So if you recognize that tampers are possible, does this mean you don't actually expect adoption? So, their destiny is just to be a novelty gift?
Can I ask you this: Have your anti-tamper methods ramped up since the explosion in price?
The whole reason I created these in the first place was to produce a functional proof of concept, something for people to wrap their minds around, something pretty to inspire non-technical people to want to talk and learn about bitcoin. I was tired of hearing that bitcoin was a coin you can't hold because it's virtual, and felt that a large portion of the human population would be turned off by bitcoin if that premise were really true.
Yeah, their destiny is to be a novelty gift, or a collectible. Casascius Coins are not money.
The whole point of having the hologram security was to illustrate a point: so long as the private key is kept private, the bitcoin is good. Whether somebody with a sophisticated imaging system could tamper the coin under laboratory conditions was not a concern relative to the primary functional purpose behind producing the coins.
But yeah, sure. Assuming I come up with a way to mass produce these, and assuming there's a better way to secure them that makes them more secure, then I wouldn't be opposed to doing it. I just don't consider my product "broken" to know that somebody, somewhere, with a lot of money, or perhaps not, can defeat the hologram sticker's tamper resistance.
If and when it becomes widely known that Casascius Coins are either tamperable, being counterfeited, or otherwise being attacked, people will just put up their guards and stop assuming that just because one looks good, that it is. Oh well. It is a risk I accepted going into it. But so far, the mission for which Casascius Coins were created is accomplished I think. Bitcoin has finally reached criticality, and Casascius Coins were one of many forces that helped that happen.
