Sure, the NFC tag will have the full public address and a confirmation code (10 alpha-numeric characters).  The full public address will be useful on its own because, as we currently see, FirstBits is non-operable on blockchain.info (unless they fixed that recently).

The confirmation code will be generated by hashing the public address and performing some trade secret set of other data destructive algorithms to come up with the 10 character code.  Nothing fancy, just increasing entropy.  So my app will ping my server with the full public address and the confirmation code and the server will perform the transformations and verify that the code provided is the same as the code generated.  Once verified it will ping other services like blockchain.info and bitcoinaverages so you get a nice "one sheet" of validity and value for the coin.

The security is mostly about verifying the coin is not a counterfeit but I put in a few more helpful functions.

Since you have an up and coming section I wanted to post here.  I am attempting to start a physical bitcoin that is specifically designed to be traded and not kept as a collectors item.  I am trying to raise funds with an Indiegogo campaign.  Here are some relevant links:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/numisalis-physical-bitcoin/x/1557834

http://numisalis.com

If I get funded my first run will be for 15,000 coins.

I have finalized the coin design.  I think every coin needs an animal.  I, of course, chose the Honey Badger.

This response keeps me up at night because accepting bitcoin should be the right thing.  Once I am running (after the campaign) I will only accept bitcoin as payment.  I thought long and hard about using a kickstarter type bitcoin site (the name slips me now) and I decided against it and the reason is that bitcoin is not a very good delayed payment mechanism.

What if bitcoin drops in value by 20% in the month it takes for me to receive funds?  I set my campaign at the lowest amount I could and still succeed.  If I am short $6000 I don't know if I can add that kind of capital (because that would be on top of what I am already doing).  That isn't fair to my customers.

What if bitcoin goes up in value by 20% in that same time?  Am I just supposed to tell my customers "thanks suckers"?

I don't want to introduce additional risk to my customers because in the end, it is them taking the risk.

I am not really trying to convince you, but you bring up a good point that I do want to address.  If you can think of a good way for me to accept bitcoin for this kickstarter campaign I would definitely be interested.

That might be a very interesting service to set up.  I accept bitcoin and turn around and make contributions to Indiegogo for you.  Hmm.  I may be back in a few days on this one.

There are plenty of physical bitcoin on the market designed as collector's items.  I am trying to bring to the market one designed for trade.  With trade in mind, here are the properties integral to Numisalis bitcoin:

• Low margin - Minting margin has to be kept low so the trade markup is reasonable
• Low denomination - You need coins with a value low enough to handle day to day purchases
• Durability - Toss them around, carry them in your pocket, don't worry about stickers or getting them hot or wet
• Easy Verification - Companion NFC reading app to verify value and protect against counterfeits

Numisalis coins are plastic physical bitcoins with NFC tags embedded in them.  They are the size and shape of typical Vegas poker chips.  In that theme, the product is a poker chip attache case with 205 coins of various denominations (6 denominations in all).  A large number of the coins will be valued at ~$1 and ~$5 so they can be used for day to day trades and purchases.

I believe I am the most reasonably priced solution.  I am trying to hit the sweet spot of low margin and low denomination to make sure that you get a useful product.

I still need to get this project off the ground so I am doing an Indiegogo campaign to pre-sell my product.  The campaign is fixed goal because getting less money than my goal would not help me.  But that does mean you won't get charged unless I make my goal so hopefully you can contribute with confidence.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/numisalis-physical-bitcoin/x/1557834
http://numisalis.com


Please note that my business model is to sell a cold storage plastic solution and not bitcoin.  I will provide a script with every order that you can use to generate a transaction that will charge your coins successfully with your own bitcoin.

I saw this weekend that Firstbits was not working.  I am not sure how long it has not been working.  Are you guys planning to get it working soon?

Thanks!

Thank you Mufa.  I will admit I was a little angry when I wrote that but I will stand up for the meat of the message.  It is the numbers that kill me.

1) If he is going to pay someone with 20 bonds he is essentially stealing ~60% of their weekly dividend.  Screw that!
2) If there are 300 addresses to pay he is literally charging us $1050 for his time.  Even if he wasn't already charging us a fee for running the rigs there is no way that job is worth $1k.

As another question, I don't know where I am supposed to receive this manual dividend.  If lab rat has an asset list, I don't believe that I have given bitfunder a personal bitcoin address.  How does he know where to send funds?  Is he sending funds to my bitfunder account address so it will show up in my bitfunder account?

This 0.025BTC fee is horse crap.  I don't thank you for this mining service you provide, I FREAKING PAID FOR IT!  And now this is your current thinking:

Unfortunately it will take me a few hours of manual work to get people their dividends.  I know!  I will just make hundreds of dollars an hour doing it!

Aren't your investors getting dicked over enough with this bitfunder garbage?  We gave you money and a percentage for you to work for us.  We expect you to work for us.  Stop stealing from us.  Work really damn hard.  Don't sleep.  Make it right.  You absolutely owe us.  We paid for it.

I realized that I said "make fun of stereotypes" not realizing that there was someone posting on here with the handle "stereotype".  That was not directed at you man.

I think that the crux of what is going on is that Mike is not really set up to supply merchants with a wholesale model.  He just does not have the capacity to do that right now based on demand.  What he is really doing is whatever he can to keep his head above water and maintain quality service and product.  Raise prices and force quantity to lower his customer count and make sure he is not spending all his time shipping.  This is exactly what he should be doing and the only real problem is that everyone is using the misnomer "wholesale" and we carry our own understanding of the concept of wholesaler into our expectations.

Mike is not a wholesaler unless he can scale supply or the market proves that it will bear the individual coin markup to justify Mike's markup as reasonable for a wholesale model.  So really what it may boil down to is we need to stop appending the label of "wholesale" to what Mike is doing.  We want him to be a wholesaler, but that does not mean he is.

As a side note, I find it interesting when people convert bitcoin to $ when talking about the markup.  Mike absolutely has it right.  It is a bitcoin product purchased with bitcoin.  You can't fail to increase value if you keep it in one currency.  When I was nursing dreams about a wholesale model with casascius coin I was going to keep cash in an exchange to purchase bitcoin with whatever cash was being used to buy the coin on the spot.  At the end of the day I would always have more bitcoin.  When you do that only the percentage matters.

Ha!  You could find a deep end to go off of in a baby pool.  Is English your first language?  If not all is excused because it seems you are not picking up on the colloquialisms.  Everything you are complaining about follows the phrase "in our heart of hearts" which implies self reflection and is best displayed through hyperbole.  I was making fun of stereotypes.  Something that might be evident if any of my previous posts or even the first part of that post was taken into account.

Mike, I don't know that anyone was expecting you to comment.  This thread was data for you.  But thank you for commenting.  In the end the real data point is sales and it is definitely interesting that you are transparent about that with us.  I am glad you are still moving coin.  If you are still just keeping up with demand then more power to you.  I will be watching prices on your site and watching for auctions as I am definitely interested in getting more of your product.

I find it funny how demand can "kill the magic" just as fast as anything else.  In our heart of hearts we are all hipsters that remember the good old days before these noob trend followers with money to spare came in and ruined it for the rest of us.  You hear me Johnny California?!  Stay out of Austin!

This is for bitcl1234oinfever and it is not meant to be sarcastic in any way.

From my experience (and I see it in Mike's comments) it is really hard to put the correct value on your own product.  You want people to buy but you also want to make sure you are maximizing your own value.  It is really easy to make incorrect assumptions about what people are thinking and the hardest customers to read are the ones who did not buy anything.  There are so many reasons to not buy something, most of which you have no hope of addressing.

Now I could have just sent a message to Mike myself about my concerns but the issue with that is I am one data point with my own whims and fancies and you can't just cater to one data point.  I thought I would create this thread to consolidate feedback from multiple people.  I was fully expecting some people to chime in saying, "no, this actually works and here is how."  I was also expecting people to chime in with varying levels of emotional baggage.  Whatever, it is all feedback and I am pretty sure Mike is the kind of guy who knows how to parse and use feedback.  This stuff is gold for a business.

In any case, I hope that Mike is able to use this.  For me, his rolls of coins don't make mathematical sense to purchase as a wholesaling option.  I think others have agreed.  I am sure Mike has other feedback in the purchase rate of the rolls.

I got the announcement that Mike is selling Casascius direct again but at a minimum of 50 coins.  Then I saw the prices.  Wowza!

Let me say right now that I am a huge proponent of letting the market decide the price and I certainly don't begrudge Mike on his choice of prices.  I am interested in the general sentiment.  Are the prices too high for other people?  I want to resell these as individual coins and I don't think I will be convincing individual buyers that my margin plus Mike's margin is worth it.  Right now it sits at 1.26x for the 1BTC coins and 1.52x for 0.5BTC coins.

Mike's coins are excellent products and I did order a 25BTC coin because the margin was very reasonable, but when I made that order I actively decided to not get any of the roles of coins.  Take that as feedback Mike.  Hopefully others will chime in.

Futurama Fry: Not sure if that was a compliment or insult.

Anyway, it seems like there is a general trust paranoia which I completely understand.  To push the trust forward by inches I decided to put BitScavenger in the Android Play store a bit earlier than I had originally planned.  So now you know the app has at least passed an automated approval process for whatever that is worth.

2 @ 26.5

I have gotten some good feedback and the latest release of the Android client now connects to my server through SSL.

Yeah, when making BitScavenger I decided to go with the small line in the bottom half.

Woot!  Self high-five personal call out!

But seriously, it is a more recognized character in the font world.  I do appreciate the cha-ching aspect of the double strike through B but then again I am from the States so my bias toward a money symbol has vertical strike through.

I am planning on this being self sustaining if not profitable.  I charge a fee when you put bitcoin into a cache.  It is a whopping 0.5%.  I have other plans as well for an additional feature that will be more costly but I want to see if people are willing to play before I venture that road.  It would be premature to put in a feature that no one will care about if no one is playing.

I think I set the lower limit of what you can place in a QR cache at 500 satoshi.  I don't think that will break the bank .

It brings up a great point though...  Bitcoin is a miraculous gem in the realm of game micro-transactions.  Finite control of pricing as well as a low friction system for getting value in and out of your game system.  Monetarily interact directly with your customers and save the horrible transaction fees.

I wanted to let people know that I have created a Bitcoin Geocaching game available for Android.  You use the QR Codes you see around you every day to leave bitcoin and a clue about where to find the correct QR code to scan.  That will then show up as a marker on the game map and allow other people to search for the bitcoin you have left.

http://bitscavenger.net

I have a larger write up about it here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=182212.0