Bitcoin Forum

If he wanted to. But he wouldn't, why would he now? He could actually apply for all the licenses and register at the federal level and absolutely CRUSHHHHHHH it.

From Wiki: "Suspension of sale of Casascius Physical Bitcoins
As of Nov 27, 2013, Mike Caldwell suspended sales of items that contain digital bitcoins.[1] The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the Treasury Department, informed him before, that minting physical bitcoins qualifies him as a money transmitter business, which means he needs to register at the federal level and probably get state licenses too.[3]"

All i'm saying is that it would be really cool, but he would never do it. Would be absolutely insane though I mean could you imagine the coins that he would make today?

Any who, if they went after Mike then who is to say that they would never go after another coin maker and make them abide by the same thing that shut him down?

In order to be legit coinmaker must sell coin as buyer funded. Coin can be funded by the buyer prior to shipping. As long as funding done by buyer its good.

Or get a money transmitter license - I am tempted but from what I have seen its brutal to do.

Agreed, Mike was a true professional and trusted to this day. Would love to see what he could come up with modern day  :-*

There is an interview of him with Charlie Shrem on Youtube which I saw today by chance:

Casascius Coin Creator Mike Caldwell on making Bitcoin meaningful for the masses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBUD7tPiDQ4&t=1807s&ab_channel=BlockworksMacro)

Really exciting and worthwhile, especially because you can find but few interviews of this kind from him. It is already three years old but maybe it pleases the one or the other still :)
Let me know what you think of it.

Yes, getting an MSB for all 50 states plus internationally seems like it would take a lot of time and money and a lot of red-tape ....

I've listened to this interview before, but that was a great refresher! Its evident that Mike wouldn't be inclined to do any loaded BTC, due to his flawless reputation and that is very wise. I think the DIY themed coins would be incredible though, particularly  gold, silver, and copper varieties.   

How much time and money we talking? What would it actually take to make that a reality?

I'm sure it has to be, its definitely the bain to a crypto coin makers existence to scale, i'm sure!

Sometimes it is best for an actor to perform onstage and leave before the curtains are drawn.

In the case of Mike, I think he is wise to be gone from this space.

Mike left at his peak, solidified his steller reputation and went down as a physical crypto rockstar.

If Mike would have stayed around, we probably would have witnessed a decline in quality and denomination of his collection. As he tries to reinvent the pieces of the past that made him famous and gained him notoriety to begin with.

Much better to make a killer impact and leave at the peak then to draw out a slow decline into mediocracy.  

What’s the saying… “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

I’m sure if Casascius was still around he’d be dealing with trolling and accusations about his motivations ad nauseam. People have a strange obsession with destroying the things they love. I think he made the right choice for himself and his products. Maybe someday he’ll come back with something else cool and innovative, but I don’t think it would contain a private key he had access to for liability reasons and current 2fa methods leave something to be desired.

I told this to Mike back in 2015 or 2016, something like “man if you came back you would do so well being there’s such a demand etc”.  It was my early days and I’m sure he was thinking something like “Im well aware noob”.  I said this after we briefly conversed via email after I had initially asked if he was still selling coins at all and he had told me he quit a few years back but they can sometimes be found on eBay.

Mike did say in that Shrem interview he’s not totally ruled out making another coin, and that he may prefer to partner up with someone on it  (imagine a Kialara Casascius co/project). This would have been really cool for Theymos proposed forum coin.