Hi everyone,

BTCC will hold an AMA with Bobby Lee, our CEO, on Reddit from 1 to 2 AM (UTC) on Monday, November 28th. The AMA will be focused on BTCC Mint collectibles, including our recently introduced Bitcoin “Poker” Chips.

The Reddit thread for the AMA is here.

You can start posting your questions on Reddit now. Bobby will answer the questions on Monday in the order in which they are posted.

Have any of you spotted the surprise new item in the store?  


In addition, due to popular demand, we're adding one more item as well:
- a full roll of the Titanium Half Bitcoin, 20 pieces. 

They're the same size as the poker chips, by design.  So now, you can have both a stack of the Purple chips, as well as a stack of the Titanium coins, to represent the ultimate chip stack when playing poker!

thanks,
Bobby

Thank you!

It's true that the 5 x Five Bitcoin is priced at a premium.

But the way we look at it, it's premium priced not because of the wooden box, but rather the fact that you're getting 5 huge Titanium coins, the largest of its class, containing pristine Bitcoins, newly mined and all from the same block. A piece of history, not to mention the limited issuance. Never again!

The only analogy, let's use gold here, would be to get 5 of the largest gold coins, straight from a world class gold mine, all created from a single nugget of gold, mined and created on the same day, without any impurities or recycling of gold from other sources. New and pristine. And you know what: limited edition and any large gold coins (5+ oz!or 1 Kg bar) command a larger % premium over regular 1 oz coins. And of course you would get a really nice wooden box with that!

That's our explanation of our pricing premium at both ends of the spectrum: the larger the piece, the higher the premium. Smaller pieces also have higher premiums (when measured as a percentage) due to their manufacturing inefficiencies.

And like you said, all this will be moot in a few years when BTC is over $5,000+.  
(I think it will happen, which is why we prominently list our coins in the Bits unit of Bitcoin.)

Also sort of like how people reacted to the amazing 1,000 BTC Casascius coin when that was released. No one bothered buying it, and look, now there are only 3 in existence!

Thanks,
Bobby

The changes are all on the "front":

On the "Artist Proofs" of the 1K chips, we screwed up with the flower/leaves design.  They're supposed to each have 21 "leaves", on each left, right side.  But somehow, we overlooked the fact that it was inadvertently reduced to 19 "leaves".  My design decision was that the two branches of 21 leaves is the perfect number, to honor both the 21 million bitcoins, and the 21 trillion bits in eventual total circulation. So this means that the "19 leaves" design had to be re-done!

I bet you guys didn't even notice that the branches each had 21 leaves! 
It's been that way since our One Bitcoin!

And since we had to re-do the front side, we changed a few more things:
- removed the year "2016", as we will use the same chips when we make and mine them in 2017
- made the background BTCC logo color more prominent
- added URL at bottom, for our new website: http://www.btcc.mobi/  - This would allow anyone who receives a coin to go lookup and find out more about BTCC Mint coins, and how to redeem, and also promote our awesome new mobile wallet, called Mobi.
- moved the "3 stars" to top, below the "C Series" label

Best part: the new Mobi wallet will have native functionality to redeem BTCC Mint coins (for both manual private key format or scanning QR code), and even handles redeeming multiple coins for bulk and batch processing.  You guys have to check it out:
https://www.mobi.me/

thanks,
Bobby

 

Hey all,

If there's enough interest, maybe I'll do an AMA on Reddit next Monday.

Anyone interested?

thanks,
Bobby

Sorry, no more sales this year!

See this post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1687999.msg16944754#msg16944754

Yes, ordering early will get you lower serial numbers for the Signature Set.

Alternately, you can email us your preference of serial numbers, and we can pick and send you the one, in the order of your preference.

thanks,
Bobby

If you look at photos closer, you'll see that the white ones in the marketing give-aways are different than this new batch we're selling.
The new ones are the "official" collection, and have serial numbers starting with "F".  (Where, serial numbers prefix A-E are for the larger denomination chips.)

The U# chips were our first batch, but we decided on making some design changes, and had to wait another round of production.  In the mean time, we decided to go ahead and make some ~3,000 of them, for gifts for marketing, etc.  They won't be sold, but will be given away.  We still have inventory of that variety, so the ultimate production will likely exceed 3,000. 

About our serial numbers:
In future, maybe a few years from now, even smaller denominations will use G, H, etc, until we get to "S" for the "1 Satoshi" chips.  But that's a long time away.  That's also why the Half Bitcoins use "T", which is after "S".  And the marketing 1K chips use "U", which comes after "T".  They are all loaded, so don't let the "U" confuse you.

thanks,
Bobby
thanks,
Bobby


 

I'm glad we have a poker chips fan out there!  

This is by far my own happiest launch for BTCC Mint.

thanks,
Bobby

Correct!  Matching serial numbers from 001 to 200.  (Unfortunately, not all numbers will ship out via store orders, as several have been reserved by employees, and VIPs.)

And the 5-color set do not have any matching serial numbers.  We'll make and sell as many of these sets as people want.  They're more affordable, because we don't include the Purple.

If you want to know my opinion:  I think this Signature Set will be the most highly sought after.  Besides the limited edition, it's basically a once-in-a-lifetime collection:  all 6 of the serial numbers are matching.  "Launch Day Edition", sort of like First Day Covers for stamps collectors.

If you think about it this way:
the various chips will sell in different quantities over time.  So we'll never be able to align the serial numbers of all 6 chips in the future, unless like we skip several thousand numbers for the Purple and Black, to match the latest numbers for the White and Red chips.  Know what I mean?

So we reserved the first 200, for the matching sets, and the rest will sell as they sell.  (We're obviously making more of the White and Red chips, as compared to the Purple and Black ones.)

thanks,
Bobby

Yes, that was our mistake.  We're correcting it now.

thanks,
Bobby

Hey all,

several people have asked, so I'll confirm publicly:

We will not hold any Black Friday or any other sales for the rest of 2016.  Our main sale event for the year was the "Blackout Sale" that happened two weeks ago. 

By popular request, these Bitcoin Chips are already priced at rock-bottom prices.  (We're not even sure if we can break even.)  So if anything, these may just be introductory prices, and we may raise prices on some items in the future. 

So don't wait!  If you wait too long to order, you only risk us selling out of inventory and causing longer wait times.

thanks,
Bobby

Today we launched Bitcoin Chips, a new set of fun and affordable bitcoin collectibles for bitcoin enthusiasts. Bitcoin Chips come in six denominations that range from 1,000 bits (0.001 bitcoins, roughly $0.70) to 500,000 bits (0.5 bitcoins, roughly $356.10).

You can order the chips in configurations of one to a few chips each, or in bulk rolls of 20 chips each. Uniquely, for poker fans, Bitcoin Chips are available in customizable poker chip sets of 200 chips each.

Another notable Bitcoin Chip product is the Six Color Signature Set. The Set consists of one chip from each Bitcoin Chip denomination adding up to six chips, with matching serial numbers.

A highlight of Bitcoin Chips is their premium design, which was refined over the course of a year. The design of the chips contains detail from the outer part of the BTCC flower logo interspersed with the bitcoin symbol. Together, the logo and the symbol represent BTCC's belief in the continued ascendancy of bitcoin and BTCC's mission to become the go-to bitcoin service provider in a world in which everyone uses bitcoins.

Bitcoin Chips also feature strong security and anti-counterfeiting features, giving you peace of mind that you investment is secure and genuine.

Bitcoin Chips were also designed with customer convenience in mind. Underneath the hologram sticker on the reverse of each chip is a polyester round that has a private key with its QR code, which can be scanned to import each chip's bitcoins into any online wallet that supports the bitcoin private key format.

Buy your own Bitcoin Chip today in our store: https://store.btcc.com/collections/bitcoin-chip.

We will not auction the low numbers.  They will all be sold through the store, and some will be reserved for employees and special VIPs.




Cannot tell you the launch date.  But check back in a few hours.

(Like I said, if we have 10 people interested, we can open up the store a few hours before the General Announcement to the public.  Interested?  Do we have 10+ yet?)



"Yes and no."

There will be a few nice surprises!  "It's more than what you see." 

thanks,
Bobby

Hi there,

Your ordering is incorrect, as the rules are that newer bids of the same price have lower priority than earlier ones.
This means that Anduck would be at the top of the "1.45" bids as Anduck was the first to bid 1.45.

Here is the correct current top 5 bids, through post #43:
- 1.5 - Zepher
- 1.5 - hybridsole
- 1.45 - Anduck
- 1.45 - Seccour
- 1.45 - greenplastic

thanks,
Bobby

These are the last 5 that will be sold from BTCC, as that's all we have left from the original batch.

Of the first 100 coins mined that were Artists Proofs, 97 were of this gold-plated brass variety.  3 were made into titanium coins.
You can clearly see all 4 of the blocks mined, in Anduck's BTCC Coin Tracker, for block numbers 394,051; 394,111; 405,240; and 405,251; totaling 100 coins:

https://anduck.net/bitcoin/btcc_coins.html

All of these coins have been given/sold to friends, family, and employees.  Only these last 5 remain with BTCC, to sell at this auction.
and in fact, about 30 of them have already been redeemed, in our early testing, or by people who chose to redeem them.


I've also added this clarification in the OP:

* Bitcoin content: Loaded with 1.0 BTC, freshly mined from BTCC Pool in early 2016 (coinbase transaction)

thanks,
Bobby

Follow me on Twitter:
@bobbyclee

I'll be sending out teaser photos within the next 8 hours. 

In terms of timing, is this a good week for a release?  Or should we wait until next week?  Or is December better?
What do you guys think? 

thanks,
Bobby

but it's not a "coin"...  uh-oh. 

will that dampen interest?

thanks,
Bobby

You've all been waiting for it.... It'll finally be here!  It's imminent!  
The newest product announcement from BTCC Mint, coming VERY soon...

If only I can tell you more!

However, I'll be tweeting a teaser tomorrow, for the whole world to see.

Don't miss it! So follow me on twitter to catch the first glimpse:
@bobbyclee

Furthermore, if there's interest from at least 10 of you in this forum, we'll give you an advantage:
We can open the store to all of you a few hours before we announce general availability to the public!

Stay tuned!

thanks,
Bobby