[ANN] Pre-order Bitcoin card now!

[Realpra]

We are proud to announce the first true Bitcoin card. Our card follows the spirit of Bitcoin: It is open source, global and has low fees. The card handles only bitcoins, this is not just another debit card with a Bitcoin sticker on it.
(Note: The pre-order is non-binding and we will not ask for payment until ready.)

YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G4z4-lTo7yA

We are ready for pre-orders.

Visit our webpage here:
http://blochstech.com/

or click the logo:



Pre-order now
Pre-order now

Features:

• Down to 0.01% miners fee
• On card signing – maximum security
• Open source
• Acceptable by Androids and Pcs
• Can be used globally

Technicalities:

• Uses the ZC BasicCard
• Stores data for offline transactions
• ECDSA and SHA256 on card
• Light-client terminal
• No-trust model through-and-through

Product list:

• Vault Card – high quality, high security and minimum fees
• Normal Card – cheap, ease of use and medium fees

Technical details
Read more technical details now.

Images of the credit card







We are determined to deliver our product and you can follow our progress directly in our GitHub project here:

BlochsTech source page

Note that we have left out some non-essential features for our commercial products and that we have a local branch that may be ahead of the GitHub branch.

Pre-order now
Pre-order now

[1715581386]

1715581386

[Realpra]

In practical sense, what exactly are these cards good for? Ok, so I have a card with 10BTC, how is this different from a paper wallet?

- A normal paper wallet has no protection from anyone who gets access. Our card could be stolen for months and submitted to hacking/cracking/brute-force attempts without you needing to worry.
- Our Vault card can be used in a company so that say both CEO and accountant or board chairman must authorize transactions.

This brings easy and secure Bitcoin use to the masses.

[Sir Lagsalot]

Interesting. At some point, I'll need a storage account. I'd rather spend $200 to avoid the possibility of newbie error in setting up a paper wallet. So your price points look good to me, assuming safe storage of the card makes it at least as secure as a paper wallet? No one at your company could access my funds, right?

I'm gonna ask "when?"

[jaywaka2713]

I'm going to ask about the usability of the card and your usage of "terminal" on your page. By terminal, do you mean any standard payment unit in any US store? Or are you going to provide terminals to merchants via a partnership with BitPay? Your explanation of the payment process isnt explained enough.

[John (John K.)]

Why are there a 0.2% card/miner fee and a 0.01% card/miner fee when the tx can be pushed for a minimal/no miner fee?  
Is this meant to be used at POS locations only, or as a offline storage too? (where the user possibly purchases a card reader etc)

Also:

When you buy our cards we will send you the Bitcoin addresses and keys used by the card, this means you can use your computer to easily transfer funds to and from the card like you would in a netbank.

Is it possible for the user to import his own addresses and keys to prevent any trust issues? I'm interested in a Vault card as a secure way of handling my escrow transactions if everything works out.

[Littleshop]

With no display or buttons the functionality is not going to be as good as an android app or as safe as a paper wallet.  This needs a computer/phone to be useful, why not just use a USB stick type device instead? 

[jaywaka2713]

Why are there a 0.2% card/miner fee and a 0.01% card/miner fee when the tx can be pushed for a minimal/no miner fee?  
Is this meant to be used at POS locations only, or as a offline storage too? (where the user possibly purchases a card reader etc)

Also:

When you buy our cards we will send you the Bitcoin addresses and keys used by the card, this means you can use your computer to easily transfer funds to and from the card like you would in a netbank.

Is it possible for the user to import his own addresses and keys to prevent any trust issues? I'm interested in a Vault card as a secure way of handling my escrow transactions if everything works out.

Wait I didn't pick that up. You are going to have access to the private and public keys of everyone's cards? I don't like that.

Here's a suggestion: Why not use some form of Elliptic Key Cryptography (Seen in Split-Key vanity address generation) to generate our addresses? We give you a public key, you generate a private key off that public key with no definite prefix, and we can enter our private key in a secure manner to program the card, however such a method of sending that data couldn't be intercepted by you. Hell, why don't you come up with a method of securely sending our private key to whatever wallet we own in such a way where it gets directly programmed into the card, so that you dont have it at all? If you can send the keys to us, you must have them stored somewhere, and if that drive was hacked, you would be in deep trouble

[Realpra]

So your price points look good to me, assuming safe storage of the card makes it at least as secure as a paper wallet? No one at your company could access my funds, right?

I'm gonna ask "when?"

Yes that is correct we will delete data on your card after making it and sending it to you. We intend to have a business model partly consisting of being trusted to keep this promise.

"When" depends on interest, if we get ~100+ pre-orders approximately 3 months, otherwise we expect maximum 6 months.

I'm going to ask about the usability of the card and your usage of "terminal" on your page. By terminal, do you mean any standard payment unit in any US store? Or are you going to provide terminals to merchants via a partnership with BitPay? Your explanation of the payment process isnt explained enough.

The "terminals" will consist of a smart card connector and a program/app. These will be available from our site and elsewhere.

We will look into explaining the payment process more.

Why are there a 0.2% card/miner fee and a 0.01% card/miner fee when the tx can be pushed for a minimal/no miner fee?  

You will be able to program your own cards. The fee is so we can make money and will be lowered when there is more competition.

Is this meant to be used at POS locations only, or as a offline storage too? (where the user possibly purchases a card reader etc)

Both.

Is it possible for the user to import his own addresses and keys to prevent any trust issues? I'm interested in a Vault card as a secure way of handling my escrow transactions if everything works out.

No, but you can program your own card using our source code.

[franky1]

this is not a credit card, this is a bitcoin spend card.

credit cards are: use it first creating debt then banks charge you interest and ask for fiat.

bitcoin spend card is like a paper wallet on a magnetic strip. whereby the magnetic strip just holds the bitcoin address and private key (in their special cypher involving your 4-5 digit code to encode it presumably) and when a shop that has their terminal reads the card it sends the payment request to the blockchain.

so its a more secure paper wallet with a 4-5 digit code.

just need to get shops to have the terminals, until then ill wait and see if this project moves forward.

hopefully the company has a lock out feature inside the terminal so that people that steal bitcoin cards cant just put them into their own terminal programmed to do 10,000 pin number tries to get around the pin number. and have it so that they cant reverse engineer the terminal to remove the lockout feature

[Realpra]

With no display or buttons the functionality is not going to be as good as an android app or as safe as a paper wallet.  This needs a computer/phone to be useful, why not just use a USB stick type device instead?  

A usb solution would be more expensive and potentially much less secure if you think about it. Further such a device does not exist yet.

Our smart cards are under continual development by ZeitControl and have top notch security. Once NFC terminals become commonplace we can easily transition to that technology.

Wait I didn't pick that up. You are going to have access to the private and public keys of everyone's cards? I don't like that.

Here's a suggestion: Why not use some form of Elliptic Key Cryptography (Seen in Split-Key vanity address generation) to generate our addresses? We give you a public key, you generate a private key off that public key with no definite prefix, and we can enter our private key in a secure manner to program the card, however such a method of sending that data couldn't be intercepted by you.

We are programming the cards. We could program them to wait until you have a large balance and then make a TX sending all your money  to us no matter the key generation scheme.

Its a similar trust-model as with Casascius coins except - you could use the open code to program your own card however you like.

This is why becoming the "trusted original developer" is a part of our business plan.

this is not a credit card, this is a bitcoin spend card.

10,000 pin number tries to get around the pin number. and have it so that they cant reverse engineer the terminal to remove the lockout feature

I keep telling my CMO. I'll get it fixed. (don't know if regular people will care though)

The lock feature is on the card not terminal. The terminal is assumed unsafe in all use cases.

[QuestionAuthority]

Can you buy the cards with fiat preloaded in different denominations? That's the only way I can see them having much value at this time.

[lovenlifelarge]

Ouch at those prices i'd rather stick my coins on a usb stick & stick it in my banks safety deposit box....

Prices are way to steep guys unless of course u have over 100btc or more!

[jaywaka2713]

Wait I didn't pick that up. You are going to have access to the private and public keys of everyone's cards? I don't like that.

Here's a suggestion: Why not use some form of Elliptic Key Cryptography (Seen in Split-Key vanity address generation) to generate our addresses? We give you a public key, you generate a private key off that public key with no definite prefix, and we can enter our private key in a secure manner to program the card, however such a method of sending that data couldn't be intercepted by you.

We are programming the cards. We could program them to wait until you have a large balance and then make a TX sending all your money  to us no matter the key generation scheme.

Its a similar trust-model as with Casascius coins except - you could use the open code to program your own card however you like.

This is why becoming the "trusted original developer" is a part of our business plan.

OK. Trusted original developer is an important title to have. Also, will you be selling the cards ready to be programmed, and provide the required hardware to program the cards themselves? Just to clarify, I can continually fund the card right? It isn't like a paper wallet?

[Realpra]

Can you buy the cards with fiat preloaded in different denominations? That's the only way I can see them having much value at this time.

No. We don't want to mess with banks and fiat only to get our accounts closed once everything starts to run smoothly. That is why we love Bitcoin.

Ouch at those prices i'd rather stick my coins on a usb stick & stick it in my banks safety deposit box....

Prices are way to steep guys unless of course u have over 100btc or more!

First generation with no competition yet. The normal card only costs double what a new VISA card would cost to me and in many countries either customers or merchants will pay 1+% per transaction.

Fimp takes 9% for his fiat/BTC exchange at BitcoinNordica yet gets millions from customers.

I don't think we are being unreasnoable.

OK. Trusted original developer is an important title to have. Also, will you be selling the cards ready to be programmed, and provide the required hardware to program the cards themselves? Just to clarify, I can continually fund the card right? It isn't like a paper wallet?

There is no special hardware required only a cable and we will have source available on the site. The dev tools can be downloaded from ZC.

Yes it can be funded and reused as much as you want.

[rammy2k2]

i found that youtube clip funny where u guys are showing up with same phone & headsets. Second ... u cannot launch a bitcoin CREDIT card .. maybe a bitcoin DEBIT card ..