Cryptonumismatics on the up?

[johnny211]

Cryptocurrency and blockchains are obviously here to stay. The lovely items traded on this subforum may seem seriously niche items, but where do they fit in the grand scheme of coin collecting and related activities?

Would it be reasonable to expect a nicely growing interest in these items over the coming years? Any advice from you senior collectors to us younger ones?

- j211

[JUPITYR]

Not sure if cryptocoins will ever become mainstream in terms of overall coin collecting.  Unless of course government mints begin coining them in gold, silver or one of the platinum group metals, which of course is highly unlikely.  I just think that without the "trust" factor of government mints versus private mints, it will be hard for the big collectors in the space to ever take them seriously.  Couple that with the fact that most coin collectors and dealers are gold-bugs and anti-crypto.  All of that could change some day, but I don't see it happening very soon.

I think the closest example we have to what we'd need more of is the Binary Eagle by the Poland Mint, which despite the name is still a private mint.  But that coin was offered for sale on APMEX and other traditional coin dealer sites.   

This dovetails MJ's point which is that we'd also need to see cryptos in PCGS and NGC holders, which will only happen if a major government mint was the one producing them.  Otherwise they will just be considered tokens, which they rarely grade unless they are historical in nature. 

[hybridsole]

This is a very niche hobby.  Even though there are millions of people who are into cryptocurrency, only a tiny portion of them are familiar with the physical collectibles market and even less own any of these collectibles.

The Encyclopedia was a great start in terms of making this hobby more 'mainstream', but there is still so much that can be done.  Myself and a few others are actively going to Bitcoin conferences to show off some of these coins.  What we've found is that once people become aware of the variety and assortment of these coins, they quickly see the value and want to own one for themselves.  The physical bitcoin market isn't going anywhere, and arguably would be around even if bitcoin and every crypto became worthless.  A 2011 Casascius coin will always have collectors value as being the first ever physical bitcoin, even if the price of Bitcoin went to $0 for some reason.  In many ways, collecting memorabilia related to bitcoin is a way to diversify some of the risk of owning cryptocurrencies.  It's also a great way to force yourself to HODL, because you can't readily spend a coin without peeling a hologram and destroying the collector value.