Thanks so much for the support everyone  Congrats! Face value tho, pfft indeed!  I enjoy that show for all the random pieces of information and humor. Having a Bitcoin collectible on the show was bound to happen at some point! Though, what I really think is awesome is that the first seller of a Bitcoin physical coin on Pawn Stars started this thread. Just goes to show that Bitcointalk is still a place for premieres in crypto! TBH, was imagining contacting them for years to suggest something similar, but Vegas is pretty far for me ATM Yeah I've been a fan of the show for years. Was definitely a cool experience but didn't even bother negotiating when he lowballed that hard haha. And only makes sense for things to return to this forum, it was such an invaluable source of information and a fantastic community when I was first getting into crypto. I for sure owe a ton of people here a debt of gratitude. That's awesome, congrats did you mention this site during the shoot?
I did but they made me re-answer the question not saying it so I doubt it makes the cut.  You'll know who I'm talking about when I say "Well known cryptocurrency forum" haha |
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Just finished shooting an episode of Pawn Stars for my Casascius coin (S2 0.5 silver "error") after being invited on the show. Rick offered me face value and I obviously declined. Hopefully helps get a bit more notoriety around these fantastic collectibles! Should air sometime spring 2022. |
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I co-founded SF Blockchain Week and we are gearing up for this year's conference in Q4. I would love to help set up a Bitcoin/physical crypto display at the event.
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It is a gold and gemstone seller who was displaying the coins. He said the brass set he would sell for 10 btc - the 4 coins are loaded with a combined 3.5 btc. The 4 silver gilt he said he would sell for 5 btc - those 4 are loaded with 2.6 btc — if memory serves.
Elias was there and gave him the book to put in the display.
At the prices he is asking, I don’t think he really wants to sell them.
Awesome! Appreciate the color |
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I saw that someone has a Casascius display case at the BTC Miami Conference!  Was curious if it is anyone on the forum or if anyone has some better photos. Info on the case securing it would be interesting to know, at ~$250k in just spot value I'm sure it's pretty solid. Would love to cross post on Twitter if I can get a non Insta photo!  |
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As a collector I would like to see more and more coins peeled to make my personal collection that much more valuable as opposed to provide a way to preserve coins being peeled. However, I do see the potential added value/utility that posting loaded coins as collateral could provide some collectors and maybe bring more interest to the physical bitcoin collecting space overall. And I do not think it would materially effect the number of coins that continue to be peeled daily anyway, so it could be a valuable service if only for a small number of people.
While it is a novel idea to add liquidity and utility to loaded coins without peeling, I don't think the market will be large enough for a company to decide to devote full time resources towards. Will there be individuals that live close enough to the same city as custodians, and that could also use liquidity on their funded coins? Yes. But time will tell, so thank you for starting the discussion at least.
Also, the bitcoin premium will be a large part of the decision process. After all, that is what people are trying to preserve when going through this process. If the bitcoin premium is small for a specific coin, then it would make more sense to just peel the btc and digitally post that btc with a custody provider or defi solution, rather than going through the physical travel and physical custodial process. If a custody provider, such as Blockfi, gets to a point where they really need btc liquidity it could make sense to offer a premium/bonus to physical collectors that peel and send directly to them for loans or yield.
Something else to note from a business standpoint is that this market will only get smaller over time. Other than Casascius or BTCC, what other makers will be considered for these type of loans? Over time, more and more coins will get peeled and the potential pool of collectors wanting to get loans will decline. Also, the custodial provider does not get to use the bitcoin that is loaded on the coin for their benefit, unlike their business model today where you digitally send btc and they rehypothecate.
Ultimately I fail to see what their incentive is to provide these loans that also have add physical custodial risk. The only way it makes sense for them is if they loan btc and not usd in hopes the borrower defaults.
Totally agree re incentive to keep others peeling. As a collector you love to see it as it makes your own coins more valuable! Regarding low premiums, it will be more work to do this than peeling for sure and I expect many will choose to peel rather than going through steps to physically deliver it to a custodian. Some people may think the premium will rise in the future and would go through the trouble to keep the option of selling when/if premiums rise but hard to gauge how many hence this thread. You're absolutely right that these loans will be different due to the inability to re-loan the BTC to someone else for a higher rate. That being said, companies usually pay you to lend them BTC and then charge others to borrow, so this simply removes the third party and the net income should be close to the same if not more (BlockFi pays 4% to BTC lenders and charges 5-6% to borrowers for a net of 1-2%). If they charge Casascius coin loan holders 3-4%, and the cost of physically custodying is incrementally more expensive due to already having a system in place to custody gold and other physical assets, it might make sense. A fact that blew my mind is that there are ~$2.3 BILLION worth of BTC currently held on Casascius coins (not to mention BTCC). If 5% of holders use this service at a 4% interest rate, that's $5M revenue per year. If they help to broker sales of coins and take 4-5% of sale price, that adds additional revenue |
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I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but personally being able to get liquidity on a few coins without any exposure to capital gains, buy a house with cash (and potentially refinance and pull out up to 80% of the homes value to invest back into crypto if you want to really leverage), but still be able to capture any value from an increase in BTC value or numismatic value is quite interesting in my opinion.
I'm not sure this could be the tax haven you describe it as. I think if you cash out a great deal of cash from your BTC, Uncle Sam is going to come looking for you regardless of what story you have behind it for not paying taxes. Even if what you're describing is totally legal from a tax standpoint, it seems like it would be begging for an audit, which can cost a great deal of time and money as well as putting your lenders in a potentially bad position. I could see this idea being useful for those wanting to try and time the exchange rate to make money, but selling the service as a tax avoidance scheme seems like a bad idea. Ignorantly paying your taxes incorrectly is one thing, but engaging in tax avoidance schemes like this lands people in jail. Please don't spread misinformation. The tax code exists to create incentives. Why are short term and long term capital gains taxed differently? Why can you defer the taxes (indefinitely) from the sale of a house if you invest in another house through a 1031 exemption? Why does the FED have lending facilities where large market participants can get loans on their stocks to buy other stocks? Why do most brokers allow you to take loans (margin) to invest in stocks using your existing stocks as collateral? Why would you get a loan on an asset that has appreciated significantly (and you believe will continue to do so) rather than selling it outright? All of these things cause more demand in a market and stimulate the economy which is why the tax code incentivizes it. A rational person will do the thing that is a better financial decision and all of the above would likely be a better decision due to triggering less or no capital gains. Read the rules, understand them and make an informed decision but please don't spread uncertainty because you aren't aware. As someone who has brokered deals on this forum, I hope you have a carefully maintained AML policy and list of all individuals (SSN, Address, driver's license etc.) you have interacted with. Creating a coin that pays out mining distributions to owners is a security, and selling an unregistered security will for sure land you in legal trouble, ask Ripple. I would rather have a copy of the tax code and a loan packet from an internationally recognized bank than send the IRS screenshots of DM's from an anonymous escrow. |
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and you forget one part - that you have to trust someone to hold something currently worth 2 million that will most likely continue to increase in value while hoping they dont skip out on you. I would not trust a bank with even half that much money - why would I trust these guys? Not your keys - not your crypto.
In the proposed scenario you also have to trust Blockfi with the 800k USDC At the end of the day, that is how society in every country has worked for more than the past 100 years. Billion dollar companies lend their money and trust other billion dollar companies to hold money for them. I don't think we will be escaping that reality anytime soon. It does not have to be that way anymore. The beginnings of the solution can be seen on DeFi lending/borrowing platforms. Moving our crypto to centralized companies would be a major step backwards in my opinion. Thanks for selling me my first Cas coins back in the day I totally agree, really excited by DeFi. Crypto will continue to struggle to interface with the physical world for quite some time without trusted intermediaries/oracles though. If it is to truly be the internet of value, how does one express ownership of physical goods like houses, cars, or coins without a trusted intermediary? Crypto allows for the minimization and compartmentalization of risk, not the removal of it. Digital native things are an easy sell, physical is challenging. Sounds like a glorified crypto pawn shop! HARD PASS for me for sure, but to each their own.
....and a question to whoever is putting this together.... will these be in EVERY major city so people can drive there easily? Most people won't even get on a plane with a 1 BTC Cas for fear of TSA issues currently. Are you going to suggest they mail the item/items? There are SO many hurdles you have not even thought of to even get something like this going. I could be wrong but I think this is an awful idea.
To all the replies like this, if you want to keep you coins in a personal safe for the next century, more power to you I fully support that. As of now though if you don't want to simply hodl, you're forced to mail the coin and use a forum based escrow or fly and meet someone in person and hope nothing bad takes place. My risk tolerance isn't happy about any of these solutions. Unexpected things happen and sometimes people need to sell/get a loan and the market is very very illiquid right now. The only other option is to peel which many people are doing. This endeavor is driven by my own desire for a better solution, so if you have any better ideas I am all ears. I am lucky to have access to many of the leading crypto companies and several large traditional finance companies and can leverage those relationships to create a solution. The custodian I am talking to custodies several hundred million dollars worth of gold and has a global bonded courier service. They are regulated by the NYDFS and have a top tier national firm engaged to conduct periodic audits. They are interested in facilitating loans as well as coin sales. If I store my coins there and eventually want to sell, do you think some wealthy individual would be more comfortable going to them, or head to bitcointalk? We are at a value where secondary collectors market sales needs to grow up or die a slow death of stagnation imo. (please notice that I do not mean collectors who just choose to hodl, I totally agree that no one is better for that than yourself). |
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Your example makes perfect sense to me.
Assume someone had a 25 BTC coin, currently worth over 1 million, and they expect it to go higher.
They can get a 500K+ loan, buy a house, plane or whatever and still participate in the expected run up in BTC value.
I now understand the use case.
Could be very useful for some coin holders.
Exactly! Glad it helped to clarify. It can be a bit hard to convey some topics clearly on the forum. Here's another example that I've been considering (I'll use larger numbers because it makes the math easier for me! ) Say you have two 25 BTC coins worth $2M (lucky you!) and you get a loan for $1M. You then buy a $1M house in cash. You then refinance and pull 80% of the home value out. You now have a mortgage for $800k which is around ~$3600 a month if you get a 30 year 3.5% interest rate loan. You then take that $800k, convert it to USDC and lend it with BlockFi (there are tons of providers but using this as they have a great calculator on the site) where they are currently paying $68,800 a year for lending $800k in USDC. This means they pay you $5700 a month in interest, which can go toward paying your mortgage and Casascius coin loan. Let's say the Cas coin loan is $4k a month + $3600 mortgage - $5700 a month you get in interest from Blockfi = You get a million dollar house and get to keep you Cas coin for $1900 a month. |
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Assumptions made in my previous post:
The coin is legit
The lender holds the coin
The lender has no need or desire to cash out during the term of the loan
These lenders run their business on fiat. They denominate the loan in fiat for accounting purposes (even if they send you BTC and ETH they note that as the USD spot price at the time they send to you) and do not want to speculate on the price of BTC. Hence why they give you 50% of the BTC face value at the time of the loan. This allows the price to drop up to 50% before they need to liquidate the collateral or ask you to post additional collateral. At the end of the day they want the loaned USD amount back plus interest. If bitcoin goes up or down they don't want exposure either way if that makes sense. BlockFi has a great calculator to give you a ballpark estimate: https://blockfi.com/I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but personally being able to get liquidity on a few coins without any exposure to capital gains, buy a house with cash (and potentially refinance and pull out up to 80% of the homes value to invest back into crypto if you want to really leverage), but still be able to capture any value from an increase in BTC value or numismatic value is quite interesting in my opinion. |
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for me, I would never do this - this would mean giving someone possession of my collectibles. I see this as the same sort of fallacy as trusting an exchange to be your wallet. It's all good till they have 10 million in physicals that they loaned out 5 million for and then they up and disappear. And that could easily happen in the crypto space. And it has happened many times. Sorry, once you give up your keys, it ceases to be your crypto. You are essentially selling your item and hoping to eventually buy it back once you pay off the loan.
I totally agree, trusting the service providers is one of the main challenges here. I can't go into detail publicly but the custodian and both the lenders I am talking to are valued at several billion dollars each and do hundreds of millions in transactions per year (one being a publicly traded company with a federal banking charter). Still very much a non zero risk but hopefully that gives some context on their scale. As a service provider they will need to make us feel very comfortable with the arrangement for me to be interested. This is definitely not an option for everyone, I have been surprised by the level of interest so thanks to all those that reached out! Imagining a world where physical crypto can be loaned against rather than peeled or sold at/below peel value is exciting to me. Also having a trusted custodian help in brokering sales and marketing to a larger audience would be a net benefit for the community imo. I appreciate the input, I will keep you all posted! |
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Hey everyone, I have been talking with a well known custodian and a few potential lenders regarding loans for Casascius coins. I am personally interested since a loan does not trigger a taxable event and it is also a way to access liquidity without having to peel or sell coins (especially with premiums as low as they are). The lenders are interested but one of their main questions is how large the potential market is for this before they invest time and money into it. If you are potentially interested in getting a Casascius coin loan, DM me or comment here and if comfortable give a ballpark estimate of the BTC value you would be interested in getting a loan on. Obviously this is not binding in any way and I will leave it to them to legitimize the process and ensure the safety of all our coins, but this market research would be quite helpful. Thanks Walk me through this. If someone gets a loan, they are going to have to pay interest on that. How do they pay that back if they never want to access their coins? If you have a 1 btc coin, I do not believe they are going to loan you the current dollar amount, or am I wrong? I checked out a thing on Celcius and to borrow like 20k, i needed to deposit like 1.65 btc with them as collateral. I suppose this is better than selling and potentially having to buy back btc at a higher price. And the interest rates seemed quite reasonable at like 0.7-1%. For BTC a good ballpark estimate is 50% of the value. So $100k in BTC they would give you a ~$50k loan. I am pushing them to consider numismatic value but that is a pretty accurate lower bar. I am working to get specific interest rates but they wanted to see level of demand first. |
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Hey everyone, I have been talking with a well known custodian and a few potential lenders regarding loans for Casascius coins. I am personally interested since a loan does not trigger a taxable event and it is also a way to access liquidity without having to peel or sell coins (especially with premiums as low as they are). The lenders are interested but one of their main questions is how large the potential market is for this before they invest time and money into it. If you are potentially interested in getting a Casascius coin loan, DM me or comment here and if comfortable give a ballpark estimate of the BTC value you would be interested in getting a loan on. Obviously this is not binding in any way and I will leave it to them to legitimize the process and ensure the safety of all our coins, but this market research would be quite helpful. Thanks Walk me through this. If someone gets a loan, they are going to have to pay interest on that. How do they pay that back if they never want to access their coins? Exactly like any other collateralized loan, the lender holds your collateral and then sends you USD/BTC/USDC and gives you a repayment schedule (principal + interest). You make payments every month and when the loan is paid off you get your collateral back. If you stop making payments for longer than a set period of time, the lender can sell your collateral to recoup the cost of the loan. It's kind of like a car loan, if you stop making payments on your car, the bank will have someone come pick up your car (the collateral), but if you pay off the loan, you own the car outright. Let me know if that wasn't clear enough |
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Hey everyone, I have been talking with a well known custodian and a few potential lenders regarding loans for Casascius coins. I am personally interested since a loan does not trigger a taxable event and it is also a way to access liquidity without having to peel or sell coins (especially with premiums as low as they are). The lenders are interested but one of their main questions is how large the potential market is for this before they invest time and money into it. If you are potentially interested in getting a Casascius coin loan, DM me or comment here and if comfortable give a ballpark estimate of the BTC value you would be interested in getting a loan on. Obviously this is not binding in any way and I will leave it to them to legitimize the process and ensure the safety of all our coins, but this market research would be quite helpful. Thanks edit: They could potentially do BTCC, Lealana or any pre-loaded BTC coins as well, I just need to discuss authentication of these with them. |
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Bump  Bumping this thread |
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All PM's replied to. Really impressed by all of the cool Casascius items collected on this forum |
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I am looking to buy unfunded or peeled Casascius bars and an unfunded 1,000 BTC gold coin. Please post here or DM if you have any you are interested in selling.
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Thanks for the info Miner! Really interesting that 7 of them graded RD (Red), curious what those look like to be designated as such. Also a bit surprising that there might be 12 other HC MS69's although I wonder how many were re-graded in hopes of getting bumped up. Regardless it shows that Deep Cameo high graded Bowl coins like the one in this auction are extremely rare! |
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Just curious, anybody seen any 69 or 70 grades ever on this coin? I know the holder gave the edges issues...  Thanks! I have one 69 and I know of one other. I believe there is one 70 in existence but haven't actually seen a picture of it. Mike scrapped about 1,150 of them (out of the initial 2,000 produced) due to being unhappy with the quality so there are actually very few of them and even fewer in good condition. |
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Awesome set! I wish I had the shirt and patch to go along with mine... Good luck with the sale! |
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