By the way, this is exactly for rich collectors.  Anyone rich enough to own 25+ bitcoins holding it for the long term, is in the market to buy one of these Bitcoin Blocks.

For everyone else, they should go shop for the One Bitcoin (or the Five Bitcoin).

And one more thing:  collectors always want rarity and low issuance.  If this really doesn't sell more than just a few, then there you have it, the ultimate collectible, so rare and with so few in existence.  Such that more cannot be made.  

thanks,
Bobby

You're not buying the Titanium.  You're buying the Bitcoin.
(Think of the Titanium as just the container for your precious Bitcoin.)

This Bitcoin Block comes in a very nice solid redwood box.  Are you saying that the redwood material has to be desirable enough to justify the multi-bitcoin premium?

thanks,
Bobby

If it were really made of pure gold, then it would be forever stuck in your country, as it won't be feasible for you to move it across any national borders.  Remember that border crossing require the declaration of all money, and that includes all precious metals like gold and silver.  Who would do that?

Whereas now, you're freely able to bring the Titanium Bitcoin Block anywhere you want to go.  Just keep it safe.

thanks,
Bobby

Personal delivery...  that's a good idea.  We'll do something like that down the road.  Just wait for the 888.

I agree with the challenges and concerns regarding the risks of losses from shipping.  There's no easy answer, unless people want to come and pick it up in person.  

thanks,
Bobby

As mentioned in my past posts, the collectible we are selling is indeed a premium high-end piece.  Low volumes, higher margins.  It is a collectible after all, and it's not meant to be used as a low-overhead hardware wallet for daily storage needs. The bitcoins in it are not randomly taken from the 15+ million bitcoins in circulation.  Rather, they are newly mined, from the limited issuance of 3,600 bitcoins mined a day, and which it will soon be 1,800 next month, and then down to 900/day in less than 4 years.

We don't sell this high-end Bitcoin Block collectibles based on the cost of manufacturing and raw materials.  Our current entry-level product is the One Bitcoin, with a "premium", or price, of 0.15 BTC.  Down the road, if there's interest, we can aim for even lower-end items, but only if we can make the costs work out. Stay tuned.

So the Bitcoin Block you purchase today, with 25+ BTC value in it (remember, it includes all of the TX fees as well), will surely be unique, and frankly, it'll be completely rare and impossible to make in the future.  This is more like a Picasso painting than a Form Model T.  

In four years time, think back to today, and ask yourself whether you would have wanted to buy a full 25 BTC Bitcoin Block for this price.  And if you were to have purchased one, what price would it go for in the market in 2020?

I now look at the 25, 100, and even the 1000 Casascius coins from 2012, and ask myself, why didn't I buy one then?  Could I have gotten them for less than 10% or 20% premium?  What do they sell for now?  

And like the other forum member said, who will actually sell you a real Bitcoin Block with the full 25 BTC block reward, for like USD $100? or even USD $500?  Really?  Or do you mean just get some new coins mined directly to your address?  And then what will you do with that?  And do you plan to resell that in 5-10 years, and for how much?

thanks,
Bobby

All Bitcoin Blocks will be sold funded.  (How could you have an unfunded bitcoin block reward?  )

We will self-insure for the shipping, and hence the premium.  In other words, we will not declare the full BTC value for shipping purposes, and therefore we will not receive the full insurance protection from the shipper.  It's a compromise that our customers prefer.  (Or do you prefer a lower price, and shipped to you with full declared BTC value?)

thanks,
Bobby

Someone here is paying attention to the details!   

Another Hint:
- It's only 2-stars, and it's worth more than its weight in gold.

If you're a true fan of Bitcoin, then you'll want one.
(What does the "N" stand for?)

It's coming soon!

(The One Bitcoins are back in stock and we've resumed shipping them today.  There was a big backlog, so some international shipments will go out first thing tomorrow morning.)

thanks,
Bobby

Bitcoin Block announcement on July 1, 2016

Just launched moments ago:
The BIGGEST thing since Bitcoin itself!

This is it! BTCC Mint launches the Bitcoin Block. It's a full Bitcoin Block Reward (over 25 BTC) in a square block made of pure Titanium, weighing in at 10 ounces (283 grams), with 80 mm sides and 10 mm thick.

The days of the 50 bitcoin block reward are long gone. Soon, the days of the 25 bitcoin block reward will also be history. Capture and preserve this unique moment in bitcoin's history, and order your 25 Bitcoin Block now. Save it for posterity, save it for your kids and grandchildren, and save it because it is the world's only full block reward, in beautiful titanium. The Bitcoin Block is worth more than its weight in gold.

Buy it now, before the block halving in 10 days!  Very limited in quantities, as after the block halving, these will go down to 12.5 Bitcoins in the block reward.

https://www.facebook.com/yourbtcc/posts/899196963540088
https://twitter.com/YourBTCC/status/748528529071960064

You can also customize the Bitcoin Block with a Forever message. This will put your personalized message on both the public Bitcoin Blockchain (in the block header, coinbase transaction), as well as being laser etched onto the back of the physical Bitcoin Block.

Great for gifts, or to celebrate birthdays, graduations, weddings, and maybe even for marriage proposals!

This Bitcoin Block is really for the rich & famous, and also for Bitcoin lovers worldwide.
You can now finally own your own block!

Order yours now at
https://store.btcc.com/









===============

Teaser posted on June 29, 2016, 05:43:28 PM

Hi everyone,

For those of you who didn't have enough of the One Bitcoin and the recently launched Five Bitcoin, we've got something new for you!

We're getting ready to launch it, and here's some blurry teaser photos for you to start guessing!

If you guess right about this exciting new product, you will win a discount coupon for the Five Bitcoin!

Another hint coming tomorrow!

thanks,
Bobby

P.S. - We now have more of the popular One Bitcoin, and will start shipping unfulfilled orders on June 30.  These are all part of the same 2-star V Series.

Order yours now at:
https://store.btcc.com/

Hi everyone,

I want to take this opportunity to address the questions about pricing of BTCC Mint physical bitcoins. 

Pricing is always a sensitive topic.  Make it too cheap, and the business can lose money and risk being shuttered.
Make it too expensive, and people always complain.  In fact, nothing in this world is ever cheap enough, as there will always be people who complain about price.

However, rather than rant on, let me give you all a different perspective about how we see our products and chose this pricing strategy:

1) We are selling a premium product.  Premium products command a premium pricing: special features, and limited quantities.

2) In a very important sense, this is not like any other physical bitcoin:  The bitcoins loaded in the BTCC Mint V Series coins are all freshly mined from the blockchain block reward, all in the current year.  For all of the other physical bitcoins out there, they're practically unlimited, as there are already over 15 million bitcoins in existence and any of those can be used to load the coin.  The other physical bitcoins out there can literally have an issuance in the millions, it's just a matter of sending some existing bitcoins into the address of the private key beneath the sticker.

For BTCC Mint, we are giving you allocation of a limited resource: fresh bitcoins mined from the BTCC Pool.  We only mine so much every day and every month.  In fact, after the block halving, the amount available even goes down further.  This is why the premium charged for the Five Bitcoin is not the same as the premium charged for the One Bitcoin.  Selling you the Five Bitcoin is effectively costing us the resources (newly mined bitcoin) of selling you 5 of the One Bitcoins.  For that reason, we charge more premium even though we still sell you a single physical coin. 

Every V Series physical bitcoin we sell is from a limited resource: newly mined bitcoins from the blockchain block reward.  In fact, even if BTCC Mint business becomes very successful in the future, there's a real limit on how long we can keep selling these coins.  For the Five Bitcoin, we can at most sell them for the next 8 years, at which time the block reward would come down to 3.125 bitcoins each.  After that, it will be impossible to mine 5 bitcoins into a single Five Bitcoin coin.  For the One Bitcoin, that will have a maximum production lifespan of another 16 years. (This is also why there's a not-too-artificial limit of 21 of the 5-piece Five Bitcoin set, as after the block halving, we won't be able to create any 5-piece sets that are all from the same block reward. That's it; no more!)

BTCC Mint is selling you a very limited, premium physical bitcoin, made of really special pure Titanium, containing a rare and limited supply of freshly mined bitcoins.  Going forward after the block halving, we will only see 1,800 BTC mined per day, and that comes to less than 700,000 bitcoins a year in total supply of freshly mined bitcoins.  Of course, the vast majority of that won't be used for physical bitcoins, we understand that.  Most importantly, we are selling you a premium allocation of newly mined bitcoins.  We are not just selling you random bitcoins, in a private key on a sticker stuck to a piece of metal, precious or not. 

Hope this gives everyone some more insights into the V Series coins from BTCC Mint.  I hope I've properly explain to you why our pricing method is based on the amount of mined bitcoins in the coin, and not merely charging a service fee or manufacturing overhead on the coin production.

Thank you for your understanding, and I'm happy to receive your further feedback, comments, and suggestions.

As a bonus for the few of you who get to read this: 
We will announce a new offering from BTCC Mint in about 10 days.  Stay tuned! 

thanks,
Bobby

Anduck, if you could, please add back the 4 earlier blocks?  (394051, 394111, 405240, and 405251)

Those are indeed BTCC Mint coins, just artists proofs, so it would be good to have them tracked as well, as some of them are in the public.


thanks,
Bobby

Anduck, if you want to determine which blocks are for BTCC Mint coins, you can look for the "BTCC" in the coinbase block header of the transaction.  All BTCC Mint coins should have that in the header of coinbase.

This should help you filter out all of the non-BTCC blocks.

Yes, it is pricey.  1 BTC premium is not cheap, and we fully understand that.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this issue on price.

The reason is simple: We are a real business and we want to make a profit, so that we can continue to operate, and fulfill our vision and mission of bringing to the world the most convenient and trustworthy digital currency services.  That's BTCC, and that's our passion.

I'm sure there are others out there, who wants to make physical bitcoins in a non-profit fashion.  I think that's also great and I commend them.  (As a consumer, I'm sure you would prefer to get everything you want, at the cheapest price.)

However, for us, we are operating as a company, spending money in R&D and marketing, and even created a really nice video showcasing the creation process of our Titanium physical bitcoins.  Hope you've watched and enjoyed that video.  These things take real effort; many employees involved, and real amounts of money.

Here's a link to the video again, in case you haven't seen it yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkmYwsd-VzU

In terms of the material, Titanium versus precious metal:  I've answered this before, in many ways, I truly feel that Titanium is better than gold or silver for physical bitcoins.  As you know, gold and silver, due to the precious metal nature, is still restricted at customs and border controls when going in/out of a country.  Do you really want to deal with that hassle when moving your physical bitcoins?  Besides, here's the most important question: Are you really buying the physical bitcoin for its (precious) metal value, or is it the bitcoin and the uniqueness of the newly mined bitcoin that is truly valuable?  I like the latter, and not the former.

With your help and support, we hope to be successful with this new line of business at BTCC.  And if we are, then we promise to continue to bring you more great products from BTCC Mint.  Trust me, there's lots more coming!  ;-)

thanks,
Bobby

Exciting news from BTCC Mint!

In celebration of BTCC's 5-year anniversary, we are proud to announce the Five Bitcoin from BTCC Mint, the latest product to join the 2016 V Series family of Titanium physical bitcoins.

Here's a link to the press release so you can read more of the "official" information:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/06/prweb13472694.htm

Let me give you some inside information, in terms of what I emphasized when working with the team in designing the coin and this product:

1) Keep the clean and distinguished design from the One Bitcoin.  We are aiming for a classic coin design.

2) Make it big!  It has to feel like it's really worth a lot, with 5 BTC value in it!  So it's quite large, at 50 mm, and very thick, at 5 mm.  Once you get to hold this coin in your hand, it's really "the right size", and makes the One Bitcoin feel small in comparison.  (As you know, the One Bitcoin is itself already quite large, at 43 mm, which is larger than most other physical bitcoins.)

3) On the back side, we included an extra ring of words, showing the number "FIVE" in 21 different languages.  We picked a nice set of languages, and our intention is to make this truly international, representing the global nature of Bitcoin. Hope you find your language included there!

4) Nice packaging: Each of these coins comes in a nice wooden etuis (aka box).  Great for safekeeping, and also great for displaying it!  They all come with a built in stand; see photos.  (We're offering 2 more packages in addition to the standard 1 coin box: the 2-coin set and the 5-coin set.)
- The 2-coin set has a nice display coin well, which allows you to show both the Front and Back sides of the coin at the same time, thus showcasing the nice design of the back side as well.
- The 5-coin set is unique in that all 5 coins are mined from the same block.  And of course, all 5 are held in a larger coin well, holding and displaying all 5 at the same time.  This is massive!  We will only make 21 of these sets in total.  This is really for the serious bitcoin collector, and the ones who can afford it!  (the sad thing is that after the block reward halving in July, we can no longer make the 5-coin sets like this, as one block will only contain 12.5 BTC.  So this is truly limited!!)

5) Notice all the instances of 5's?  5-year anniversary of BTCC, 5 Bitcoins, 50 mm diameter, 5 mm thickness, the word "FIVE" in 21 languages, and 500 max production quantity!  All intentional.  

Here is the list of 21 variations for the word "Five" in all major languages:

English — FIVE
Indonesian/Malay/Filipino — LIMA
Dutch — VIJF
Greek — ΠΕΝΤΕ
Arabic — خمسة
Japanese — 五
Hebrew — חמש
Russian — ПЯТЬ
Spanish/Portuguese — CINCO
Finnish — VIISI
Korean — 다섯
Icelandic — FIMM
Czech — PĚT
Norwegian/Swedish — FEM
Hindi — पाँच
German — FÜNF
Chinese — 伍
French — CINQ
Thai — ห้า
Bulgarian — ПЕТА
Italian — CINQUE

and photos now:
















Hope you enjoy the above insights... Happy shopping & collecting!

Pre-order yours today, and shipping should start on Monday, June 13.
https://store.btcc.com/

(We also put up some more stock of the One Bitcoin, in case you missed out on buying those.  Quantities are still quite limited, FYI.)

thanks,
Bobby

For this series of the Five Bitcoin (meaning the 2-star, 2016 V Series in Titanium), we will only make a maximum of 500 coins total, regardless of sets and packaging.  We will limit the 5-coin set to 21 units only. 

As for USA purchases, we are really in a tough position.  Obviously, I understand the demand from the USA.  However, our repeated research tells us that unless we have a full set of money transmitter licenses for the USA, we cannot sell and ship physical bitcoins into the USA market.  So it's not a matter of personal preference at this point, but rather a matter of legality and compliance with the law.

If any of you can help us with better or more accurate information on this matter, or good work-arounds, we would love to hear from you.
(Any lawyers out there who can give us a better and more definitive answer?)

In the mean time, I'm sure there will be USA access to secondary markets. 
Unfortunately, that's the best answer I can give you at this moment.

thanks,
Bobby

We just announced our new, extra large size, Five Bitcoin.  I'll post a new thread with photos...

At the same time, we released some more existing inventory of the One Bitcoin for sale, so that people can have a choice, and not feel like you're compelled to buy the much more expensive Five Bitcoin.  Just to be clear, these coins that are back in stock are NOT from returns, but rather we released inventory previously held back for our employees and investors. (We will produce more in our next production run for them.)

Enjoy!

thanks,
Bobby

Really nicely done!  I like it.
(It's also nice that these V-Series coins are all straight from the coinbase transaction, so it's incredibly easy and transparent as to the number of coins minted and redeemed.)

Since you've done such a nice job with your website at monitoring our production, I'll give you some cool tidbits and also an important correction:

1) the 50 address in your first 2 blocks (393716 & 393816) are actually NOT mined by us at BTCC.  Therefore, they were not part of any BTCC Mint coins at all.  I'm not sure how your algorithm picked up these two blocks.  If you could, please remove it from your DB so that users have more accurate information.

2) the next 4 blocks (394051, 394111, 405240, and 405251) were ours, but actually mined into our "artists proof" coins.  These are not the ones you see for sale now.  We've been using them for testing, which is why you see some redemptions. We have also saved some as souvenirs, and given some away to people.

3) blocks 409881 and onwards, are truly the 2016 V Series, One Bitcoin editions, made of Titanium.  Some early ones here have also been used for testing, photo shoots, and some damaged ones have been redeemed, etc.

Keep up the good work Anduck!

And stay tuned for more exciting products from BTCC Mint!

thanks,
Bobby

By the way, we are now nearly sold out.

Inventory is running very low now...

https://store.btcc.com/

Hi all,

Yes, for the very first few shipments, we made the mistake of declaring the full value (coin token + BTC) for the customs value, which resulted in your large VAT bill.

We quickly remedied that based on the advice on this forum, but unfortunately, a few packages already went out.

We know who those orders went to. So an apology, we will give you credit on your next order at BTCC Mint, for the extra VAT amount that you incurred.  Please send email with your order details to: mint@btcc.com

Going forward, the value declaration on all international orders will NOT include the BTC value.

thanks,
Bobby

Indeed! If you play poker with them, you'll be glad to find out that these were designed to be the same size as the "large-style" 43mm casino/poker chips!

:-)

thanks,
Bobby