The NEXT generation of Physical Bitcoins...

[daviducsb]

If you want to manage production costs, there are some very good jewelry factories I work with.
One in Burbank that does my electroplating is really good.

They can produce at high quality and at low price.
Next time we chat, remind me.

For sure.. I have a sneaking suspicion that both your species and these bracelets will be worth a lot more in fiat terms in 20-30 years. I mean as initial art specimens derived from what could become a new money standard, I'm excited having both. All I need is some Casascius coins to round out my collection.

BTW, I would like to purchase some of the regular silver species from you before my overseas trip in December so I can give to friends in Europe and spread the word re. bitcoin, and also would like to buy maybe two or three more of the satoshi white paper species as gifts. I am out of town for a bit Tuesday (and I recall your saying no more 5 year satoshi species after October), so we ought to either meet up and consummate the deal or maybe agree to set some aside pending my return (probably Friday November 1st) if you're amenable.

[NewLiberty]

If you want to manage production costs, there are some very good jewelry factories I work with.
One in Burbank that does my electroplating is really good.

They can produce at high quality and at low price.
Next time we chat, remind me.

For sure.. I have a sneaking suspicion that both your species and these bracelets will be worth a lot more in fiat terms in 20-30 years. I mean as initial art specimens derived from what could become a new money standard, I'm excited having both. All I need is some Casascius coins to round out my collection.

BTW, I would like to purchase some of the regular silver species from you before my overseas trip in December so I can give to friends in Europe and spread the word re. bitcoin, and also would like to buy maybe two or three more of the satoshi white paper species as gifts. I am out of town for a bit Tuesday (and I recall your saying no more 5 year satoshi species after October), so we ought to either meet up and consummate the deal or maybe agree to set some aside pending my return (probably Friday November 1st) if you're amenable.

All good, I expect to be here all week.

[Rez]

That's one handsome coin.

[TitanBTC]

Quick update and an apology

I just wanted to apologize to anyone that made a purchase on our site this morning that was subsequently cancelled.  One of developers updated the code to our website late last night (2:00 am here in California) while the rest of us were sleeping.  It wasn't until this morning that we realized he had enabled an automatic pricing feature that wasn't fully tested yet.  As a result, we were offering to sell bitcoins at a loss this morning for about 4 hours.

I would love to have fulfilled those orders, and it would have been a customer service win of the first order, but it also would have meant that we took a loss of about $2,000.  Honestly it was a tough choice, and our customer service rep really resisted when I told her that we would have to cancel those orders.  I hope the members of this community can sympathize with the challenges of pricing our products in dollars, in an environment where the selling price of bitcoins varies by as much as $100 depending on where you buy. 

We're interested in making things right with our customers, so feel free to shoot me a PM if you got stung by this error on our part and I'll happily send you a discount code for future purchases.   

Thanks

[drrussellshane]

Quick update and an apology

I just wanted to apologize to anyone that made a purchase on our site this morning that was subsequently cancelled.  One of developers updated the code to our website late last night (2:00 am here in California) while the rest of us were sleeping.  It wasn't until this morning that we realized he had enabled an automatic pricing feature that wasn't fully tested yet.  As a result, we were offering to sell bitcoins at a loss this morning for about 4 hours.

I would love to have fulfilled those orders, and it would have been a customer service win of the first order, but it also would have meant that we took a loss of about $2,000.  Honestly it was a tough choice, and our customer service rep really resisted when I told her that we would have to cancel those orders.  I hope the members of this community can sympathize with the challenges of pricing our products in dollars, in an environment where the selling price of bitcoins varies by as much as $100 depending on where you buy. 

We're interested in making things right with our customers, so feel free to shoot me a PM if you got stung by this error on our part and I'll happily send you a discount code for future purchases.   

Thanks

Ouch.

That's not a very fortunate occurrence.

However, you might have done well to have left out your hypothetical loss priced in dollars....

For example, now I know that $2000 is worth more to you than having, as you put it, "a customer service win of the highest order".

You would rather NOT sell at a loss (when the mistake was clearly on your end... similar to a store advertising a price, and then at the check-out register, the price is raised or the order canceled), than please your customers.

Your customers didn't ask for you to mis-price your items, and they did not ask to have their orders cancelled.

You were willing to turn them off to your business for $2000.


I'm not meaning to come in your thread and talk ill of your company, but the fact that you stated that if you hadn't canceled the orders, that you would have lost $2000, tells me how much (like, actual dollar figure) you value customer service. Had you left that amount out of your post, I might have supposed that your hypothetical loss would have been much higher, and thus perhaps I would have been more accepting of your treatment of your (would-be) customers.

[TitanBTC]

I appreciate your point.  

Anyone who has bought from us knows that we are extremely responsive with customer service.  Deciding when to take a loss on a sale is always a tough call.  We started the business with the goal of bringing more people into the bitcoin community and that's still my main goal, but I can't pay for the people that make our customer service great if we're not making a profit.

Honestly, we may need to stop allowing customers to pay in dollars until we build our own exchange.  We're the only game in town at the moment selling physical bitcoins for fiat.  We have to have massive amounts of cash on the exchanges in order to buy BTC in real time as orders come in.  Its a lot of liability and maybe it's not worth it at this time.

I'm listening though.  You're not the only voice on the side of the customers and we're looking into honoring those orders that were payed for and later refunded.

[Stevenrm87]

Quick update and an apology

I just wanted to apologize to anyone that made a purchase on our site this morning that was subsequently cancelled.  One of developers updated the code to our website late last night (2:00 am here in California) while the rest of us were sleeping.  It wasn't until this morning that we realized he had enabled an automatic pricing feature that wasn't fully tested yet.  As a result, we were offering to sell bitcoins at a loss this morning for about 4 hours.

I would love to have fulfilled those orders, and it would have been a customer service win of the first order, but it also would have meant that we took a loss of about $2,000.  Honestly it was a tough choice, and our customer service rep really resisted when I told her that we would have to cancel those orders.  I hope the members of this community can sympathize with the challenges of pricing our products in dollars, in an environment where the selling price of bitcoins varies by as much as $100 depending on where you buy. 

We're interested in making things right with our customers, so feel free to shoot me a PM if you got stung by this error on our part and I'll happily send you a discount code for future purchases.   

Thanks

I have been a customer of TitanBTC since they were selling for $250. I think ive bought about 12 so far. I have to say their customer service is A1 in my book. I admit I did try to make a purchase for 2 coins this morning (I just got paid) I saw their price was weird like 386.75 or something (usually its whole dollars) the transaction did not work, Anyhow I appreciate the communication and I am a fan of TitanBTC and will continue to be, in the future.

Steven

P.S. Not that you guys are obligated in my book but if you feel like shooting a discount code my way thats A OK in my book Thanks Tim and all the others you guys rock!

[TitanBTC]

Thanks Steven.  Customer service will be happy to give you some chunky discount codes to compensate for that problem this morning.  I'll have them email you shortly.

[cabin]

EDIT: This thread is intended for brainstorming about new ways to do Physical bitcoins.  I've started a separate thread for questions about http://www.TitanBtc.com in the Marketplace section.
--

Physical bitcoins are absolutely the BEST way to introduce people to the concept of bitcoins.  I've personally recruited dozens, if not hundreds, of people to the bitcoin community and by far the most effective tool in winning someone over is simply handing them a physical coin.  There's just no replacement for feeling the weight of bitcoin in your hand.

The problem with the current implementation of physical bitcoins is that they are really wallets (or a way to access a wallet) in a pretty package. In other words, while they are a great way to introduce people to the concept, they don't add much value. If I transfer the bitcoin from my physical coin to my smartphone wallet, I still have the same value in my wallet, but now I have a gold (colored) coin that looks pretty, but doesn't have much in it.

I was thinking about an alternative, and I went back to the idea of bitcoin being analogous to gold (except that you can't melt it down). So instead of coin, how about paper? When banks where first created, the bankers held gold for their customers, and issued gold certificates. These certificates could be redeemed at any time at the bank for real gold, so (assuming the bank is dependable) they were used for exchange, and thus paper money was created.

Since we're talking about different levels here, let's take the original banking concept and substitute bitcoin for gold, and (metal) coin for paper. Now let's create the "Bank of Bitcoin", and have it issue (metal) coins in various denomination (1 BTC, 0.25 BTC, 0.1 BTC, .05 BTC, .01 BTC, etc.) The metal coins would not have a Bitcoin address associated with them, but could be redeemed at a bank branch for bitcoin. Or, they could be used to buy things from others without having to have access to a device.

The problems with this idea are that the Bank of Bitcoin would have to develop trust that these coins will always be redeemable. It would also have to adhere to banking regulations. For these reasons it would probably have to start as a subsidiary of an established bank.

On second thought, I don't think the Bitcoin community is ready for this. 

Great feedback.  I think paper physical bitcoins are great, and I don't think they've been done right yet.  There are ways for the bitcoin network itself to serve as the "central bank of bitcoin" and that's basically what I'm working on.  Using the blockchain to handle physical to digital exchange/ redemption addresses a lot of problems. I'd love to hear more ideas from people that KNOW the bitcoin protocol inside and out on how we can make that happen.

Maybe this upcoming feature will help? You will be able to send an 80 byte message with a transaction and it will be stored in the blockchain.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2738

[TitanBTC]

I agree. 

I think the "Relay OP_RETURN data TxOut" feature addition to the next official protocol update will be a much better solution than the current hacks that are in use by Colored coins et al.

Still looking for members for our dev team for this project, so please PM me if you'd like to get your hands dirty building a custom bitcoin client that makes use of this latest feature edition.  This is not a request for volunteer labor.

[altoz]

Hi Titan,

Would it be possible to have an alternate pricing structure? Something like send 1 BTC to some address and pay in dollars for the premium? I'd imagine the price of producing the coins don't change that much from a dollar perspective, it's the BTC that's the hard part.

[TitanBTC]

Hi Titan,

Would it be possible to have an alternate pricing structure? Something like send 1 BTC to some address and pay in dollars for the premium? I'd imagine the price of producing the coins don't change that much from a dollar perspective, it's the BTC that's the hard part.

That's not a bad idea.

Right now, we're trying to make it as simple as possible to purchase our coins.  Most of our customers right now are either new to bitcoin or don't have a convenient way to invest in bitcoin.  For those that do already own BTC, it's fairly easy to pay with bitcoins at checkout now.  However, separating the two transactions (the coin funding and the coin purchasing) is something we actually considered early on for legal reasons which is why I agree that it's a viable option. 

I'd love to offer self funded coins as an option in the future.  Especially when we release some of the lower cost physical bitcoin items.

   

[silvergoldandbitcoin]

Hey Titan, just got an email saying my coins are on their way!

I just wanted to ask, when you will be opening up for more orders again/ when the Titan One will be back in stock?

Thanks

[TitanBTC]

We'll have coins available for sale this week. 

Check back later this week.  If the new merchant accounts aren't fully setup yet, we'll at least be offering coins for sale via other methods of payment like check, wire transfer and BTC.  The recent price increases and the fact that our coins are attracting some more mainstream interest are good news, but it means that our cash reserves on the exchanges don't last nearly as long as they need to.  We're implementing some solutions to make sure we can source BTC in higher quantities. 

[Stevenrm87]

Hello TitanBTC,

Question since were only in the 300's of 10,000 minted. what will you do in 2014 ? Sell the 2013 minted stock until all 10k are gone or mint 2014 coins? Im curious how this works.

[TitanBTC]

Hello TitanBTC,

Question since were only in the 300's of 10,000 minted. what will you do in 2014 ? Sell the 2013 minted stock until all 10k are gone or mint 2014 coins? Im curious how this works.

We're planning to decommission the dies from the current production run and move to the 2014 designs in late spring or early summer of 2014.

We will probably sell off the complete 2013 production runs before that time.  Either way, we'll have a page on the website that documents the number of each design that was sold before it was retired.

[cypherdoc]

when are the gold and silver coins coming!

[silvergoldandbitcoin]

Hey all, just wanted to share some photos of what to expect when you get your coins.

Everything was nicely packed, the coins were in their clear plastic airtight cases, each in their own small black drawstring bag, then rolled up in a bubble mailer. Also included is an envelope containing your certificates of authenticity.

All this was put securely in a small flat-rate USPS box.

Here are the photos:

http://postimg.org/gallery/2j9gm1d0/ebbdefb6/

[nrdavids]

I love these. But does one know that the physical coin reflects a real digital value?.... wauw its the otherway around now!

[TitanBTC]

when are the gold and silver coins coming!

Silver coins are arriving shortly and they're pristine.  They will be available for purchase on the site Nov. 30th.  Because of the U.S. holiday, the first coins will ship out December 3rd or 4th. 

The gold coins are in process as well, but its a slow process and we want to make sure they meet all the criteria that collectors are looking for in verified rare coins.  I'll post updates here when we have a firm delivery window.