Bitcoins at the British Museum

[Otoh]

Congrats!

cc here:

Excellent! I visited their history of money through the ages exhibition, which btw is permanent & not just a temporary exhibition though it evolves as they add stuff & I noticed the lack of any Bitcoin reference or samples whilst visiting London last August & having just bought some Casascius coins from molecular & others had thought to donate some to that department - I didn't get around to it that visit but it's much better to have come from Casascius himself in any case, it would be nice if they had the full range of Cas coins issued, if I am able to afford a 1 Oz gold 1,000 btc one day then I would be happy to loan it if insured to them & if a sufficiently tamper proof container could be made to house it inside their already secure display cabinets so that no staff/researchers could peal the hologram.

Edit: Cool that one can see the addresses of the 4 donated to them on the large BM inventory pics, I will send them a few Satoshis or coins to 1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW when next drinking & feeling flush.

FirstBits: 1P5mrivM for 1P5mrivMGaLoXiMjJmN56sBsyANEYiw3mE   <--- has been peeled to redeem & show the private key (edit)
FirstBits: 1NyQJk2W for 1NyQJk2Wh1YVnp6pxpBux4W35TFyd4Avpj
FirstBits: 1NyVMo79 for 1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW   <--- visible on their display
FirstBits: 1Caqfyjn is in a different style which seems harder to make it out but finally got it for 1Caqfyjn3KigaSPFdcYrjJqjpYZoXvxCPz

The one shown on display is 1NyVMo79, they have big barrels for fiat donations around the place but may also like the idea of accepting bitcoins too sent to their sample for all to see & could put up a QR code to scan for this maybe if ppl requested it & even perhaps a tablet or something to display it's blockchain balance.

http://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW

[HDSolar]

Very cool but interesting they list USA on the card.  Sure it is because of who provided the coin.

[bitcoinbear]

The Bitcoin system has been criticised by some people for facilitating money laundering, since payment transfers can be conducted anonymously.

The same thing could be said for USD, GBP, EUR, or any other form of cash. The difference with bitcoins is that with bitcoins you can make the transfers over long distances more easily.

[TheButterZone]

That's freaking awesome. I am aware the museum was interested in the coins and sent some without giving it a second thought but am super flattered to see they are being displayed.

Are they loaded?

I hope you are not thinking what I think your thinking... 

I hope he is thinking what I think you think he's thinking. It'd be good publicity.

Museum heist... bit, gold, and silver coins stolen, all fiat left untouched. ;-)

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Rumor has it that the US, too, will have a currency museum, to be located in a building that currently sets umpty.

[helloworld]

FirstBits: 1NyQJk2W for 1NyQJk2Wh1YVnp6pxpBux4W35TFyd4Avpj

So, now we can secretly and anonymously donate to the British Museum?

That's 0.001337 is what that is!

[giszmo]

/posting in awsome thread
So, who turned the 1Ƀ-coin into a 2.26691356Ƀ-coin? If we keep the micro-donations flowing, it might really be interesting to display this in-flow in the museum

[mintymark]

Otoh,

Just want to be clear. Have we really persuaded the British Museum to accept Bitcoin payments, without discussion or controversy?

Is it safe to donate? Or is it likely that donations can be appropriated by staff or others?

Lets donate!! We should email them once a year or so saying what the current value of their donation sum is and how they could take it.

Being a Londoner and therefore I might donote to the British museum anyway, I think this is amazing.

Actually, I think this is the most amazing aspect of Casacaus coins, with no computer in sight, you can give one to somebody, and tell them the bitcoin address, and suddenly they are in the business of receiving bitcoin payments. 

The British Museum is a huge organisation, and if it is really now accepting Bitcoin donations.... wow!

Which of the addresses Otoh gives should we use ?

[szuetam]

Just notice they have a detailed web page for each item:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=3451294&partid=1&searchText=g68%2F18*&numpages=10&orig=%2Fresearch%2Fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=5

Nice work Mike 

Good Job.

[Otoh]

Otoh,

Just want to be clear. Have we really persuaded the British Museum to accept Bitcoin payments, without discussion or controversy?

Is it safe to donate? Or is it likely that donations can be appropriated by staff or others?

Lets donate!! We should email them once a year or so saying what the current value of their donation sum is and how they could take it.

Being a Londoner and therefore I might donote to the British museum anyway, I think this is amazing.

Actually, I think this is the most amazing aspect of Casacaus coins, with no computer in sight, you can give one to somebody, and tell them the bitcoin address, and suddenly they are in the business of receiving bitcoin payments.  

The British Museum is a huge organisation, and if it is really now accepting Bitcoin donations.... wow!

Which of the addresses Otoh gives should we use ?

Casascius himself doesn't think at the moment that it's a good idea to send funds to the coins that they have (link) but personally I think it's a very good thing, it's how bitcoins work & they have plenty of silver & gold moneys in that exhibition that go up & down in value with the markets so why should it be a problem, the bitcoin value in fiat is going to change in any case, they also collect anonymous cash from visitors in all sorts of different fiat that ppl choose to drop in to their collection boxes - some quite high denomination notes/bills, I'd thought of dropping a Cas bitcoin in but this is much better. I imagine they will just let the coin increase in value unless some anon eccentric millionaire drops a few 100k coins on it in which case they'll probably cash it out &  replace it with one of their other ones and issue a news release to say thanks very much bitcoins ftw!

So in answer, no we haven't officially persuaded them to accept bitcoin donations, but their exhibit coin address & the others they have they themselves have made public & that allows anyone to send coins to it if they so choose - it's how bitcoin works & as such they should appreciate it's doing exactly what it's meant to & perhaps this will encourage them to actually turn it in to an official funding source. Re security - it's in an exhibition room with really high value PM exhibits & they know how to look after their artifacts so I doubt anyone with access would peel it or switch it for another.

I'd use the one that they have on display showing the FirstBits: 1NyVMo79 for 1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW  

[giszmo]

Otoh,

Just want to be clear. Have we really persuaded the British Museum to accept Bitcoin payments, without discussion or controversy?

Is it safe to donate? Or is it likely that donations can be appropriated by staff or others?

Lets donate!! We should email them once a year or so saying what the current value of their donation sum is and how they could take it.

Being a Londoner and therefore I might donote to the British museum anyway, I think this is amazing.

Actually, I think this is the most amazing aspect of Casacaus coins, with no computer in sight, you can give one to somebody, and tell them the bitcoin address, and suddenly they are in the business of receiving bitcoin payments.  

The British Museum is a huge organisation, and if it is really now accepting Bitcoin donations.... wow!

Which of the addresses Otoh gives should we use ?

Casascius himself doesn't think at the moment that it's a good idea to send funds to the coins that they have (link) but personally I think it's a very good thing, it's how bitcoins work & they have plenty of silver & gold moneys in that exhibition that go up & down in value with the markets so why should it be a problem, the bitcoin value in fiat is going to change in any case, they also collect anonymous cash from visitors in all sorts of different fiat that ppl choose to drop in to their collection boxes - some quite high denomination notes/bills, I'd thought of dropping a Cas bitcoin in but this is much better. I imagine they will just let the coin increase in value unless some anon eccentric millionaire drops a few 100k coins on it in which case they'll probably cash it out &  replace it with one of their other ones and issue a news release to say thanks very much bitcoins ftw!

So in answer, no we haven't officially persuaded them to accept bitcoin donations, but their exhibit coin address & the others they have they themselves have made public & that allows anyone to send coins to it if they so choose - it's how bitcoin works & as such they should appreciate it's doing exactly what it's meant to & perhaps this will encourage them to actually turn it in to an official funding source. Re security - it's in an exhibition room with really high value PM exhibits & they know how to look after their artifacts so I doubt anyone with access would peel it or switch it for another.

I'd use the one that they have on display showing the FirstBits: 1NyVMo79 for 1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW  

I share Casascius' concerns but still it would be ultra cool if they would put some monitor next to the coin, showing blockchain.info life transactions and balance Also it should be clear that the exhibition has an insurance to a certain value and with people putting in another 1000Ƀ and the price of 1Ƀ going up to $10000, they might simply not be aware of being under-insured

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is what should be looping on a giant plasm TV next to the exhibit: https://i.imgur.com/Mf2sg.png

[kjlimo]

Frickin awesome!  I now have a reason to go back to London (other than drinking awesome Cider & checking out Westminster Abby)...

Keep up the awesome!

EDIT: Has anyone written an article to explain this?  Perhaps this would make a great article for Bitcoin Magazine.  Something summarizing the exhibit with the awesome ending to the storyline!

[istar]

Donating to that coin and pointing it out, will make them understand Bitcoin better.
Its an eye opener

[malevolent]

Congrats to Cacascius

[niko]

I see a KLF-style opportunity here... Keep donating to the address on display until it becomes too hot to display

[Otoh]

Congrats to Cacascius

Donating to that coin and pointing it out, will make them understand Bitcoin better.
Its an eye opener

Maybe it's address could be added to the OP here: https://blockchain.info/address/1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW

It would be nice to get it to 10 btc at least for starters & micro donations are cool so as to show them that's possible which none of their other exhibits can do.

Edit to add:

http://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW

[Akka]

Yes, it would be really nice if next to the exhibit would stand:

Since this coin has been displayed here it received donations increasing it's worth 10 Times.

And a basic explanation how that works.

[CharlieContent]

Yes, it would be really nice if next to the exhibit would stand:

Since this coin has been displayed here it received donations increasing it's worth 10 Times.

And a basic explanation how that works.

That would be awesome.

All my coins are in cold storage away from home, but next time I end up with some coins in a hot wallet for whatever reason then I'll send a few here.

[bitcoinbear]

Congrats to Cacascius

Donating to that coin and pointing it out, will make them understand Bitcoin better.
Its an eye opener

Maybe it's address could be added to the OP here: https://blockchain.info/address/1NyVMo79Vanhbu92MpPQgCbu9MDV5a4NhW

It would be nice to get it to 10 btc at least for starters & micro donations are cool so as to show them that's possible which none of their other exhibits can do.

But donating to that coin does not help the museum any (other than it gets a more and more expensive display piece). To use any bitcoins donated to the coin on display, the display would have to be taken down and the coin opened to get the private key inside.