd zero the drive, and/or physically disassemble and destroy the hard drive.  Full source to the key generator would be compiled on the spot, you'll keep a copy of the source.

Any interest in this?  What does a short trip to Salt Lake City weigh, in comparison to the prospect of generating your own private keys and the concern for accuracy?

I am hugely interested.

I am positively interested and hereby commit 500 USD per your proposal. Thanks for this initiative.

See message #16 in this thread for instructions - to accept a commitment, I need an actual payment in BTC equivalent as of the moment you sent the payment.  Thanks.

Those holograms are GORGEOUS!!

Update: Deposits received for 3 shares.

Also, now that BTC price has come up a bit, I am thinking of placing an order for 0.5 BTC coins.  These would be the same as 1 BTC coins, but slightly smaller diameter (but still big enough to take a 1-inch hologram).  Any interest?  Those would take several weeks to produce as well.

Any more shares in sight ?
How can we help get this order off the ground ?

I am trying to convince my business partner to go in with me on one or two shares. Don't think this pushes us over the $3,000 minimum, though, but it's much closer.

lol, I was on the forum index, and I thought this said "Bitcoin Security Hole."  That was scary :)

I emailed Tony at Bit-pay who mentioned he was pretty sure he wanted a couple shares.

I only need 3 more shares to get the minimum to start the order.

We are about to lauch the cards: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64980.msg762894#msg762894 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64980.msg762894#msg762894)

Have you heard from the others ? Could'nt we just have the current order shares increased so we get the order started?
If that's not possible, I am afraid we will have to drop out and source the stickers elsewhere as we cannot wait much longer than beginning of March.

That is pretty awesome.

nice

bump.

I've only committed to 1 share - but will go in for more if we're close.

How do you print the public key on the sticker?
Can each sticker be customized as to guarantee the customer where it came from?

For example, Let's say I made my own paper currency and used these stickers to secure the private keys.
Then my currency takes off because everyone trust that I, the issuer, is honest and will not still still
any bit coins; however, the con on the internet sees an opportunity to steal some coins and duplicates my stickers and currency.

Do these holographic stickers have a solution to this?
Maybe the only way is to spend the money to buy my very own stickers like casascius did.

I am interested to put $500 dollars towards the project to help get it off the ground.

My understanding is that there is a windowed section in the sticker so the public key can show through.
(lasered in at the same time as your custom text I think ?)

I have refunded 2 of the shares just due to the length of time it's taking.  But 1 of them is still "soft committed" meaning if I hit him up, he says he would probably go for it.

Anyone who wants to make a $500 commitment is welcome to.  I promise to refund it upon request at any time up until the point I pull the trigger on an order.  Ironically, the refunds I gave, received more BTC in the refund than they paid in the first place, due to my insistence that I am accounting for the payment in dollars =)

TO answer your questions:  The public key is not printed on the sticker.  Instead the sticker has a transparent window.  You put the sticker so the firstbits are visible through the window.  All of the stickers are laser-branded with your name at the factory.

I would be willing to bet that it's actually more economical to make coins with holograms than paper currency.  This is simply because on paper, you have to hologram the front and the back, in other words, use 2 holograms.  And you have to use a somewhat big hologram to cover a QR code while keeping it peelable (costs more - cost is directly proportional to surface area).  If you got to use 2 of them on paper, and only 1 of them on a coin, and the hologram costs as much as a coin... then you're actually ahead making coins.

You are more than welcome to look for your own stickers.  That's what one of the guys did whom I refunded (though he had a different application - prepaid cards - so he was able to kill a couple extra birds with one stone by doing so).

That's true, it is testimony to your fairness Mike. And also to the fact that bitcoin exchange rate is still volatile  ;)

Question: can the stickers be serial numbered (with a range of sequential numbers) for the same price ?

Is this offer still good?

How many commitments are lacking for the deal to go through?

thanks.

I am not trying to aggregate any orders anymore, but if someone had a serious interest in committing enough resources to do the whole thing, and were willing to push it forward assuming nobody else was going in on it, I'm sure it would be easy to revive.  That artwork design is surely sitting somewhere, and for someone willing to fund the whole thing, could have new artwork more personalized to them.

I suppose the fact that I've released the paper circle generator as open-source is a game changer...

I want 500, about how much would it cost?

I haven't prodded the manufacturer for any update, but I can't imagine that if I were to revisit it with the manufacturer, that it would be a whole lot different.

Now that I'm clearly willing to release a utility to generate private key circles, and nobody has to wonder if they'll be able to generate them on their own, this has a serious chance of passing this time around.  Should I start taking up a collection?

Is there a solution where anyone can get a batch of stickers at any time in any quantity?
If we could overcome this, I would be willing to fund much more.

How much does the manufacturing charge for repeat orders? Is it the same?

Here's an Idea: You put your name at the top so everyone knows you are the sole owner of the artwork and are the only one that can purchase them from the manufacture.
Have a window in the Middle.
Randomly serialize all stickers at the bottom.

When someone orders stickers. You make a document that you publicly sign stating the serial numbers purchased and to whom.
You also take precautions that the no one tries to impersonate a previous customer.

something a long those lines. I'm sure I'm missing some details not sure if any of them are deal killers.

Would appreciate your thoughts.

I do not think casascius likes the idea of other people having his exact same sticker. so that when someone sees his hologram they know it comes from him.
the art work would be changed slightly for each batch of stickers.  ex. mine would might say "Canadian Casascius".

I am also interested in this. Stickers can be made with the same hologram, but with individual overlays.

Someone creating their own physical bitcoin and using the name "Casascius" would probably be viewed as a counterfeiter or impersonator by the community.  The name Casascius essentially means "Mike Caldwell", more so than "physical bitcoin".  That also doesn't take into consideration how I'd respond to it, but I'm not going to bother going there because I don't think anyone seriously plans to attempt a "legit" physical bitcoin product using my name.  It's been hard enough convincing others to start one using their own name.  I also happen to have been born in Alberta, so the real Casascius is already "Canadian"...

but the coins themselves are casascius design, that's why i would like to get casascius on the hologram.

That's something I won't consent to.

That matters for the same reason I can't call up and order my own holograms that say "Official NFL Licensed Merchandise".

that's fine. the hologram will work just as good as long as its custom.

just wish i could get some kind of license to manufacture original casascius coins  :D

I think I'm going to back out.

I shouldn't of bought so many blank coins, i wanted to use them as a way to sell bitcoins on ebay and be protected with the fact the i could prove i shipped something. this turned out to be a bad idea.  :P

I'll use my coins as a way to help people understand how bitcoins public / private keys work, their bitcoin will be safe without the hologram anyway.

of course i will continue to offer them with free shipping world wide for BTC or cash for local pick up in Montreal, see the thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126834.0

I will add pics of the back of the coin, to make it clear their is no hologram on the back, but simply a clear sticker.

Thanks

It's actually a great idea, it's just best if it doesn't come with a confusion as to who has seen the private keys.  A custom hologram of any kind means you've put some thought and effort into producing your coins and gives you credibility of any kind, which doesn't depend on using my name.  The name "casascius" on a physical bitcoin means that nobody but me has seen the private key, a distinction that is lost if I say go ahead and make holograms with my name.  If someone created "billybob" holograms, they'd serve exactly the same purpose... the name "casascius" is nothing more than a word I simply made up.

On the other hand, I deliberately left my name off the front side of the coin specifically so the coin design could be used by others to make their own coins.

I just used your name as an example. I'm considering funding a holographic sticker and putting my name on it.
I want people to look at it and say "Allten Made it, but he didn't put it to use".
Then I could create a publicly signed database where anyone could verify the true owner of a range of serial numbers on the holographic stickers.

How hard would serial numbers be to forge? I guess that could be the deal breaker for me.
Would there be any other solutions?

I can understand how this idea would cause problems with your name as you've already established yourself.

My guess:

A couple hundred bucks would get you a generic design which is overprinted with your own name and sequential numbering.  In other words, someone has already mass-produced the generic hologram and they are simply running it through a printing press to add a layer of ink on top.  The only words in the holography are "genuine" "original" etc.  Somebody is already selling this sort of thing on eBay right now, and is still far better than no customization.

A few thousand bucks would get you a custom design with your name and custom art in the holography itself.  You would probably be able to get serial numbering that was an actual burn-through of the holographic material, the same thing that puts a window in my holograms.

What is the best way to get started? You have been through this rodeo already.
What holographic company did you use? I would like to ask them some more questions.

Thanks in advance

Polylabel - Ontario, Canada

Well, they weren't very helpful. Looks like the only option is order a large batch of custom stickers and make subsets of them unique
by my self.

You had mentioned that you had a laser engraver and had attempted to etch text or something to that effect on the stickers.
How successful could this be in making a small batch of stickers unique?

Could it be done with a more expensive high quality laser?

They are able to do "serial numbering" from a file.  This puts it in perspective.  Instead of saying "can you customize my labels", ask for serial numbering, and tell them you'll be submitting a file that contains (for example) Text A repeated 2000 times, Text B repeated 2000 times, etc...  This way, the expectations are clear: you aren't actually asking for any customization to the holographic shim itself.

I do have a laser engraver, and it can etch text.  Theirs is better for security.  When they "serial number" a label, the characters are a transparency in the holographic material, making it see-thru, something that can only be done during the manufacturing process.

When I laser-engrave a label, it makes tiny melts to the plastic, causing the holographic material to fuse with the plastic.  Wherever my laser hits, it turns the hologram material into something resembling highly reflective gold paint after it's dried.  It completely loses its holographic properties, while gaining a neat-looking brilliance all its own (but looks very different from their transparent serial numbering).

If you were looking to considering entry level equipment for lasering a label... just for reference sake, my laser is a 40 watt CO2 laser, though that's WAY more power than is necessary for this purpose, I turn the power way down if I use it for marking my labels.  Anything more than about 10-15% power will completely slice right through the label, even at the maximum speed (higher speed = shorter exposure per pixel).

Ok, I read back through all the posts in this thread and found this comment

"As it turns out, I actually do own a laser engraving machine.  But I am not lasering the holograms, the factory is.  I am pretty sure they laser the foil layer before it gets attached to the plastic layer of the sticker.  The foil presumably requires a much higher temperature to vaporize that the plastic would never withstand.  Where they mark at the factory, you see a complete absence of foil with no side effects to the plastic."

I sent another email to the manufacture to see if there was any other method to make better post engravings with laser equipment. probably not, but we'll see.

Would you be willing to post a picture of what it looks like when you do it with your laser equipment?
Even though it isn't as nice I may still be interested.
How does it look if you etch from the bottom of the sticker? Willing to give it a try?

Sorry, I can be stubbornly persistent. I would really like anyone and everyone to have access to this.

Thanks,
   Allten

Just do a google image search for "casascius" and look at the text on the 1000 BTC bar and the gold coin.

It actually looks really good. Just less secure because anyone could laser the surface, can't ablate the foil.

Lasering the back would be really cumbersome and difficult. And I expect the same results. Co2 infrared laser will not ablate metal foil without also melting the plastic.

I Found pics with laser etching on the bar, but not on the holographic sticker itself. Maybe that is what you referring too.

Can both the plastic and metal foil be precisely cut? That way, when it is removed from the wax paper for application, the cut portion stays behind.

They can already cut circles.

The laser can cut the material easily but the edge becomes rough. Just have them cut it.

Quite honestly, I use my laser machine on the stickers themselves as little as possible because it is time consuming. Only for marking the gold coin and the 2 factor bars. Look at how I have these items priced as a result.

(Of course, I also use it for cutting out private key circles, which is WAY easier than hole punching when it is thousands at a time, and also allows an exact fit)

You are correct that they laser the foil before adding other layers.  I've actually spoken to a few companies about producing custom holograms for Bitcoin bills.  They requested a similar figure for my own custom design.  My original idea was to have the private key as a QR code on each hologram, but no one had the ability to do custom holograms for each one without paying an insane amount for the order due to each needing a custom foil created.  The idea from them was suggested to have QR codes printed on each hologram though.

Got it. Laser idea is officially canned. Thanks for humoring my questions.

Next set a questions. I'll try to put them all in this post to avoid stringing them along.

1)Why did you choose a $500 dollar commitment price?
I'm assuming it is because of the added hassle to keep track of those who are committed, partially committed, and those that are pulling out after committing.
It could be a real hassle.

2) How do larger orders effect the price/sticker? Can you provide a quotes for different ranges?
Re-reading the original post, it sounds like the minimum payment is $3000 dollars for 9600 sticker (Large ones).
That is about  32 cents a sticker.
You had made the following comment

"Also, if I can get 8 shares worth of commitment ($4000), I can bump the order up a bit, and in the process, everybody can get 25% worth of yield added to their order at no extra cost (so, everyone expecting 2,500 holograms would get 3,125 instead).  The response has been good - from the looks of it, this might actually happen!"

I'm just curious where the break points are for even larger orders

3)If there is a repeat order, what are the quotes? Is it the same?
It seems there was a fee for the initial setup, if this is true, I'm curious on the minimum costs to make a repeat order.

Thanks again. I only ask because I'm seriously considering committing enough to make this happen.
However, I'm also interested in understanding what it would take to make it happen a second, and even third time.

It's mainly for sufficient granularity for my order.  This is an order to a factory.  Saying "I want to place 1 order but have it in 6 variations all in equal quantity" is sensible.  Sending them a laundry list of little arbitrarily-sized orders will cause them to treat it as a bunch of little orders, best addressed to a retailer rather than a factory.


Please read the thread from the beginning.  Let me point out the following

1. There is no offer anymore, it was retracted more than six months prior to your post asking these questions.  The notion of whether I could continue to provide quotes relative to it anymore isn't sensible.
2. This is an offer to combine small orders into one larger order with a factory.  I am not the factory.  Think of me much like the person splitting the tab at a bar, putting the whole tab on my credit card while you pay me your share in cash.  I'm still a patron just like you, I don't become the bartender.  I'm splitting a bill given to me by someone else.  Therefore I cannot issue quotes, give discounts, or make proposals for repeat orders.
3. There is no "quantity discount" - the purpose of my original offer was to provide access to holograms below the minimum quantity for a factory order.  Consider the similarity to asking Costco if they have a quantity discount on 10 cans of Sprite from their soda machine while unaware of the fact that they sell 36 packs of Sprite inside the store.  If you are interested in a large enough quantity to merit a discount, what I was offering wouldn't benefit you - consider contacting companies directly and placing your own order, which comes with the highly valuable flexibility of having your name directly embedded in the holography, rather than zapped on as an afterthought.

Thanks.

Hey there mike,
I have ordered the blanks from  you a few weeks ago, I'm very happy with these.
I looked up the hologram sticker,  I found the place poly.. in Ontario Canada
I like the posts you mentioned coming out to salt lake city, UT  and witness the process and verify.. im interested if this is still possible..
 I kno they cracked down on u selling the loaded coins.. but we don't want to do it like that.
if your interested in this
please  contact me back.
thank you
JJ