Making your own Casascius Coins

[johnniewalker]

Hi everybody,
Recently I ordered a Series 3 BTC from "camolist" (great seller/person to do business with) and he included a blank 5 BTC piece. I didn't know you could buy them like that.
Anyway, what you're lacking is a way to fund the coin and a hologram or something similar. What I did was go to bitaddress.com to generate one address/keypair (one each if you're doing more than one coin). I recorded the info and made a QR code of the private key. I printed that QR code on an address label, and then cut it to fit on the coin. Now you can (using the corresponding address) put however many BTC you want on it-although I imagine in most cases the amount you send would be the denomination of the coin. I would just be careful to backup the address/key pair (or maybe thats just me)
Still no hologram-order these from ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-Round-1-Silver-SCRATCH-OFF-Stickers-Labels-Games-Tickets-Favors-Promotional-/290646604872?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43abe33c48
You then put one over the key sticker already on the back of the coin. Its round (and in my case grey for 5 BTC) so it works perfectly with the coin. They also sell the same stickers in gold, to match other color coins.
When you want to redeem the coin, simply scratch-off and use a QR barcode reader.

nothing revolutionary, just thought I'd share

[odolvlobo]

The scratch-off sticker is an interesting idea, but a plain surface is too easy to counterfeit. A scammer could easily redeem the coin and place a new scratch-off sticker on the coin. The benefit of a custom hologram is that it is difficult and costly to counterfeit. You can get custom-printed scratch off stickers from places like scratchoff.com.

Another problem might be that some scratch-off surfaces could be worn off by normal use, so some testing is necessary.

[johnniewalker]

The scratch-off sticker is an interesting idea, but a plain surface is too easy to counterfeit. A scammer could easily redeem the coin and place a new scratch-off sticker on the coin. The benefit of a custom hologram is that it is difficult and costly to counterfeit. You can get custom-printed scratch off stickers from places like scratchoff.com.

Another problem might be that some scratch-off surfaces could be worn off by normal use, so some testing is necessary.

The scratch-offs that I provided a link to sort of laminate whatever surface they are on, so you are only scratching away the top residue of the sticker. Thats why they work on any surface. Also, they leave a sticky residue if you try to peel them off.

[johnniewalker]

Here's a picture of the back of my coin for anyone interested (the square protrusion on the back is the key in QR code)