Bitcoin Forum

Check it out, after months of effort I'm proud to announce I've released my new bitcoin product: Bitbills!

www.bitbills.com
 (http://www.bitbills.com)
Bitbills are the first physical incarnation of bitcoins, and I'm selling them starting now! Let me know what you guys think, and if you have any questions or comments!

WOW! Quite a nice job taken by the pictures.

Me and Atlas were talking about it some time ago in the forum but I'd never expect to see them to come real so soon.
Here is the sample I used to show Atlas my idea (based on his ideas):

http://www.bityacht.com/Atlas.jpg

Congrats.

Nice Job on the BitBills.
Freaking Awesome!

Quite cool! Congratulations.

It's a nice geek gift card this one. :)

Suggestion: upload videos showing how to redeem a card, as well as how to verify authenticity.

Sweet, good luck!  :)

Cheers,

This is amazing man! Congratulations!

This is awesome.

Im no longer going to use an online wallet to store coins Im using these. There is just something visceral about holding a physical representation:)

That's pretty neat.

If I understand that well, it means that you hide a code behind a sticker. With the code, you can get the bitcoins on your virtual wallet.

So, my questions are:

1) How do you guarantee the holder of the card that the coins are still available? Currently, we have to trust you (the emitter) *and* the fact that the sticker has not been removed, which looks a bit gross (it shouldn't be that hard to replace a sticker with another one).

2) How could the user be sure that the card was emitted by you? I mean, I could print a bunch of cards with QR code and stickers, sell them for 1 or 5btc. The holder will exchange them and a the time someone try to cash them, nobody will be able to trace the card to me.


The idea is interesting but could you elaborate on those two points?

Very good!

Congratulations!

L.

Well, you can always look the block chain too. If the money remains in the address, you should see at block explorer for example. But yeah, on offline transactions, you have to trust it's not a fake card.


I think he expects the holograms to be enough for it. And, well, it's pretty much the same thing for state money bills...

Good questions. I've grouped the security concerns into three classes: Counterfeiting, tampering, and source-trust.

Source-trust means that you have to trust me, and I haven't thought of a good way around that. I promise that I put the bitcoins on the cards, delete the private keys, and use a secured manufacturing process. My hope is that as people begin buying, using, and redeeming Bitbills, they will form a trusting relationship with me the same way you might have a trusting relationship with MtGox and other companies.

Counterfeiting is the problem of others copying our cards and passing them off as real (presumably without even including the private key). Our cards are fundamentally hard to manufacture. When handling Bitbills, always check that the design matches the one shown on our website to make sure it's an authentic card. We use holograms that are very difficult to replicate. As our business grows, we plan to implement more and more security features.

Tampering is the problem of people extracting the private key without it being visible. We put the private key actually inside of the layers of plastic, so it's not just a simple matter of carefully peeling off a sticker or anything. The hologram is directly on top of the private key, also within the plastic. Even if it is somehow covertly extracted (once you see one of these, you'll see just how impossible that seems), the hologram destructs when removed.

We're working hard to make sure Bitbills are as sound as bitcoins themselves (if not better, since they clear instantly). But remember, like all the best stuff, they are BETA ;)

Good, those are indeed the 3 main aspects I foresee.


Let assume that for granted for now


If you were able to produce those cards yourself, do you think it would be hard for anybody to produce the same? I don't think you invested thousands and thousands of money in that process. So, as long as you can do it, other people can. They only have to be able to do it for a value of less than the facial value.

Also, introducing new security features that cannot be copied (looks hard) is worthless if you already have cards in circulation. People will simply use those cards.


Let's take that for granted. After all, lotteries are doing that everyday.



I hope I don't sound to harsh. I'm trying to be constructive. All I know is that I would gladly accept to be paid in BTC for anything but I'm still unsure about accepting a card like yours.

By the way: what is your business model? How would you gain money from a 5BTC card that I buy 5BTC (presumably?). (I see one potential business: selling to an higher rate against dollars but I don't know which is yours).

This is awesome, but seems a bit crude, too much work to get the actual coins out and way to thick to fit many in a wallet. How about bills like lottery tickets, when one has to scratch off the top layer? I imagine those would be cheaper to make also?

I'm as skeptical as anyone about the security/trust issue involved (double-spend card attacks indeed) - but I think you've done great work so far, really impressive. Look forward to seeing future use/enhancements.

Isn't the tampering issue taken care of with the QR code on the back that allows you to check the bitcoin address's balance?  If there's no balance, don't accept it...

Regarding counterfeiting...  I'm not sure if this already happens, but if not, it should.  The balance should be checked THROUGH the official BitBills website.  If BitBills did not produce the bitcoin address on the card, it should be shown as an invalid/counterfeit card.  If BitBills DID produce the bitcoin address on the card, then it should validate the address and show you the balance.  Cards should be invalidated once ANY transaction is made from the address, as that means that the private key has been revealed to someone.

Looks very cool.

A couple thoughts.

Checking the balance doesn't mean much since anyone clever will wait until after the sale to move the coins and you won't be rushing out to destroy the bill normally.

Even if it is virtually impossible to make a bill that could fool you, it won't be nearly as hard to fool someone who hasn't handled them themselves. This is more of a problem in the beginning, but it could recur as you change the design.

The prices seem reasonable. Will they get even lower if you can scale up? Do you figure people will trade them at face value or retail? Smaller denominations coming soon? :)

Good point about the balance checking.  However, if the card hasn't been destroyed, how would the person obtain the private key?

The only way I see a scam working is if someone made an exact replica of an existing card with the same bitcoin address, destroyed the real one to get the private key, then sold the fake one before transacting the bitcoins out of the account.  That's a lot of work to go through for ~$35 max.

Are you concerned about the legal ramifications of this?  It seems the one reason Liberty Dollar got in trouble was ""Liberty Dollars" are meant to compete with the circulating coinage (currency) of the United States and such competition consequently is a criminal act.[15] "  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar

Liberty Dollars were coins and did have some reasonableness to actual currency, which was part of the problem.  However we can debate on the forums all day about the differences but at the end of the day the feds might see this as competing currency.  

On the other hand are they more of a gift card / pre-paid visa card?  These are obviously legal.  

I don't know... If I've to point something at this project would be the due to paper money to be outdated.
However there's a "visceral need" of many people to can "hold currency", it's a "mental thing". So let everybody be happy

Good job!  Now if these could be ordered and paid with Credit Card...  (Only for fixed amounts, subject to availability, extra fees apply)  that would be awesome!

Which leads me to wonder (tangentially), What are those organizations accepting Bitcoin donations planning to do with them?  Sit on them or cash them out?  If they really wanted cash and accept Bitcoin for anonymity (or because its cool) then it seems they have a problem some enterprising businessman could solve.  Seems it would be a nice, wholesome source of Bitcoins (for those not running an exchange) that wish to sell them...    Classic win-win.

Credit cards would introduce way more complexity to the service and condemn llama to waste his time with cc fraud.

I also want to say that this is one of the most awesome bitcoin projects ever. Watch out for arbitrary rulings against you by the US government or some other government.

This is awesome!  Ordering some as soon as I get home.

:D Ordering as soon as I can!

This is so cool, I'm ordering one of each right now!

I only wish you didn't use MyBitcoin. I've had payments eaten by their service before when my transaction did not get broadcast before the payment address was reused. So I'm transferring the amount to MyBitcoin and then paying directly with my account. :(

Ah, you beat me to it!  :)  I was going to do something like this, but I was waiting for my semester to end before I threw any real resources at it.

Do you maintain any record of the private keys on the cards you issue? I really hope the answer is no---I'm not worried about you stealing, but I am worried about you being stolen from. (EDIT: I see you answered this, sorry!) If the card has the only copy of the key, bitbills ought to be as secure as Bitcoin itself.

Another question: are you interested in enlisting local distributors? If I can't be the Bank of Bitcoin, being its first employee might be nice.

Great idea. I just ordered some cards.
As a guarantee of the security of your cards, will you, at some point in time, compensate for bitcoins that were withdrawn from addresses of cards that were not tampered with? :-)

I would definitely be interested in this as well, or perhaps just ordering in bulk. One idea I had was to use the 1 BTC cards as a tip for delivery drivers and such.

That's actually a fantastic idea. Although the bitbills should contain information on the back telling the holder where they can check the exchange rate in their local currency and where to get where information on how to redeem. From there, these can be used as a form of soft payment and as a marketing tool.

Looks like a visa card to me. I see no difference between this and the gift cards I see hanging at the post office.

Would be interesting if you got some cardstock and made an actual birthday card and laminated them so youd need to cut the plastic open to get at the bitcoins. Good way to send bitcoins to your mum.
 
Another idea - bitcoin easter eggs with a usb key inside a chocolate egg. To get to it you have to eat the egg.  :D

I just placed an order and everything went fine, but you'll probably save yourself a lot of email busy work if you (1) email out a confirmation that the deal happened, and (2) Provide an order status page.

In the exceedingly rare case that you open a card and find that it does not have value (or you find a counterfeit), PLEASE let me know; I'd like you to send it to me for investigation. If I believe you (and I probably will), I will reimburse you the value of the card. Also, I have a 50 btc reward out if anybody can demonstrate a method for surreptitiously accessing the private key.


I'm considering writing custom payment processing. An order status page / confirmation system is also in the works.
After production scales in the next week or so, I'll begin talking to people who are interested in buying in bulk, selling on commission, reselling, etc. In the slightly longer term, there are also some new products in the works!

UPATE ON SHIPPING:
Thanks to everyone who bought cards. I'm on track to mail the cards out WEDNESDAY. Sorry for the brief delay. Once production scales, cards will be sent more promptly. I'll definitely keep you all updated on your order status!

Brilliant idea. One question, how durable is the hologram? Is there any possibility of it being accidentally rubbed off during the course of normal circulation?

Anyone who trys to fake one of these cards in the US is subject to a Felony  :o

I'm no Lawyer, but thats what I gather from US code TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 25 > §482-§483

Source (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00000482----000-.html)

The holograms are durable to begin with, and then they're embedded in the plastic, so there's very little concern about them coming off with wear. In our testing, the biggest mode of failure has been cracking of the plastic. We've decided to use a higher-grade plastic that should eliminate this problem.

As a result of the plastic upgrade, the first cards should be in the mail Thursday.

But from what I have gathered is that bitcoins can not be a currency and is rather a digital good.
That would make these cards a physical representation of a digital good and thereby not a bank note.

Paypal and Apple seem to think bitcoin is a currency. If you think the US gov wont call it that you are dreaming.

I'm pretty sure the US Govt. is going to fall on the side of Paypal with the whole e-currency. I'm still looking for US laws/code regarding e-currency.

Ok, yes it truly is a currency but the problem is the fact that the law as current puts bitcoins as more of a security than a currency but it could truly be considered a curency. However, the govermen is more likely go after the bitcoin network than someone counterfitting bitcoins.

On another note, I truly fail at judging the market. I felt like the biggest obstacle for me to do something like this was the cost, and was trying to figure out how to keep fees below something like 2% of face value, and now this guy is selling a 1 BTC card for 1.30.

On the other hand, maybe this just means there's still room for competition!

Really nice idea.
Hopefully the first 'round' goes well.
I'd really like to see some form of acceptable 'physical' representation of bitcoins.
I like the idea of a 'note' with a redeemable address.
Very impressive.
Ill probably be buying some on the second wave.

I don't think this idea is sustainable in the long run. It seems kind of wasteful to produce a physical one time use product like this.

Can't it be used over and over again until someone finally decides to convert it back to BTC? These could be traded around a bunch of times and always store their value until the final owner decides to upload the money.

Exactly. And for this reason, even a counterfeit card could pass through hundreds or thousands of hands before being discovered as a fake (when someone decides to import it).

Yep...  :\

My prediction is that at first, people will probably redeem them soon after receiving them. Once Bitcoin becomes more widely known, this or something like it could become more widely traded, I think.

It also has the perverse outcome of removing bitcoins from the economy in case they are lost or destroyed, which is easily mitigated in the digital form by the current ability to easily back up and make copies of wallet files.

Well here's a crazy idea that even I wouldn't like... bitbills.com could somehow backup the wallets they put onto the cards.

Put an expiration date on the card, say 10 years into the future.

If the card hasn't been imported by that date, bitbills.com can spend those coins.

I think that completely physical bitcoin tokens will comprise an insignificant portion of the 2,100,000,000,000,000 total base units (satoshis).

You should contact the bitcoinlabs.com guys. They are building an ATM for BTC. As I understood it they wanted it to give out USD at current exchange rate, but it giving out BitBills would be way cooler.

I think that would work.


I agree with this, this way people won't camp near the ATM waiting for a good exchange rate.

There's nothing so perverse in that. Only the fact that the guy who loses it will be distributing part of his wealth to all other bitcoin holders. He has a strong interest not to lose the card.

Two questions.)

1.) Would you consider a private branding issue of these?

 e.g., some generic white label or perhaps with custom private branding instead?

2.) When I grab a prepaid card at the grocery store there are no funds on it until the cashier processes it through the point of sale.  If these private branded versions were resold, it would be ideal if the cards had no value until sold.

That would make the backup location (and the creators if they know a needed password) a target pretty fast since you could score all the unclaimed bitbills face value in circulation at once.

I am interested in purchasing these cards... Can I Buy a few of them, 'unloaded,' once I have confirmed that they have arrived safely and are untamed with. You send the coins to the addresses contained?

(Shipping to Aus)

That's probably the safest way to sell them, actually.

Oh, yeah... and you could have unmarked bills. You could increase the value of them as needed and check the balance anytime. Might be more reasonable to pay .3BTC for an unmarked card than a 1BTC card. Of course all of these cards can already be increased, but people might look at you funny (okay funnier) when you insist that the 1BTC card is worth 45BTC.

I think the "use case" bitbills is trying to address is offline transactions, there the importance of the "face value".

You people forget that the public key is visible. Therefore you cannot invalidate the card because you can look up the bitcoin address on blockexplorer.com to see if it has the funds in that the card claims.

Once someone decides to crack open the card, they'll be the first to spend them.

BitBills should include some kind of serial code / id number which can be used to verify it on their website. That way you can verify that the card actually came from them. Maybe they could sell POS scanners that verify the tokens when swiped.

Sure, but there is a place for one-sided-web-access-only transactions. I'm not talking about getting rid of the denominated cards, just another possibility.

I think it would be pretty good since you could end up not destroying bills until they got large so the cost would be small as a %.

Very cool, you can even store more of your bitcoins in the bitbill address.
But I think paying directly with them isn't very secure.
Here's an attack:

1) I purchase a bitbill.
2) I put out the stick and scan the private key.
3) I put back the stick
4) I pay with the billbit. When the merchant verifies the bitbill, your server says. "Yes, the 20 btc are still there".
5) I use the private key to extract the bitcoins

Maybe the sticks are so special that make 3 impossible, but I don't think so.
Anyway, It will work great for gift cards and physical storing.
A bitcoin client that imports private keys from IQ-codes would be useful.

Cool idea and a splendid realization! I've just ordered a few cards of each and hope to get my hands on these "real" Bitcoins soon 8)

Very cool project ... can go in many tangents .. more heads to hydra .... :D

If we trust llama that he has destroyed any digital/electronic representation of the private key and the only place in the universe that it exists is inside that card then it is ready-made physical back-up as you would ever want to store large amounts of BTC. Just keep sending them to that public address on the card ... oh and remember not to give someone a BTC1 card that has BTC 10,000 loaded up on it!

From the FAQ;

"After each card has been produced and proven functional, we delete all records of the private key. This means that once the card leaves our hands, we can no longer access the associated bitcoins (be aware, this means we also can't help if you lose or destroy your card). Keypairs are generated on an offline computer that runs off of a flash drive which we will occasionally destroy in spectacular fashion."

I mean if he is doing all this to physically secure those private keys who can be bothered doing this themselves? It is another little niche market, providing secure, physical private keys that are not part of the electronic network and never have been (thus not possible to be subject to electronic tampering). Addresses associated with private keys secured like this are very useful as savings accounts. Good anonymity initially too.

Problem is, a counterfeit operation could just add the same serial number to a card with the same public key.  So they print everything on the exterior the same, but the private key inside is invalid.  They could keep the real card and maintain the balance in the account so anyone checking the balance could see that it has a balance, but they can't actually access the balance because the private key inside of the card is fake.

The private key can only be accessed by destroying the card.  It is literally hidden between layers of plastic.  A hologram must be destroyed, and the card has to be cut apart in order to access it.  At least, that's how I understand it.

Another idea: If you're going to continue creating small batches at a time, perhaps you should offer them via a second item auction (what eBay calls a "Dutch auction"). Set a minimum bid of face value, of course, or maybe even face value plus cost. It will maximize your profit and get these cards to the people who want them the most, meaning the people most likely to do something interesting with them.

I love the idea of buying a card and using it as a long-term "savings account". In fact, maybe BitBills should offer "savings cards" with no face value at all, for precisely that purpose! (Otherwise there's the small risk that the card will get mixed in with the rest of my money and I'll accidentally spend it for its face value.)

I can counterfeit this by printing the public key, no?

Yes kiba.

Ok, so even if the card must be destroyed in a way that cannot be repaired to extract the private key, the bills can be counterfeited: they're not secure for trading.
The storing and gift uses are secure and I think you will sell a lot of them.

Wouldn't it be pretty obvious that someone put a sticker over the public key code?

They're secure for trading insofar as you trust the holograms, so they're probably at least as secure as regular fiat cash.

Perfect security doesn't exist. You may as well say that Bitcoin isn't secure for trading, because someone could hack into your computer and replace your client with a counterfeit.

These cards are quite secure enough for trading, as long as you aren't foolish enough to accept huge amounts of them from a single untrusted payer without auditing them first. Right now I'd accept payment of ฿20 or so in Bitbills from a stranger without even checking the balance, if they looked right. For large amounts like ฿100, I'd probably redeem a few of the higher denomination cards, but not all of them.

I'm going to address a few points here. These are general topics of discussion, so I'm not going to bother quoting anyone in particular:

Bitbills are intended more for continued offline trading rather than instant redemption. A card that is intended to be redeemed as soon as the buyer gets home would be useful, but that's a different product. I'm looking at possibly making those (probably as a scratch-off card) in the future.

As far as mailing cards out without value, allowing "activation" at POS, etc, I have no plans to do this. The instant a card leaves our hands, we guarantee that it has the stated value on it. It would be devastating if somebody traded something for an unfunded card, not knowing that it was unfunded, only later to realize the card was worthless.

In addition to the design and holograms, we are funding every card from the same address. This provides a layer of security equivalent to the proposed serial (and with the same limitations).

I'm confident that Bitbills are presently secure against both tampering and counterfeiting. We will continue to add more security features to future versions.
I certainly agree with SunAvatar; use common sense practices when trading with Bitbills, just like you would with cash or anything else.

What's wrong with that?

It kills incentive to buy the cards as an easy way to hold bitcoins for the future.  I picture it like having a stock certificate.  You know you have it, you have proof you have it, there's no risk of digital loss, and you can open it up and redeem it at any time in the future.

Can't we just do that ourselves? Just print out the private key, lock it up, and delete it on your PC.

Expiring notes will help new notes with better security get into circulation. A redeem or exchange by date on the bill itself will fairly keep the holder informed.

This is a fantastic idea llama. Great work!

Some Gov't agencies may not like the idea of this service, so please be careful.

Please be sure to maintain your anonymity while online, as you can never be too safe. Use Tor when using this forum, keep your domain name and website hosting out of the US, and pay for your website hosting using anonymous methods.

Keep up the good work!

Good point.

I still don't think expiration dates are necessary or wanted.  I would rather have less currency in circulation, than have my bitcoins randomly expire because I forgot to redeem them by a certain date.  I HATE expiration dates on things.  If I get a gift card, I want it to be good for as long as I live.  Same with gift certificates.  Expiration dates are frustrating, obnoxious, and I would never purposefully buy something with them.  I'm too forgetful of a person to buy money that expires.

Dunno. Looks to me it's easy to counterfeit bitbills.

Could you explain how you believe you could do so?

I see.
I though the hologram that hides the private key was just a sticker.

@SunAvatar
I know total security is impossible, I meant secure enough to trade with it.

I should have read the whole web first.

Indeed.  Reading the whole web is definitely the best way to stay on top of... the whole web.

Call me when you're done.

I was so arrogant that I didn't read the part "How does it work?" because (don't ask me why) I thought I already knew it.

I also hate when gift cards expire, deactivate, or when their value decays to nothing. Redeeming or reactivating a gift card is a pain. You have to either go to the right store to spend it or mail some forms to the Vogons. But, with something like BitBills, you can redeem, and simultaneously void, the notes yourself. All you need is the means to cut them open and a camera.

I expect that we will eventually have multiple printed bitcoin implementations and people will choose the ones they like or not choose any. As we all know, bitcoins work fine unprinted.

It's an extra point of attack on those coins if someone else also holds a copy, and you have to trust bitbills.com just a little bit more.

Some would prefer to think that they hold the ONLY copy with no backup.

Yeah.... I think we might need some smaller denominations. 0.2 BTC maybe?

My plan, when I was going to do this, was to go in a 1 - 5 - 20 - 100 progression. You could do something similar, dropping the ฿10 card and introducing a 0.2, and then 0.05 and 0.01 as they become necessary. I don't think 20 is too big though---we used to have $10,000 bills in the States, before everyone got so hung up on drug dealers and money laundering. Hell, I might just buy a ฿100 card now, so I can use it to put my kids through college one day.

So whenever you meet (or communicate with) somebody who owns bitbills check your bills' public address against their bills' public address.  If there is significant counterfeiting going on, eventually you'll find a match.  Try to redeem both and you'll quickly find out which is real and which is counterfeit (or that both are counterfeit).

I was going to suggest creating a public Google Documents doc where people could enter their bitbill public keys, but griefers could just look at the block chain and pretend that they were holding bitbills that they don't actually own.

I guess this has "gizmo-features", not actually trading features. Interesting, cool and let's you "get a grip" in to some BTC.

If you need a smartphone to scan the QR code, well... a smartphone generally has internet access (what would be the point of have one without it?), so you could use any online BTC bank to do payments in the real world, all it would take would be to navigate to the bank and transfer the balance.

I think the idea is that you can instantly trade in person with Bitbills. A direct online BTC transfer takes time to be confirmed.

what if you lose federal reserve notes ???

You could also conduct a trade without waiting for confirmations by using Ripple, and settling the debt with a friend later on. As it stands though, Ripple requires a central server just like paper money requires a central issuer.

I just thought of another way these could be useful. You could sell them on ebay and then have shipping info for seller protection. If people receive a physical item they couldnt easily start a complaint against you for non delivery. You would then have both the address on the bitbill and shipping confirmation as proof you delivered.

Good work! :-)

UPDATE: Most first run orders have been shipped! We will begin accepting preorders for the next round of Bitbills tonight!

http://i.min.us/jlhr2c.JPG

Fantastic. I was looking for a shipping update, and got a sweet photo too. 

My mother asked for and received 100 bitcoins for mothers day, but doesn't want to deal with protecting and backing up a wallet. This is the perfect solution

HA!

The only thing that would have made that picture better would have been you rolling around in them.

Perhaps in bed.

Perhaps with a model.

IMO, this can be a security risk. What if they don't arrive safely? Then someone has legitimate "counterfeit" Bitbills with no work at all...

The fees for the 1 BTC card seem a bit high... $3 fee+shipping for a $7 card?

Is it insured shipping?

Can you explain your manufacturing process and how it is secure?  During the manufacturing process who sees the QR Code?

I think you're going to have to make a lot more values of bitbills now. Your current lowest bitbill is worth around $8 usd!

A few thoughts, worth what you paid for them ;)

• The B symbol you're using is already taken by the Thai Baht. You might want to use Ⓑ instead. They're both in Unicode so you should be able to print them, hopefully.
• To handle counterfeiting you could create a second private key (that is not associated with coins) and put the public key in a second QRcode on the back. You can then release an open source Android/iPhone app that scans that code, creates a random nonce, sends it to bitbills.com for signing and then verifies the signature using the public key on the card. Because only you have the second private key, it's impossible to forge this. It's convenient for anyone to check the bill is legitimate using only a smartphone, so it can be done portably and quickly.
• Your exchange rates are way out of whack, this will lead to heavy arbitrage if you aren't careful. Given the wild volatility right now I'd suggest automatically adjusting the prices on your website direct from MtGox.

This is a really interesting project, good luck! Once the first happy customers post here I might order some as well.

For the first round, we shipped with delivery confirmation on the larger orders. In the future, we plan to ship all orders with delivery confirmation, and add an option to purchase insurance for an additional fee (we'll charge about what we get charged).

The manufacturing process is secure.

The prices are actually listed in bitcoin, not USD. Or are you talking about something else?

Oh sorry, so they are. I seem to have read the second B symbol as a dollar.

Nice statement... ::) As I guess you do not manufacture them yourself in the backyard - so which company actually handles the manufacturing?

Currently, I actually do do all of the final assembly myself. The only piece that involves another company is the printing of the card "blanks", but the actual private keys are still printed and inserted by myself. For security reasons, I will not describe the process specifics in great depth. In the near future, we will be adding more team members to help with assembly, but this will all still take place in-house.

I like the fact that the company head is the only person touching/knowing the private keys.  The fewer people involved in the process, the better, IMO.  Less chance for bad things to happen.

bitbills.com seems to have disappeared from DNS... What's up?

It's good for me, before saying a site is down use downforeveryoneorjustme.com. It helps from mixups like this. It is posible that whatever DNS server you are using is messing up. With my old DNS I couldn't go to heliohost.org but when I switched to google's DNS server I can.

Please don't think of bills as real money. It may work only as gift certificate, nothing else.
You can buy those hologram stickers on Ebay easily, read private key and reseal it.
Increasing security wouldn't give much result, as even govnmnt's bills are falsificated succesfully.
Don't think you can get this bill from a stranger and be 100% it will not be redeemed in few days later by someone else, not you.

Act responsibly!!!

If government bills are not real money, what is?

Why the surcharge increase on the ฿20 bill? Especially with bitcoins having appreciated since they were introduced. Are they so expensive to produce that you have to use the larger denominations to subsidize the smaller, or what?

I was hoping the surcharge would drop low enough that I wouldn't feel like a sucker buying ฿1 bills. 0.100 over face value would have seemed reasonable.

We did increase the fee for the ฿20 bill. We feel that it's important to integrate stronger security features, including custom holograms, as early as possible. However, we need to finance the high capital costs associated with these improvements. During this period of particularly high demand for Bitbills relative to our supply, we've decided to increase the fees a bit as a fundraising measure. The ฿20 bill was the most natural product to raise the fee on, since the new fee brings it's percentage surcharge closer to that of the other bills.

As production continues to ramp up in the next couple weeks, definitely expect the fees to go down. We may also consider switching to set fee across all denominations.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2551391

Bitbills on hacker news!

you've tried this yourself?

Received my bitbills today! Thanks for the professional service. I'm going to give the 1's and 5's out as gifts. Haven't actually tried to redeem any, so hopefully someone else can verify that process goes smoothly.

Could you have a searchable database of the addresses associated with your bills? That would let the user have some peace of mind that the BitBills they're buying have at least been issued by you, making it harder for others to print counterfeit copies.

It's still not perfect, as anyone with access to the same holograms you use could print their own cards, pick a few addresses from the database and print those on the back of their fake cards, but at least it introduces some risk of discovery if whoever is the real owner of the card with the address the scammer hypothetically picked redeems their bill, and limits the number of fakes possible to make.

I just got my bitbills, they are awesome.

For gods sake, I don't see the point of rehashing the same three (two) potential problems with bitbills over and over. Llama covered it earlier as much as could be covered.

They are designed to be hard to counterfeit, no you can't just go to the dollar store buy the stickers and make indistinguishable replicas. (You can fool stupid people, but that's not a problem bitcoin or anything else can solve).

They are designed to be tamper resistant, no you can't unpeel a sticker, read a private key, and put it back without damaging the plastic. Llama, the choice of putting a smaller sticker on a larger QR code makes it appear to lazy screenshot researchers that that is the only security, like a supermarket price tag or something. People are confused and also willing to spread misconceptions about it.

Can't wait for the next version!

I love this project, congratulations, llama!

Love the looks of them. I'd buy some if i knew i would actually have a use for them.  Maybe you should put up a version archive so people can look up what the past versions looked like?  I would also love to see more images of them =D

Pretty neat if you want to store Bitcoins like bitgoldbars ;)

I am going to be getting me sum and stash in safe as if Im a gold smuggler :)

Some of my friends don't believe in bitcoin because they think it is not suitable for ordinary payments.
This project is a prove that it is feasible.
The bills will have to be improved in security from time to time as the counterfeiting and tampering technology improves, but that happens with national currencies too. In this case, competition is possible so the end user will pay less for that service.
Congratulations for llama, but also to Atlas and BCEmporium because (although they weren't right in the security measures) they saw the feasibility of printed bitcoin.
Trading with printed bitcoins needs I trusted third party, but is a revolutionary idea. Bitbills is a new currency backed with bitcoins and open to competition.
New hopes for the future monetary system.
Maybe buying silver was not that necessary as an insurance. I won't sell my 2 kg anyway, just in case someone drops a rainbow bomb.
My next saving purchase could be bitcoin or bitbills, I'm just too affected after selling my only 230 btc on an average price of 80 cents just before the run to 8 dollars. One thing I've learned: I'm not good as a speculator. Next time I buy bitcoins I will keep for the "save" long run instead of trying to make profit of short term arbitrage.
It is easier to hoard bitbills than bitcoins. That's one of the reasons (not the main one) I prefer silver to euros for saving. Euros are so easy to spend...
I'm still in love with the idea of sending bitcoins to one of your bitbills. I will probably put a mark on that one.
By the way, that printed piggy bank could be developed with free software with no third parties involved. Not suitable for trade like BTB, but interesting.

I spent my first Bitbill last night. I went to see Thor (meh) with another voluntaryist friend of mine, and he paid for popcorn and drinks, so I paid him back with a 1 BTC Bitbill. He's been thinking about dipping his toes in the shallow end of the bitcoin pool for a while, so I figured it would be a good opportunity.

awesome project.
 
"in cryptography we trust"  ;)

according to the site a patched version of the client is needed currently in order to spend a bit bill.

it says an easy importer is coming but until then is there anyone who will accept the qr code and send bitcoins as a service?

even for a small fee?

this would have worked perfectly at a corporate event i attended where they handed out awards.  these are sales people so saying go patch the client won't work.

trusting a third party .. just like a central bank ..

your all whacked in the heads.

Edit:
 - third party trust to create legit ones ... NO WAY
 - wallet backup ... third party trust ... NO WAY
 - a card is easy to be ripped of, confiscated by parasites, destroyed, etc, ... NO WAY

Bitcoin is meant to get rid of ALL these issues ... why on Earth would you want this?

No, Bitcoin was created so that you don't have to trust a third party if you don't want to. For something like this, it's cool enough that I have enough trust in llama to risk a few bitcoin. I keep the majority of my keys in my wallet, on my hard drive, encrypted and backed up.

I don't want bitbills project die before emerging, so I will not show this item on ebay.
I decided to print something similar like bitbills in my country in native language, but came up with idea that printed bitcoins is utopia. Untill law protect bitbills, they are very fragile and easy to conterfeit. Currencies are protected by law, but if you counterfeit bitbills no one will punish you. Feel this difference!

Act responsibly!!!

With the difference that you can start your own business for bitcoin bills and a central bank is a monopoly.


You have to "destroy" the card to get to the private key, not just taking out the hologram.


Do you think bitbills should be protected by law? Why?

Please, describe in details what do you mean by "destroying".

Cool, what would be truly awesome would be a debit card type thing where you can put it into a ATM and its like your wallet and you can take out USD and the compny makes profit by taking like 10 cents or 0.05 BTC :D

The private key is sandwiched between layers of the card. To get it out you have to cut the card open.

Please, somebody post a photo of "opened" card. Once you've "spent" that money in it, of course.

Hawkix, if someone doesn't post one before tonight, I'll try to do so. First I must spend the associated bitcoins, which isn't exactly simple right now.

llama, have you considered that it's not even necessary to import the private key, merely create a transaction from it? I think an Android app that performed the following two functions is all that is necessary to use Bitbills.

1) scan a public key and check the balance
2) scan a private key and create a transaction to an address of your choosing (scan private key, scan barcode of receiving address, send?)

Ok, here's the opened Bitbill (click for full size):

https://i.imgur.com/s8oCRl.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/s8oCR.jpg)

The plastic lamination is pretty thick, not just a thin film. Underneath that is the private key barcode with the hologram sticker stuck to it. Peeling off the hologram left half of it on the barcode which required some rubbing alcohol to remove.

*scans PK from picture*
*steals BitterTea's bitcoins*

Haha, nice try but I already sent the coins to a new address using BitcoinJ. :)

Don't know why but I truly believe bittertea is a bit too experienced to leave that QR there unless already void...

Can you describe how you did this?  I was going to test one of my bitbills with the patched bitcoin client.  But if it's easier just to use bitcoinJ, I'd like to hear how.

Sure. Make sure you get the latest version of BitcoinJ, as a bug in Base58.decode was fixed today.

There's a PrivateKeys.java example, which takes two arguments: the first is the Base58 encoded private key (scanned from the private key tag) and the second is the address to which you want the funds transferred.

Once Mike fixed the bug, the only change I had to make was the following...


Then start up your Bitcoin client and run PrivateKeys.java. It will download the block chain from your client and then send the transaction.

You can modify it to use a DiskBlockStore instead of a MemoryBlockStore so you don't have to download the full chain every time you do this.

I improved BitCoinJ a bit so now you can just use PrivateKeys without any modifications, like this:

java -classpath=out com.google.bitcoin.examples.PrivateKeys <bitbills_key> <your address>

Make sure you have a running copy of Bitcoin (regular C++ software) on your computer and run the above command. It should trundle along and process the block chain looking for usages of the key. Then it will send you the coins to your chosen address.

Switching out MemoryBlockStore for DiskBlockStore won't help. The whole thing has to be processed from scratch every time you do this because the transaction bodies aren't stored, even with the DiskBlockStore. This is inherent to the libraries design.

As to which is easier, I don't know. The official Bitcoin software is better tested. If you are able to patch+build it yourself then you might as well use it. If you're having trouble building Bitcoin then you could try using the BitCoinJ instead, but you'll still need a JDK to compile it with! Right now it isn't possible to redeem a Bitbill without being a programmer or at least very technical. In future it might get easier, if sipa adds a GUI to Bitcoin.

It might be possible to stick an Android GUI on top of BitcoinJ for this purpose today. However to check the balance and redeem the coins both requires processing the full chain, so it's not very efficient. If the key format was extended to support specifying block ranges it would be much more feasible.

Speaking of which, have people had luck getting a picture of the private QR code on droid phones?  I couldn't get it to work, and was blaming the small code size.  Let me know if it's operator error.

I bought bitbills just because they're cool, but may have not thought into it too much. If I don't have a smart phone that can read a QR code, am I SOL if I want to get the money off them?

You don't need a smart phone, you can use a computer with anything that can get a digitalization image of the QR code (scanner, cam, mobile with cam...)  and a QR code parser software.

You could also sell Bitbills on #bitcoin-otc or in the Marketplace.

Perhaps llama would buy back Bitbills minus a small fee?

Well you would for an android app... Anyway, I just tried again and instantly scanned it.  I think my shiny silver macbook might have been interfering before.

I checked out bitcoinj and built it, and I can't run the code.  The above command didn't work at all.

If I run:

java -classpath ./dist/* com.google.bitcoin.examples.PrivateKeys <bitbills_key> <your address>

it runs, but complains that slf4j classes aren't found.  If I downloaded slf4j and unpacked it, and ran:

java -classpath ./dist/*:~/src/sld4j-dir com.google.bitcoin.examples.PrivateKeys <bitbills_key> <your address>

I get all kinds of crazy errors linking to pages on the web talking about all kinds of problems with linking to multiple versions of slf4j stuff.  If I try to limit the jars I still get errors.

Did you include (or try to include) the logging stuff or do I need to configure that somehow.

Anyway, I give up on bitcoinj.  Try to download the patched client from bitbills.  That won't execute at all.  I'm presuming because it's a 64 bit build and my linux box is 32 bit?

I try to apply the patch manually, but then remember I could never get the original client to compile because something was wrong with UPNP, even though it compiled and installed.

Not complaining, just pointing out that it's been pretty hard for me to get my money.

Some updates:
We still have a lot of preorders coming in, so we're continuing to work as fast as we can to ramp up production. Orders are shipping out continuously now. We hope to change from "preorders" to live "orders" later this week!
Simultaneously, we're working on the next product version. This will include several changes, including custom holograms. It's still a ways off, but start getting excited! We will keep an archive with images of all previous versions on the site.

On redemption:
I'm sorry to hear that some people are having difficulty redeeming. We will post a video soon demonstrating the process. In the meantime, some tips:

• Use a penny to scrape off hologram residue
• A thin layer of tape sits above the laminated qr code. If the residue remains a problem, peel off the layer of tape to reveal a clean QR code
• Use alcohol or nail-polish remover only as a last resort. Newer Bitbills use a higher quality private key substrate resilient to chemicals, but their use won't be officially supported until the next version
• Use a high-resolution scanner if your webcam or phone camera have problems

As mentioned in the FAQ, we are happy to buy back any sealed Bitbills for face value if you don't feel comfortable attempting redemption yourself. We are continuing to work on an easy redemption tool (it will be a flash applet that uses the webcam to send the bitcoins to your address fee free).

I'm offering large bitcoin prizes to anyone who feels like working on Bitbills tools! (this could be an Android app, iPhone app, support on your website, etc; contact me!)

Ah yeah, try:

ant build
java -classpath ./out:./lib/* ......

Sorry to hear you had such problems. As a library it's only really meant for people familiar with Java development right now. My faulty instructions don't help.

If BitCoinJ is going to be a common way to extract Bitbills we could/should just upload a simple binary with a GUI and everything included, so reclaiming them is point and click. Might be a fun project for someone - maybe BitterTea? :-) Making an all-in-one JAR with a Swing GUI isn't very hard and there are lots of tutorials on the web.

First, is there a better thread to discuss this since it's not strictly bitbills?

Now I've got things running on my MacBook, but it consistently hangs when "Chain is now 5172 blocks high" with "java.io.IOException: Socket is disconnected"

OSSUM

Placed my order, eagerly awaiting my bitbills! I think these are a pretty cool way of introducing some friends and physicalizing a virtual currency since people have a bad tendency to ignore something if it's not in their hands.

I plan of gifting some to my friends who are technically skilled and are aware of bitcoin but hesitant.

Tried to order bitbills, but mybitcoins told me the payment was failed. Paid the exact amount to the exact address. I've tried to use the contact form on the mybitcoin site without any answer.

Does the payment gateway just suck or is this a scam? Maybe llama could consider using other payment systems (heard that others have had problems with mybitcoin too, but thought it was rare).

This is a good idea, and truly prevents naked counterfeits.  However, it wouldn't stop someone from buying a legitimate bitbill, then making a copy of that bitbill, but with a phoney private key.  They keep the real one, and sell the phoney.  As long as the private key is carried with the bill, with a static public key, there is no way to have 100% trust in it.

The only way I can see to securely handle transactions would be to centralize the private keys.  One way to do this would be to use your exact example, where bitbills generates a keypair that's assigned to the bitcoin keypair.  But instead of printing the QR code for the secondary public key on the card, you give users the options to simply buy bitbills in that fashion, where bitbills.com keeps the bitcoin private key, and gives the user a pdf with two QR codes, one for the bitbill public key (that they can show to prove the money is real), and one for this secondary public key (that you would keep hidden until you hand it over).

You could call this pair of public keys a 'bitnote' (a play on federal reserve note).  To use the bitnote, you just print it on a piece of paper.  When you give someone a bitnote, they use a smartphone with your open source Android/iPhone app to validate the bitnote, and then bitbills.com immediately invalidates the bitnote and generates a new bitnote, OR the user has the option of transferring the bitnote to a bitbill or a bitcoin address.  This would basically be creating a bank with a backed currency.  You can get the REAL currency (the bitbill), or you can have a note representing it.

Why Flash? My understanding is that phones can read QR-Codes without it. I hope you plan to make it a HTTPS-only function (with a proper cert)...

I assume the flash app is for desktops and laptops with webcams.

Another alternative would be to import a photo of the barcode, taken with any digital camera.

Have you guys got your bitbills? Or any response from llama?  :-\

Site is gone :(
So sad to see it go...

The plot thickens...

I just got a response from llama to a PM that I sent him a week or two ago. I assume he's still around, perhaps the site is under maintenance or a DoS.

i talked to him a few hours ago, didnt ask about the site, but i did recently receive about 280 btc in bitbills

Sad, I would have liked to see this.  ???

Found out about Bitbills yesterday and thought to my self what an awesome product... and now the site is gone.

I hadn't tried in a few days but am accessing the site now without issue:
  - http://bitbills.com
  - https://bitbills.com

Site works fine for me.

https://bitbills.com/
works fine for me too.

Well, it seems they had some issues, but now it's all good.

When did you order, still waiting on my order from May 18.

i dont remember but it takes a week or 2, its a 1 man show so be patient :P

tadah
http://i54.tinypic.com/27y78cm.jpg

Wow... I count $4,703.10 worth of bitcoins.   :o

Hmm... Dont you think .25BTC is a little much to ship a card?
Thats 4.50$...

I will definalty buy some when the shipping drops a tad  ;D

thats pretty not bad considering most are insured or tracked

True. I suppose I can only really make it worth it by buying a larger quantity than the 1BTC card I was planing on  :P

id buy some but the extra on each card it to much for me. Also way isnt the extra on each card all the same? it looks like each card takes the same amount of time and material to make.

i think it's mostly to fund better security when the main release comes out, itll be better soon i presume

Are you planning to issue smaller denominations?

UPDATE:

Thanks for all the support and feedback!

We would like to sincerely apologize for the significant delays in order fulfillment. We are still ramping up production, and I really appreciate everyone's patience while this happens. Of course, just email support@bitbills.com if you would like to cancel your order any time prior to shipment, and we'll send a full refund right away.

Smaller denominations and smaller fees are in the works, but we're not planning on starting with either of these until we have production ramped up. I've heard that MyBitcoin may have been spotty lately; down the road we may decide to do our own payment processing.

This should be a big month for Bitbills!

I have made an order... yet still have not received any confirmation email.

is this still going on?  What kind of timeframe for delivery?

Yes, it is definitely still going on. Orders place right now will take about a month before they ship due to the substantial backlog. We appreciate your patience while we get production up to speed. We will release new versions and smaller denominations at that time also.

OK.  Shoot me a PM when that happens.  Im still new so i cant really afford to tie up any BTC for that long just yet.

Fantastic idea, and fantastic execution of it.

I'd like to request the 100BTC card be made out of carbon fiber somehow :)

I'm definitely interested in BitBills too. Since I'd rather not wait a month on an order, I'll swing by the site again once I get an update (via your email list, or possibly on the forum) that things are back at full speed. I'll personally be focusing on 1 and possibly 5 whole bitcoin cards, and smaller denominations down to 0.1btc.

Side note: Any chance you might start producing "undenominated" BitBills too? Ones that come with no coins sent to the address, which the owner loads himself (as much as he wants, as often as he wants)? Might even be labelled a "Savings BitBill" or "User-Loaded BitBill" or something so as not to be confused with pre-loaded BitBills. I'd personally buy a few of those as well. ;)

Received my bitbills today in the mail  :)

You normally don't get a confirmation mail of the order, but I suggest you contact support by e-mail.
I got a response with the delivery date, which was 100% accurate.

A happy customer !

I love the concept.

+1
BitBill Vault, pic on card like http://lot.my/image/cache/5833-295-kitco%20coin%20r%202010-120x120.jpg
BitBill Dragon Hoard, pic like http://dpcrandall.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/smaug.jpg?w=389&h=287
Titanium card - loaded with 210 BTC (add cost of material)
Gold card - loaded with 2,100 BTC & made of 24K gold (add 1 Oz for cost of material +/- $1,500)
The thousanth card - loaded with 21,000 BTC (made out of anything you darn well like) - loaded with 0.001% of max total BTC ever to be issued

Yeh!

My first Bitcoins came through, well 0.001 BTC from the faucet  :)  http://freebitcoins.appspot.com/

http://blockexplorer.com/address/14g6J4q4ccSMc5rCe24djmgPdybZaFrm1E

Put your address above to see yours, takes a few hours to show from the faucet's feed

Happy Summer Solstice y'all

Wow, it's great to see some people trying to make it more practical to use Bitcoins in everyday life! Nice job! :D

Although one can do this on its own (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9305.0), I would like to have a piggy bank bitbill too.

I really like your Bitbills. Sorry if this has been discussed as I haven't read the entire thread but it would be really neat if you make it easier to cash out the Bitbills.

You could:
-make a https page where the user fills in: private key, address, and a "redeem and send it to" address
-your bitcoin daemon imports that key, and you resend it to yourself at an address only you own
-once you get confirmations and the balance you send it all to the new address the user filled in

It would make your bills easier to redeem as many can't use the command line tool to do it! Could make your Bitbills more popular! I know you'd probably have to add a small fee to cover tx fees but I bet many would like to use it for its simplicity. I bet even other people who make their own private keys would probably even use your tool.

It would be optional of course. Any site could set up this service. Once the BTC in on the bill, to use it, you have to manually import using command line. This is only a web form that does the work for you and sends it to a bitcoin address you own.

I'll be ordering one as soon as I get enough bitcoins!   ;)

I was on the order page, and quickly decided against purchasing when I saw the shipping charges.  I'm sorry, but $3.50 (.25 BTC) for shipping is insane for something that fits inside an envelope.  Take the .25 BTC shipping + .15 BTC Fee for the 1 BTC card, and it just fundamentally does not make sense unless you go up to the larger amounts like 20 BTC card.  This is after slashing your fees in half? 

Outside of that, it is a good idea, and one I would like to own.  However, you are acting just like the ebay sellers and infomercial producers, who inflate shipping prices in hopes that people won't notice. 

He's got a 3 month backorder... I doubt he's concerned about overpricing them at this point.

Besides, shipping always includes handling time and shipping materials, both of which cost time and money.  If you just charge actual shipping, you will lose money on the shipping part of things.  A company will ALWAYS inflate shipping beyond what it actually costs for the postage.

$3.50 is totally fair for shipping, plus confirmation and packing. trust me, no money is made from shipping at all.

You need to change your font color, it's really difficult to read against that background.

How about you print a bit bill of equal quality, ship it better for less money, and we'll all order from you?  How much are you asking for them?  What are you charging for shipping?  What is your estimated delivery time?  I'll go 1.125 BTC for a 1 BTC bitbill.

How long is the wait for brass bitbill bank cards right now?

Are you considering to reduce commission fee?

Love your guys' design :) very interesting! One question: is your business ran by a registered company and out of where?

Thanks
Roberto

I personally think this is a really good idea people are always worried about keeping their BTC secure now with this you can have a tangible copy that will keep it secure for a while.Now you can lock it in a safe I mean come on what ordinary person is going to want to steal your bitbill ::)

how i can order that cards ?

"
Orders are currently paused due to Mybitcoin's outage and sporadic service. Thanks you for your patience. We are working hard on other solutions to get orders back up.
"

Please open back up. I want to buy your product. Don't make me wait too long please.

What's the rush? Are there any stores accepting it?

The rush is to accommodate my impatience! :P I want to see this project up on its feet feeding the community the progress that we desire.
If I owned a business I would accept bitbills. I will do so for any personal trades as well.

I think they're busy making bitbills for the bitcoin ATM

REALLY need a no brainer way to "redeem" bitbills. Would really like to have a secure way to "test" your public/private keys. Loading 500btc on a "bank card" and having one private key character be fudged up would be tragic.

kind of like how coinedbits does it?  "enter bitcoin code" http://coinedbits.com 


i suppose you could spend it giving the bill's own address as the output

I'm still waiting on my brass and aluminum cards.  Have other people got theirs?  Are they still waiting?

Anyone feel like commenting on the status of the coins they've converted to BitBills? IOW, checking out the public address on a card you own to see if the coins are still there?

I had really wanted to get a low-denomination one, for the novelty if nothing else...

I'm pretty sure these guys ran away with our money. 

It wouldn't surprise me, given the way things have been going for bitcoin lately...

maybe ask the bitcoin atm guy, he's on here.  Forgot his name. 

Seems like the atm is built around bitbills, if they just disappeared he would know.

Why do you think this?

They just got a new web site a week ago... what money of yours did they run away with?

This is a great idea. The only problem I see right now is that redeeming these cards requires patching the bitcoin client. Hopefully that patch will be pulled soon.

It looks like a webcam/image based qr reader isn't too hard to implement. http://www.webqr.com/ has a simple flash + javascript implementation.  It would be neat if you could redeem and check these cards through bitbills.com.

The bank and payee cards are awesome, too!

I was looking into using bitcoin-off-the-grid as a way to securely save my coins, but the bank card looks even easier.

It would be more interesting if you offer a gift card without its value printed. So customer can send any amount BTC to it and gift to someone.

What is the status of this project?  I would like to buy some but the purchase page is still disabled?  Any idea if/when you might be up and running again?

I guess casascius ran them out of business for the time being.

I doubt that.  I had a chat with llama not too long ago.  Seems to me they are not able to produce their product, I am not sure what's wrong.  Me running them out of business would look more like them offering to sell their product, but no one buying it.  What you see is the exact opposite.

I'm just showing my support and letting llama know that I'm still excited for Bitbills to get back up and running. I will be making purchases when they do so.

I really hope the business gets back online shortly. It seems to me like you're preparing, what with the new website design(as of September) and the development of a mobile app to cash in the Bitbills.

I made a bet stating that bitbills.com will reintroduce sales this year. http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=245

I wrote them asking if they were interested in a $500 share of the hologram order, and they declined.  Those holograms could have been used as the squares they already put in their prior batch of BitBills, would have added a neat touch.

They said they don't want to commit "that much money" until they know for sure what they want to do.

I suppose it's a matter of priorities.  Their product seemed to be of pretty high quality such that I wouldn't think of the producers of such a good product to be worried about $500, knowing full well there's a demand for it.  I take it as a sign that they might not produce them for whatever reasons of their own.

Think you could offer a bank card since it seems bitbills isn't selling anything yet?

You could even sell cards that have the same public key as a bar or coin. I could stick the bar somewhere safe (like in a literal safe) and carry around the card.  If I want to make long term deposits or just show off bitcoin, I just scan a QR code on my card and I'm done.  No need to have the private key even on the card.

If I need to send BTC, I would use a normal client or your coins. The bank card would allow easy secure storage (assuming I trust you ;) )

If that's all you're looking for, someone already produces it.

http://paymyaddress.com (http://paymyaddress.com)

I've made a number of purchases from them, both for myself and for others, and find their cards to be of good quality.

I still want to see someone come out with a debit card that literally works exactly the same as a current debit card would, except it withdraws BTC from your account equal to the USD you spend.

It would probably lower exchange rates for a while (everyone spending their BTC on everyday items with their debit cards), but it would bring with it a lot more interest and excitement of BTC.

MAKE IT HAPPEN ANDREW BITCOINER!  :)

did you buy the site from macintosh264 ?

i was interested in the idea.

OKPAY already does that. (https://www.okpay.com/en/services/debit-card/index.html)

So does aurumxchange (https://www.aurumxchange.com/cards)

Well, not quite.  They don't hold your balance in BTC - they hold it in USD.  But it's pretty close!

Looking to buy one 1BTC BitBills loaded

Also redeemed or empty BitBills of any denomination

Please PM me.

Thankyou!

The idea is so awesome. It is the perfect item for us bitcoiners. Hope to see more items like that soon. Good job man.

I only think bitcoin is valuable in the future.Bitbill need time to prove its value.

this post was made 6 years ago and you think thats not
enough time to prove the value?i dont think so.maybe he just need
to be updated and lack of advertisement for the user to check and
try it out

Jeeesus the spammers making themselves known

I think that you need to make money with Bitcoin on occasion. That is, if there is a possibility, your need to take all available means. But basically Bitcoin does not have such value, as for example an etherium. Even many other altcoin have more probability for the future than anyone else.

it is great to find some real project based on bitcoin.
bitcoin need to have physical offline use

As a Bitbills Enthusiast...I am looking for the paperwork that came with the purchase of the Bitbills. https://talkimg.com/images/2024/03/01/fvS7z.jpeg

Should anyone have it or any Bitbills or Bitbills related items please reach out to me. Thanks

This pieces look very cool.

Do they still sell from time to time on this forum? What kind of premiums can one expect?

Was there ever an instance of a BB being compromised in its history?

  Yes they do.. 1.8 thru 2.2 btc...and none have ever been compromised

Read more about them here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3334918.0

I still don't get what your product is supposed to do. Maybe you need to do more than post a picture and a few words. Description and use case would be welcome 

Originally these could be used to buy products or send people bitcoin by removing the hologram and revealing the BTC address. The idea would be to carry these round in your wallet and use them on a daily basis.
Currently these are the MOST SOUGHT AFTER physical BTC collectible and command a heavy price !!!
Hope this helps

This is an old thread and was one of the very first bitcoin collectables.  I mean what does art do or baseball cards do.  In short its a loaded physical card.  In the beginning was an easy way to gift someone bitcoin or even give someone bitcoin who didn't know the first thing about crypto. 

Looks really cool. Congratulations on your product. I would recommend you to share the FAQs and Terms and conditions as well. So there would be no confusion regarding your Bitbills. Good luck with your Bitbills.