A microscopic view of Casacius physical bitcoins

[etotheipi]

I recently purchases this microscope from amazon, and started looking at everything I can get my hands on at 40-150x.  One such thing was the hologram on the back of a casascius physical Bitcoin.

I believe this is actually only 10x and 40x, but 40x was enough to see what I didn't know was even there:  four rings of "CASASCIUS" just inside where it says "ORIGINAL" on the coin.  Looking at it by eye, I can barely identify the bigger outer ring, and definitely can't identify the smaller three inner rings.  This is impressive:  casascius really put a lot of quality into these holographic films!

[1715522013]

1715522013

[1715522013]

1715522013

[goodlord666]

Really does look awesome.

I might actually order one after all.

[cbeast]

That looks like a dot-matrix process. I was wondering about that.

[Stephen Gornick]

I recently purchases this microscope from amazon, and started looking at everything I can get my hands on at 40-150x. 

I wonder how long until someone tries an xray microscope (or whatever they are called) to see the private key underneath.

[swissmate]

wow i really like the microscopic details

[casascius]

If only I could have not had the first one come out "CASACIUS" (misspelled) in the largest fine print (partly visible in one of the photos above - first photo, 11 o'clock position).

We actually did two designs and I picked through design number 1 with a fine tooth comb for detail, then went with design number 2 without having done the same. I noticed it instantly once I took some light to the then-newly finished holograms.  Series 2 fixes that.

[casascius]

I recently purchases this microscope from amazon, and started looking at everything I can get my hands on at 40-150x. 

I wonder how long until someone tries an xray microscope (or whatever they are called) to see the private key underneath.

Looking forward to it.

[paraipan]

I recently purchases this microscope from amazon, and started looking at everything I can get my hands on at 40-150x.

I wonder how long until someone tries an xray microscope (or whatever they are called) to see the private key underneath.

Looking forward to it.

You mean they can't?  

nice pics @etotheipi

[naypalm]

Cool, now someone needs to buy an electron microscope and do this 

[nimda]

Right, maybe if MNW wins his 10K BTC bet...

[rjk]

Cool, now someone needs to buy an electron microscope and do this 

http://benkrasnow.blogspot.com/2011/03/diy-scanning-electron-microscope.html

[molecular]

awesome shot, etotheipi, thanks for sharing.

"I always wanted to know how this bitcoin thing works in detail"

[bg002h]

I recently purchases this microscope from amazon, and started looking at everything I can get my hands on at 40-150x. 

I wonder how long until someone tries an xray microscope (or whatever they are called) to see the private key underneath.

I'm a radiology resident and back when BitBills came out, I took a low kV radiograph of it to see if I could bring out any detail...I was hoping the ink was made from the oxide of some metal...no luck. The BitBill was glorified laminated paper, which would be much more susceptible to xray hacking than a metal coin. I strongly doubt anyone will find success with a Casascius coin.

[goodlord666]

How are you supposed to pronounce Casascius?

I've heard different people use different pronunciations.

[Domrada]

How are you supposed to pronounce Casascius?

I've heard different people use different pronunciations.

There is an old youtube video of someone called Plato buying gas from Casascius. He pronounces it Cuh Say Shee Us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9jC0TP-Yug

[mufa23]

In my head, I always pronounced it "Ka say sh us". Three syllables, "sh us" is one syllable.

Anyway, the detail on those are awesome. I might order some. But they are MtGox codes right?

[casascius]

In my head, I always pronounced it "Ka say sh us". Three syllables, "sh us" is one syllable.

Anyway, the detail on those are awesome. I might order some. But they are MtGox codes right?

This is the one I use and consider correct, but I consider pretty much all reasonable variations correct as well, including any of the following:

* Ka Say Shus
* Ka Sassy Us

Common, but less correct being inconsistent with the spelling
* Cass See Us
* Cass a Cuss

They are not MtGox codes - they are private keys - MiniKeys to be specific.  MtGox can redeem them, but so can many other places (easiest way is to import into a throwaway Blockchain.info wallet and send the coins to your desired destination)

[mufa23]

Very nice. I'll be buying some in the near future as a sort of long term investment. I assume these keys will still work in 10-20 years when Bitcoins are potentially worth thousands of dollars?

[Dabs]

You'd want to redeem the value and put them in cold storage if your plan is long term investment. Or just buy bitcoins from an exchange and send them to offline addresses.

[spiccioli]

Very nice. I'll be buying some in the near future as a sort of long term investment. I assume these keys will still work in 10-20 years when Bitcoins are potentially worth thousands of dollars?

Hi mufa23,

keys will be ok, but what about the little piece of paper on which they're written? And what about ink?

Will these keys be readable in 5 years? And in 10 or 20 years?

spiccioli