Hi everyone!

It’s been a long while since I last visited and posted here. We’ve been busy with our business at Ballet, and now we have something fun to share with this amazing community here:



We are happy to announce here that Ballet will soon be launching the sale of physical bitcoins, similar to the loaded Casascius coins of the early days, but this time in a metal, credit card form factor (just like the Ballet cold storage wallets). This new product is called the Loaded PURE Bitcoin, and buyers will receive actual “physical” bitcoin in the mail, held and stored safely in these loaded cards. What Mike Caldwell had to stop with Casascius coins ten years ago, we are now restarting at Ballet!

There are four denominations available, which are 0.1, 0.025, 0.01, and 0.005 BTC.

This new way to buy bitcoin allows you to skip the hassle and risks of using an exchange. (And also there’s no need to request to withdraw the BTC from the exchange after the purchase!) No account creation is needed although there is still a need for KYC for higher value transactions. This Ballet product is a truly safe and convenient way to invest in and accumulate bitcoin, by directly holding it in physical cold storage. Your keys, your bitcoin.

Due to regulatory restrictions, the product is initially only available for sale in 25 states in the United States. (These 25 states are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. This list is subject to change, and we will continue to work on expanding the coverage area to additional states in the future.)

If you reside in one of the states where this is available, we would greatly appreciate it if you could help us test the product and purchase process, by giving it a try and sharing your feedback on the experience.

After the order is placed, we will send you the PURE Bitcoin card. Once you have received the package, please use the Ballet Crypto app to confirm that you have received the card, and then the bitcoin will be loaded onto the card. (For a few states, the cards will be shipped pre-loaded for compliance reasons, and those shipments will be insured accordingly.)

We accept payment by credit card, debit card, and ACH bank transfer. Payment by wire transfer will also be added soon. We will also consider adding payment by BTC if there’s sufficient interest. Please note: the bitcoin price is locked in at the time of purchase. (Due to the volatile nature of bitcoin prices, refunds and returns are not accepted, but we will offer a buy-back policy for people to sell back their bitcoin purchase if they’re not satisfied with the product.)

To place an order for “Loaded PURE Bitcoin”, please visit:
https://bitcoin.ballet.com

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at:
support@ballet.com

Hope you like this new product, and that you can help us test it! Please share your comments and feedback here in this thread. Long live Bitcoin!

thanks,
Bobby

[Important Notes]

Hi all,

As teased here a few days ago, I'm excited to share that we have now soft-launched the new Bitcoin Block:
https://block.balletcrypto.com

I personally think this is one of the the ultimate Bitcoin collectible for true HODLers and hardcore Bitcoin fans. It's your chance to own a physical "bitcoin block" before the May 2020 halving, containing the full block reward including the transaction fees (that's 12.5+ BTC), coming straight from the mining pool. This is truly virgin bitcoin; zero hops and straight via the block's coinbase transaction. This is as real as it gets, in terms of owning a piece of Bitcoin history; owning a block from the blockchain. In our frequent analogies where Bitcoin is digital gold, it's like owning a large rare piece of a gold nugget, coming straight from the gold mine!

As a true fan of Bitcoin collectibles and physical bitcoins, I wanted to share this new product with all of you first, so that you can order now, and get in on the low serial numbers before we formally announce this product to the public. You have a few days head start!

Important Notes

• Please ensure you have enough BTC funds available before you place the order. This product is very expensive (1.0 BTC mining service fee + 13.3 BTC mining deposit), and the USD $99 price is not refundable.
• The current photos and diagrams shown for this product are just photo renders, and they are not actual photographs of the actual product. The product is still being manufactured, and the final product could have slight differences from the current photos and diagrams.
• There is a small user-assembly component to this product. See step #7 in the Ordering Procedure section below for more details.
• All Bitcoin Blocks are made-to-order, so we will not have any additional inventory for sale later. If you want to purchase the pre-halving 2020 Bitcoin Block, please order here now.
• The Bitcoin Blocks have ascending serial numbers, and the Blocks will ship out in sequence of when you place your order. This means that the sooner you order, the lower the serial number you'll get.
• Once you’ve placed the order on our web store, the USD $99 price is non-refundable, even if you later decide to not take delivery and not pay for the mining of the block.
• Supplies are very limited, so please place your order soon, to ensure you get a pre-halving Bitcoin Block.
• For these pre-halving Bitcoin Blocks, we will likely stop taking new orders around April 15, or whenever supplies run out.
• The USD $99 price is non-refundable and you also need to pay for the mining service fee and the mining deposit. To purchase the product, there is a mandatory mining service fee of 1.0 BTC, to be paid after the order is placed. As this is a made-to-order product, please fully read the Pricing and Important Notes sections below before placing your order. Once your order is placed, the USD $99 is NOT refundable.

Bitcoin Block

Ballet’s new Bitcoin Block is a bitcoin collectible masterpiece, created by turning Bitcoin “digital gold” into physical form, made of advanced titanium as used by the aerospace industry. It is designed as a physical square block, to represent a real world version of a block in the ever-expanding blockchain. We created the Bitcoin Block specifically for savvy bitcoin investors who want to hold a piece of history in their hands. Over time, as the block rewards continue to go down by half every four years, the value of this product will surely go up, and there will be real prestige in owning a whole Bitcoin Block in physical form.

>>> Order Now <<<



Features

• Full Bitcoin Block Reward: Bitcoin Blocks contain the entire coinbase reward of a newly-mined block. This includes both the base block reward of 12.5 BTC (6.25 BTC after the halving) as well as all transaction fees mined in that block.
• Virgin Bitcoins: The bitcoins come straight from our mining pool partner, mined directly from the coinbase transaction in each block, straight to your physical Bitcoin Block, with no intermediate hops. These bitcoins have no prior transaction history, and thus provide the highest level of privacy.
• Physical Bearer Asset: Bitcoin Blocks are physical bearer assets, with no external dependencies such as passwords or third-party accounts. Whoever has physical possession of the Bitcoin Block controls the funds.
• Two-Factor Private Keys: Bitcoin Blocks are made using Ballet’s innovative Two-Factor Key Generation (2FKG) process, which utilizes the industry standard BIP38 process to split the private key into two components (the BIP38 passphrase and the encrypted private key). Blocks are manufactured in two separate steps in two different locations around the world. This provides what we consider to be the highest level of private key security for the customer.

Pricing

• Price of the Bitcoin Block is USD $99 and once ordered, this is not refundable.
• Mining service fee of 1.0 BTC, to be paid in BTC directly to Ballet after the order is placed.
• Mining deposit of 13.3 BTC, to be paid in BTC directly to the mining pool after the order is placed. The difference between 13.3 and the total amount mined to the block will be refunded to the customer.

To summarize: the price premium of the Bitcoin Block is 1.0 BTC (the mining service fee), and you will separately pay the mining pool for the full BTC value of the mined block (send 13.3 BTC deposit first, then get refund after the block is mined).



Ordering Procedure

Important: all Bitcoin Blocks are made-to-order, so we will not have any additional inventory for sale later if you do not place your order directly with Ballet now. Before you place your order, please read the following carefully to fully understand the whole ordering process. Bitcoin Block is a combination of physical product and bitcoin mining service, so that in order to receive the product, the customer would need to pay both the mining service fee and the mining deposit after payment of the product in the order checkout process. This means Ballet will NOT separately sell the unfunded empty block for USD $99 without the mining service.

1) On the Ballet official store at order checkout, the customer pays a non-refundable USD $99 for the product cost of the Bitcoin Block. To place an order, the customer must provide the following details:

• Full name
• Delivery address (all details, including: street address, apartment unit, postal code, country)
• Mobile phone number
• Email address
• Customer-created 8-digit order PIN code that will be used to authenticate email communications.
• Bitcoin refund address to receive the excess BTC amount from the mining of the block. Please note that this refund address CANNOT be changed after the order is placed. Please be sure you control this bitcoin address, and make sure it will be valid for use up through May 20, 2020, as the excess deposit refund could take some time to process.
  

2) After the order is placed, Ballet will send an email to the customer (from block@balletcrypto.com) providing two bitcoin deposit addresses: one for the mining service fee (1.0 BTC) and one for the mining deposit for the block reward (13.3 BTC). IMPORTANT: To authenticate this email as legitimately coming from Ballet, we will reference both the order  number and the 8-digit order PIN code provided by the customer during the ordering process. For further confirmation, this information will also be sent via SMS to the customer’s mobile phone number.

3) Once the payment request email is sent to the customer, they are now required within 48 hours to make two separate bitcoin payments to the two bitcoin addresses provided in the email and SMS:

• 1.0 BTC for the mining service fee.
• 13.3 BTC as the mining deposit to the mining pool to mine the block reward directly to the physical Bitcoin Block.

4) Once the bitcoin payments are received, Ballet will ship the unfunded Bitcoin Block to the customer by express courier. The customer will need to confirm delivery of the Bitcoin Block in order to proceed to the next step.

5) After the customer confirms physical delivery of the Bitcoin Block, the mining pool will mine a new block with a coinbase transaction sending the entire block reward and all transaction fees directly to the Bitcoin address of your Bitcoin Block.

6) After the Bitcoin Block is funded, the customer will be informed of the block height and exact amount of BTC, which can be verified directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. If the funded amount is less than the 13.3 BTC mining pool deposit, the excess amount will be sent back to the customer’s BTC refund address provided in the initial ordering process. (If in the unlikely scenario that the total mined amount is higher than 13.3 BTC, the customer will have to send in additional BTC to cover for that amount. If this happens, additional instructions will be sent out.)

7) Once we know the actual block height and the full block reward amount, we will create a custom set of stick-on letterings (high quality metallic style raised lettering) to denote the actual block height and block reward amount. We will then send this lettering stick-on set to the customer to affix onto the Bitcoin Block. Detailed instructions will be included.

If you have any questions, please contact us at block@balletcrypto.com and we will guide you through the process step by step.

>>> Order Now <<<


BTCC Mint Legacy

Bobby Lee, founder and CEO of Ballet, was previously the co-founder and CEO of BTCC until its acquisition in early 2018. Mr. Lee was the creator of the BTCC Mint series of physical bitcoin collectibles, which are among the most highly regarded in the industry. From 2016 to 2018, BTCC Mint produced and sold physical bitcoins in a variety of different physical formats, from coins to blocks to poker chips. In total, BTCC Mint produced over 22,000 physical bitcoin collectibles, containing over 8,700 BTC in total.

With Mr. Lee as CEO, Ballet has inherited BTCC Mint’s legacy. With all of the core team members of BTCC Mint on board, Ballet has unique and unparalleled experience and expertise in production of physical bitcoins. We put security and privacy above everything else, and our long track record is evidence of that.

The security of BTCC Mint collectibles has never been compromised. To date, all physical bitcoins created by BTCC Mint either remain intact in the original physical coins, or the bitcoins were transferred safely to other addresses by the owner. No complaints of fraud or security failure have ever been filed or reported. Mr. Lee is proud of this clean track record as coinmaker of BTCC Mint and will uphold the same high standard at Ballet.


Technical Specifications

• Product Name: Bitcoin Block
• Width: 80 mm
• Height: 80 mm
• Thickness: 10 mm
• Weight: 283 g
• Material: Titanium

Please post any additional questions you may have, and we'll try our best to answer as soon as possible. We will update our website accordingly, and may even put out a FAQ.

As mentioned before, the BalletCrypto username on this forum is our official company account, so we will be posting from there as well. I vouch for that account, and I've already added Trust to that profile.

Over the next few days, we will continue to fix any errors on our website and our store order page, so please bear with us.

Hope you all enjoy this chance to own a piece of Bitcoin history!

>>> Order Now <<<

thanks,
Bobby

Hi all,

As many of you may know, I've been busy this past year with my new startup, Ballet. (https://www.balletcrypto.com/) I sold BTCC in early 2018 and took a sabbatical year off. Then in January 2019, I brought together several of the best people from BTCC and started Ballet. (And yes: all of my staff from the BTCC Mint business is with me at Ballet today.)

We launched the REAL Series physical cryptocurrency wallet late last year. It's a 100% non-electronic physical cold storage wallet that serves as a bearer asset. This product takes architectural inspiration from the Casascius physical bitcoins pioneered by Mike Caldwell. We added several important features: BIP38 two-factor key generation (2FKG), multicurrency support, and a convenient mobile app (called Ballet Crypto) to allow for easy depositing, sending, and management of multiple wallets. (And a truly undiscovered secret feature: our Ballet Crypto mobile app actually has GREAT support for traditional paper wallets and physical bitcoins, allowing you to split out all of Bitcoin’s fork coins, individually send out small amounts, etc. Give it a try!)

Last month we launched the Ballet PRO Series, which are custom-made for each buyer. You choose your own passphrase and send the BIP38 intermediate code to us, and we manufacture customized wallets that can only be decrypted by your passphrase. Further, for true disaster recovery needs, we provide three (3) identical wallets in each set, so that users can safely place these wallets in multiple locations, to prevent loss from theft, fire, and other natural disasters.

Our company has an official account here on BitcoinTalk: BalletCrypto (same as our Twitter handle)
My colleague Robert will be posting from that account. Stay tuned.

Last question:
What new products would you like to see us launch?  (Hint: we already have a really cool new product that will launch very soon... Can you guess what it is?)

It’s good to be back here on this BitcoinTalk forum!

thanks,
Bobby

BTCC to Discontinue Its BTCC Mint Physical Bitcoins Business

After careful consideration, BTCC will stop producing and selling BTCC Mint physical bitcoins effective October 12th, 2018.

We are discontinuing BTCC Mint to focus on our other products: BTCC Exchange (https://www.btcc.com/), Mobi Wallet (https://www.mobi.me/), and BTCC Pool (https://btccpool.com/).

Thank you for your support and loyalty.

We will continue providing assistance for BTCC Mint customers. Please contact us at support@btcc.com if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
—The BTCC Team

This was just announced.  A sad day indeed.  The 2018 V-Series (One Bitcoin and One-Tenth Bitcoin) were the last production coins from BTCC Mint.  Respectively, only 150 and 900 of them were made in total.

Total mintage of all coins are here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4392509
(I hope to organize all funding addresses into a text file, for people who are interested.)

Let's hope that that the values of all BTCC Mint coins will go up!

Long Live BTCC Mint.

thanks,
Bobby

[Lesbian Cow]

Hi all,

As initially suggested by Lesbian Cow earlier this year, I will be speaking at the upcoming World Crypto Con, which takes place in Las Vegas from October 31 to November 2.

I'm very excited because I plan to give a keynote talk about Physical Bitcoins and the story behind BTCC Mint.
I will share stories about my journey as coin maker and creator of BTCC Mint, showcase products and the full history of the various collections. If time permits, I'll even do a Q&A, either on stage or afterwards.

This will be quite special because for the first time ever, I will talk about the topic of Physical Bitcoins and the story of BTCC Mint. As many of you are loyal customers and avid collectors of BTCC Mint, I hope to see all of you there!  Over the years, I've had the pleasant opportunity to meet several of you in real life, most recently was chronicsky, while on the Blockchain cruise in Barcelona last month.

Buy your tickets here (just 1 day left before ticket prices increase):
https://worldcryptocon.com/registration/tickets/purchase-tickets/

Here's a special promo code that you can use to get a $250 discount off of tickets:
BITCOINCHIP

If you buy your ticket using the above promo code AND you come and attend my talk, then you can get a FREE Bitcoin chip: the White 2016 "Artists Proof" 1K-bits Bitcoin Chip.  (This is the one that was never publicly sold on the BTCC Mint Store, limited edition with only 2,780 every made.)

And if you splurge for the more expense "Ultra VIP" package using the promo code, then you can join me for a private dinner on October 31. Very limited number of seats available for that.

Hope to see many of you there at World Crypto Con!

thanks,
Bobby

Hi all,

We're happy to say that we're now almost all sold out of our pre-August 1st (pre Bitcoin Cash hard fork) inventory of BTCC Mint's Bitcoin Chips.

I've been very happy with the quality of the chips, the color choices, the denominations, etc. 
(If you're curious, the colors are modeled after casino chips from Las Vegas casinos.)

What do you suggest or recommend next, in terms of Bitcoin poker chips?

- Some have suggested higher denominations, such as 1 BTC (or higher?)
- Some have suggested lower denominations, such as 500 bits, 100 bits...

Is it important to you all for the poker chips to have newly mined, uncirculated, "coinbase" bitcoin in them?
or is it okay to have generic "in-circulation" bitcoin in them? (less unique, but also less troublesome for us.)

Any other suggestions or feedback?

thanks,
Bobby