[LTC] [ANN] Physical Litecoins by CryptoVest (Project on hold)

[bitcoiners]

Read my post above.  No, No, No.... I'm willing to preorder a bunch of coins at almost any denomination, same as many have posted before me.  If it's the money that's not getting this off the ground then accept pre-orders.  Simple, problem solved and this gets going NOW.

Yes, it is the cost of making them that is somewhat holding this project back. I will consider offering pre-orders to speed up the process, but this was something I was trying to avoid.

Yes I understand why.  Trust issues for some.  Offer something special to pre-orders like a certificate saying this was the "second" ltc minted, etc, etc, according to who preorders first and down the list.  It would motivate people to get their orders in fast and I'll bet you'll have the initial seed money to get this going.

[CoinHoarder]

Read my post above.  No, No, No.... I'm willing to preorder a bunch of coins at almost any denomination, same as many have posted before me.  If it's the money that's not getting this off the ground then accept pre-orders.  Simple, problem solved and this gets going NOW.

Yes, it is the cost of making them that is somewhat holding this project back. I will consider offering pre-orders to speed up the process, but this was something I was trying to avoid.

Yes I understand why.  Trust issues for some.  Offer something special to pre-orders like a certificate saying this was the "second" ltc minted, etc, etc, according to who preorders first and down the list.  It would motivate people to get their orders in fast and I'll bet you'll have the initial seed money to get this going.

I will try to get the designs pegged down during the next week and get some solid quotes for the hologram and coin minting. Then, I will think about opening up pre orders including something along the lines of a "certificate of authenticity" or something about the coins being one of the first physical Litecoins made by us! I think this is a good idea, because the cost of minting is really the bottleneck at this point.

[bitcoiners]

Read my post above.  No, No, No.... I'm willing to preorder a bunch of coins at almost any denomination, same as many have posted before me.  If it's the money that's not getting this off the ground then accept pre-orders.  Simple, problem solved and this gets going NOW.

Yes, it is the cost of making them that is somewhat holding this project back. I will consider offering pre-orders to speed up the process, but this was something I was trying to avoid.

Yes I understand why.  Trust issues for some.  Offer something special to pre-orders like a certificate saying this was the "second" ltc minted, etc, etc, according to who preorders first and down the list.  It would motivate people to get their orders in fast and I'll bet you'll have the initial seed money to get this going.

I will try to get the designs pegged down during the next week and get some solid quotes for the hologram and coin minting. Then, I will think about opening up pre orders including something along the lines of a "certificate of authenticity" or something of being one of the first physical Litecoins made by us! I think this is a good idea, because the cost of minting is really the bottleneck at this point.

Cool, consider me in!

[odolvlobo]

I look forward to buying some physical litecoins. Perhaps it would be less risky for you to start with the 1 LTC coins and see what the demand is. Suppose the demand is for 1000 LTC worth of coins. Would you rather sell 1000 coins or 100 coins?

First of all, to make a secure enough hologram, I will need to spend about $5000-$6000 to have them made. To have them designed and set up for printing is $5000 alone, not even counting the quantity I end up ordering. After this initial $5000 expense, I can have about 10,000 printed for $600. So, judging by those numbers, each hologram will cost about 56 cents. The coins will be much more expensive per unit. I am expecting to spend about $3.50 each for 1000 coins. This includes a nice clear protective plastic case for each coin.

So.. total cost of minting each coin and adding a hologram might be about $4.06. That is not including loading it with the Litecoins. When taking into account the current price of a Litecoin ($2.50), each coin will cost me 1.624 Litecoins to make. Add the 1 LTC that needs to be loaded on the coin and we are left with a total minimum cost of 2.624 LTC just to make one physical Litecoin. I was thinking about maybe putting a 100% mark up on the coins and including free shipping. This may seem like a really high mark up, but I need to recoup the $7000-$8000 investment it will take me just to make the first batch of 1000 coins and also pay myself for the time it takes to design, create, assemble, and load each coin. This would enable me to expand my offerings to other denominations of coins and also silver bullion in the future. This would make each physical Litecoin cost about 5.248 LTC.

I almost feel like this is too expensive, but due to the costs of making these coins there may be no other option. So, I ask you guys... is this too much? Would you be willing to spend this much for a physical Litecoin? Maybe it would be better to only have higher denominations so the mark up would not have to be so high? The higher denomination sold would further decrease the markup I need to charge. What are your opinions on prices of the coins?

It is a tough situation on which denomination to sell, what price would make this very time consuming project worth my time, and what would be worth it for people to buy. I really need some opinions on this as well.

Have you talked to Casascius? He obviously is an expert on the subject and can certainly be a lot of help. His coins never cost that much to make. There must be a cheaper supplier.

[CoinHoarder]

Have you talked to Casascius? He obviously is an expert on the subject and can certainly be a lot of help. His coins never cost that much to make. There must be a cheaper supplier.

No, I haven't spoken with him... I'm sure he has probably seen the thread, but has yet to comment. I'm curious how you know exactly how much it costs for him to make his coins? I think it probably costs him a similar amount to manufacture his coins as I have stated it will take me, but he can more easily mask the costs of manufacturing and the mark up, because each Bitcoin is worth about $100. Meanwhile each Litecoin is only worth $2.50, making the manufacturing costs and mark up more apparent (if you get what I'm saying.) He is charging a .25 BTC mark up per coin... this equates to $15+ profit for him assuming his costs of making them are the same. That is more than I would be charging in my example above ($10.62 profit in comparison.) But because a Bitcoin is worth much in USD than a Litecoin, it is not as apparent. So actually my coins would be cheaper than Casascius' if you do the math (maybe I should charge more    ). These numbers I posted are not final and subject to change, I am just thinking aloud.

Also, he is probably making his coins 1000s and 1000s at a time (maybe even 5000-10000+), which brings down costs quite a bit. I could ship without the clear plastic case that would take a dollar each off the cost, but I thought this would be nice to protect the coins and keep them in mint condition. No offense meant, but Casascius is what I call "Old Bitcoin" (IE. Old money)... he has a lot more resources and money than I do that bring down the cost of his product.

I don't think $4.06 manufacturing costs for each coin is really that expensive. Like I said, without the clear plastic case I could bring this down to $3.06, but this is not including the cost to load the LTC. Also the $4.06 costs per coin is not including any profit whatsoever, which is necessary to make this worth my time and for further expansion/offerings of different denominations and silver coins. This will take a lot of my time, I can't just do it for free... also, since my markup is actually lower per USD than Casascius, I think it is a reasonable price.

[CoinHoarder]

Another thing I wanted to mention.

Everyone wants to measure the quality of my coin to the quality of Casascius' and it is not really fair. Casascius had been making physical Bitcoins for over 2 years and has a lot of experience manufacturing and assembling them... I have never even made a single one before. There will be a learning curve and growing pains that I will work out as things progress. I hope one day I can release a super high quality product like Casascius, but this may not be possible at first due to my inexperience (I hope that is not the case.)

Litecoin is at its core written in the code different than Bitcoin. It is okay IMO if our physical Litecoins are different from Bitcoins' version. The only reason I am making them is because he seems unwilling to make physical Litecoins. Otherwise, I would step back and let the pro do it. I will try to make the prices fair, and the loading process and private key destruction as transparent as possible.

So... I ask you all to please bear with me, I am trying my best.

[odolvlobo]

I don't know what his costs are, but I bought several of his coins when BTC was about $4 and they cost somewhere around 1.2 BTC each.That's only $0.80 markup and he only made about 3500 of the original run, so I assume it cost him less than $2800.

I would skip the plastic case. If people want to put the coins in a plastic case, it is simple enough the get them. Maybe you could sell the cases separately.

[CoinHoarder]

I don't know what his costs are, but I bought several of his coins when BTC was about $4 and they cost somewhere around 1.2 BTC each.That's only $0.80 markup and he only made about 3500 of the original run, so I assume it cost him less than $2800.

I would skip the plastic case. If people want to put the coins in a plastic case, it is simple enough the get them. Maybe you could sell the cases separately.

I have no clue how he made everything so cheap, and I actually don't believe that it's even possible to do so, no matter what quantity is ordered...

You can look for yourself, custom tamper proof holograms that are at least 800 dpi and secure enough to deter counterfeiting are easily 56 cents each, with about a $5000 minimum order investment. Plus, the cost of the coins which is more expensive per coin than the holograms.. somewhere around $2.50 a coin for about a 1000 of them, the less you order the more expensive per coin it is.

If you can find somewhere to make these this cheap, let me know. I can assure you I have/will shop around. If I charged an $0.80 mark up though, I would be out of business before I even manufactured anything.

[Daegalus]

This sounds awesome. I will be sure to buy some. The 3D renders posted earlier do look nicer, but your new simple design looks good too. Looking forward to this.

[CoinHoarder]

This sounds awesome. I will be sure to buy some. The 3D renders posted earlier do look nicer, but your new simple design looks good too. Looking forward to this.

Great thanks! I think the coins will look better once minted and in a real 3d coin shape and shine.

I made the numbering on the coin a fatter as per someones recommendation, do you guys like it better or should I keep trying or change it back

[zdarkazn]

Im interested in some. (:

[Eb0la]

Looks good!  Where do I preorder?

[Luckybit]

Hello everyone,

I thought I would update you all on my status. I have not been sure if I was going to complete this project or not over the past week or so. Someone contacted me when I posted the OP that they are also working on a physical Litecoin. Due to the high cost of minting and making the holograms, I wasn't sure if I wanted to risk this much money (considering if everyone likes their physical Litecoins better, this could leave me deep in the hole and out a lot of money.) After mulling it over for a while, I have decided to continue on with the project anyways despite this.

Several designers contacted me wanting to collaborate with me on this project. I was put in an unfortunate situation where I did not really know who I should chose, as I wasn't completely sure who would do the best job on the design, provide a healthy business partnership, and what percentage of the company to give them while still make this worth my time. Also, I kind of felt like the team captain in high school dodge ball picking teams and did not want to leave anyone out. Another thing, the costs of making these coins is so large and the profit margins so small, that I am going to have to sell a lot of them just to break even. This doesn't leave me much wiggle room to give up a percentage of the company or even pay a designer. Even designing them myself it will take me selling many coins (maybe about a 1000) just to break even. It is because of these reasons that I have decided to do everything that I can possibly do myself, from design to assembly.

I came up with a simplified design that I hope most people will like using the KISS method (keep it simple stupid  .) I think one of the resounding opinions most people said ITT are that they want a simple coin design. So, I have listened to you guys and tried to come up with a simple design that still looks good. I hope you guys like it... please note that this is just a rough draft, also it is in black and white because I just do not have 3d capabilities, so this 2d rough draft will have to suffice. The coin itself will be 3d and all shiny and pretty like the other coins you have guys have posted.  



I will only be making a One and Ten Litecoin model at launch. If this first phase of the project is successful, my future goals are expanding the selection of physical Litecoins in multiple denominations and also one ounce silver bullion coins. It takes about 3 weeks just to make the hologram, so a possible release date is at least a month away, I'd say 2 months is more likely.

As always, I am interested in your opinions.

Thanks,

Ch

How do we pre-order and how much will they cost?

[bittick]

once these become available - theres no stopping litecoin! yeyeyeyeye!

show me the moneyz! LOL

[CoinHoarder]

Im interested in some. (:

Awesome  

Looks good!  Where do I preorder?

No preorders! My investor and I are taking all risks of this project ourselves. I personally despise preorders from a customer standpoint, especially on a product that hasn't even been made yet, so I tried really hard to avoid this.

once these become available - theres no stopping litecoin! yeyeyeyeye!

show me the moneyz! LOL

Litecoin's going to the moon regardless, but hopefully this will help push it in the right direction!  


PS to everyone: Cost per coin is tied to the US dollar. When I calculated the cost of each coin shown in the images, Litecoin was worth $2.50. So, hopefully Litecoin keeps going up up up, and I can provide these to everyone cheaper (in LTC) than I had planned.

[Aragami]

Am super interested in some! Keep us posted!

[YipYip]

Good on u dude...

++ 

[CoinHoarder]

As stated earlier, I have delayed production a little bit so that I could get a better design. I have had 5 designers design something for me. I know which one I like the best, but I am interested in hearing your opinions.

LikeHero:



Xqisit:


Zinodaur:


Smeagol:




Beefsock:


Please speak up about which design you like, what you you would change, etc.

Thank you,

Ch

[Eb0la]

Zinodaur and LikeHero are my 2 favorites! 

Leaning more to LikeHero's design.

[CoinHoarder]

Zinodaur and LikeHero are my 2 favorites! 

Leaning more to LikeHero's design.

THank you!!! It is impossible for me to give everyone what they want if they don't speak their mind and tell me their opinions of the designs. So, thank you very much for your opinion.