The NEXT generation of Physical Bitcoins...

[LiteCoinGuy]

they look nice, good work and good luck (because of fucking US laws)

[1715305492]

1715305492

[1715305492]

1715305492

[Bitcoinpro]

setup bitcoin satellites have coins that mine themselves wirelessly more value as time goes by 

[TitanBTC]

1. Physical bitcoins should be durable to be change hands daily as a currency and a hologram isn't.

2. Physical bitcoins should not rely on a database that can be destroyed.

I devise my solution starting with an observation.

There is no need for the private key to be recoverable, only verifiable! If I need a Bitcoin private key, I can exchange the physical coin for another addresses where I know the private key.

Now can we devise something from that observation?

For example, could we place a signing circuit embedded in the coin that can be accessed electromagnetically?

Then we need a change to the blockchain to enable addresses to be declared unspendable.

I also hope we can make Bitcoins from sterling silver possibly Argentium. It is silly to make copper-nickel coins at the 1 BTC price. Copper-nickel should be for small change. Also copper-nickel is highly volatile in price especially if we go to war.

Hey who says we can't have anonymity like we do now with cash? Porc?

This is EXACTLY how we feel.  Seriously, we've been working on a solution for a while and that checks these boxes.  The currency needs to be durable and convertable into fungible BTC without relying on any central point.

Durability is an issue, but can be a "hardware" problem.  We'll solve it with materials selection or similar.

Convertibility without relying a central database that tracks ownership probably needs to rely on blockchain info.  The protocol has the capabilities.  We're working on building a custom client (interviewing another programmer this morning hopefully) that will allow redemption and ownership tracking to be done by the blockchain seamlessly.

ON material choice...The cost of the currency production will ALWAYS be a factor.  Ideally I want physical bitcoins that look good but are also obtainable for an extremely low premium over spot value.  There's always room for dual value coins/currency that are minted from precious metals, but less expensive physical currency will have more utility in my opinion. 

Great ideas, Anonymint.  Seriously.

[TitanBTC]

they look nice, good work and good luck (because of fucking US laws)

We're OK jumping through hoops to work with U.S. laws.  FinCEN is an agency whose main purpose is to limit organized crime activity.  I'm not saying they are GOOD necessarily, but there is a kernel in good in their charter.

Laws are always framed in the their own historical context.  The radical innovation of peer-to-peer money transfer that bitcoin represents is a brand new historical context.  Laws need to be changed to adapt to this new environment. 

I'm not angry that the laws are outdated, so much as eager to see them revised.  To each his own, though.




 

 

[TitanBTC]

setup bitcoin satellites have coins that mine themselves wirelessly more value as time goes by 

love it.

I've got a Raspberry Pi sitting on my desk that I purchased for the express purpose of trying out some distributed autonomous mining schemes. (though not for mining bitcoins...cause ASIC)

[TitanBTC]

For example, could we place a signing circuit embedded in the coin that can be accessed electromagnetically?

Some other process rather than minting would be indicated for that.  A few hundred tons of instantaneous pressure plasticizes and anneals the metal pressing it into hardened shape but does bad things to electronics.

Some post minting process might work.  We struggled with this for quite a while before settling on the QR code for valuation rather than embedding crypto and serializing the pieces.  Any ideas?

I looked into embedding an RFID loop, but I doubt it would survive the minting process. Extremely finely tuned magnetic signatures could work, but its impractical at the minting stage and would need a very sensitive magnetic "reader".  I think this HAS to be done as a post minting process myself, but I like the way you're doing things as well.

By the way, Great talk in Vegas, J.  I was hoping to get a chance to shake hands, but time was tight.  Next time, hopefully.

[AnonyMint]

For example, could we place a signing circuit embedded in the coin that can be accessed electromagnetically?

Some other process rather than minting would be indicated for that.  A few hundred tons of instantaneous pressure plasticizes and anneals the metal pressing it into hardened shape but does bad things to electronics.

Some post minting process might work.  We struggled with this for quite a while before settling on the QR code for valuation rather than embedding crypto and serializing the pieces.  Any ideas?

Place it in clear resin in a chamber post-minting? Means we need to validate the coin more frequently.

Or could we fuse two halves by serrating the edge as a separate process?

Or could we press the edges of two fused halves as a second process, so total heat is minimized and isolated to the edge with the electronics toward the center of the coin perhaps with  tungsten diselenide thermal insulation? Tungsten has high electromagnetic permittivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten#Electronics).

Conceptually I love the notion of a high tech electronics, materials, and cryptographic coin. Even would have firmware. We change what coinage is, move to the next level of technological advancement.

Perhaps the firmware would allow setting the private key remotely (by the user) once and only once. Perhaps we could have some cryptographic method of insuring the loaded private key has been set to unspendable on the block chain. I haven't thought this through.

P.S. Love the coin designs. Great work.

[TitanBTC]

In case anyone missed it, here's a cross post from the marketplace regarding our Silver coins:

The Titan One Silver coins are now available. Production is limited to 1,000 coins for the 2013 edition. These are "proof-grade" in their quality, and have a mirror finish in the polished areas.  They're minted from 1 troy ounce of .999 pure silver (31.1 grams).  

Read more at https://www.titanbtc.com/product/titan-one-silver/


Just a reminder, these are available in 2 versions:

"2-factor Authenticated" (Each coin is registered to an email address, which can be changed at anytime.  Access to the email is required to redeem)

-OR-

"Private Key included" (Just like Casascius coins, the only copy of the 30-digit private key is included underneath the hologram)









Credit card payments will be available next week on our site.

Lastly, Thanks for the warm welcome in Vegas this week, guys.  The 1 oz gold versions of this coin will be available soon.  If anyone wants to PM with pre-orders for the gold coins, that will help us gauge how much bullion to buy for the full production run.

[btcmind]

Cool stuff. I would prefer prices to quoted as margin on top of bitcoin price.

Interesting discussion also. Has anyone investigated the possibility of combining physical coins with fingerprints or other personal markers?

[phazon307]

Can I buy one of these even if it is a prototype? If I can send me your email address or what not.

[NewLiberty]

For example, could we place a signing circuit embedded in the coin that can be accessed electromagnetically?

Some other process rather than minting would be indicated for that.  A few hundred tons of instantaneous pressure plasticizes and anneals the metal pressing it into hardened shape but does bad things to electronics.

Some post minting process might work.  We struggled with this for quite a while before settling on the QR code for valuation rather than embedding crypto and serializing the pieces.  Any ideas?

Place it in clear resin in a chamber post-minting? Means we need to validate the coin more frequently.

Or could we fuse two halves by serrating the edge as a separate process?

Or could we press the edges of two fused halves as a second process, so total heat is minimized and isolated to the edge with the electronics toward the center of the coin perhaps with  tungsten diselenide thermal insulation? Tungsten has high electromagnetic permittivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten#Electronics).

Conceptually I love the notion of a high tech electronics, materials, and cryptographic coin. Even would have firmware. We change what coinage is, move to the next level of technological advancement.

Perhaps the firmware would allow setting the private key remotely (by the user) once and only once. Perhaps we could have some cryptographic method of insuring the loaded private key has been set to unspendable on the block chain. I haven't thought this through.

P.S. Love the coin designs. Great work.

That could be interesting, sort of a coin-in-amber type thing.
The tungsten idea also seems fun.
It would however be a serious engineering operation to automate either of these processes for production.
One of the ways we keep costs low and production high is by using standard equipment and processes that are already existing.  To get to even relatively small quantities of 50000 per year with these techniques would be a fair bit of engineering, whereas with standard minting, 50000 per week is fairly routine.
The road from idea to market is fraught with issues.

[phazon307]

1,000 good luck silver is only $22.00 an ounce.

[r3animation]

1,000 good luck silver is only $22.00 an ounce.

I think you need to learn how to read.

[phazon307]

? The price on the site says 1000 dollars for one what else do I need to read?

[AnonyMint]

For example, could we place a signing circuit embedded in the coin that can be accessed electromagnetically?

Some other process rather than minting would be indicated for that.  A few hundred tons of instantaneous pressure plasticizes and anneals the metal pressing it into hardened shape but does bad things to electronics.

Some post minting process might work.  We struggled with this for quite a while before settling on the QR code for valuation rather than embedding crypto and serializing the pieces.  Any ideas?

Place it in clear resin in a chamber post-minting? Means we need to validate the coin more frequently.

Or could we fuse two halves by serrating the edge as a separate process?

Or could we press the edges of two fused halves as a second process, so total heat is minimized and isolated to the edge with the electronics toward the center of the coin perhaps with  tungsten diselenide thermal insulation? Tungsten has high electromagnetic permittivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten#Electronics).

Conceptually I love the notion of a high tech electronics, materials, and cryptographic coin. Even would have firmware. We change what coinage is, move to the next level of technological advancement.

Perhaps the firmware would allow setting the private key remotely (by the user) once and only once. Perhaps we could have some cryptographic method of insuring the loaded private key has been set to unspendable on the block chain. I haven't thought this through.

P.S. Love the coin designs. Great work.

That could be interesting, sort of a coin-in-amber type thing.
The tungsten idea also seems fun.
It would however be a serious engineering operation to automate either of these processes for production.
One of the ways we keep costs low and production high is by using standard equipment and processes that are already existing.  To get to even relatively small quantities of 50000 per year with these techniques would be a fair bit of engineering, whereas with standard minting, 50000 per week is fairly routine.
The road from idea to market is fraught with issues.

The market is huge. The first mover will become extremely wealthy.

It doesn't hurt and probably helps to build market share with existing equipment and holograph embedded keys for the time being while developing the real solution as quickly as possible.

I hope the Chinese are reading this thread.

[gigamike]

In case anyone missed it, here's a cross post from the marketplace regarding our Silver coins:

The Titan One Silver coins are now available. Production is limited to 1,000 coins for the 2013 edition. These are "proof-grade" in their quality, and have a mirror finish in the polished areas.  They're minted from 1 troy ounce of .999 pure silver (31.1 grams).  

Read more at https://www.titanbtc.com/product/titan-one-silver/


Just a reminder, these are available in 2 versions:

"2-factor Authenticated" (Each coin is registered to an email address, which can be changed at anytime.  Access to the email is required to redeem)

-OR-

"Private Key included" (Just like Casascius coins, the only copy of the 30-digit private key is included underneath the hologram)









Credit card payments will be available next week on our site.

Lastly, Thanks for the warm welcome in Vegas this week, guys.  The 1 oz gold versions of this coin will be available soon.  If anyone wants to PM with pre-orders for the gold coins, that will help us gauge how much bullion to buy for the full production run.

Hi,

Im interested to buy, hoping for coupon code.

When will you accept credit card?

TIA,

Mike

[crazy_rabbit]

? The price on the site says 1000 dollars for one what else do I need to read?

I can't stop laughing. Its such an obvious thing once I mention it you're going to feel silly.

The coin is for 1 BTC. That means there is 1BTC IN THE COIN. So it's the price of Silver, PLUS the price of the bitcoin.

Of course, Bitcoin is far below $1000 right now, but, still. More then $22. :-)

[taltamir]

5. Seamlessly convert to bitcoins in your wallet with a minimum of technical knowledge required.

I disagree on this point.

Scenario. Person A gives a coin that says 0.01B to Person B.
Person B transfers the content off of the coin, the coin is now worth 0B.
Person B gives the empty coin to Person C who mistakingly thinks it is worth 0.01B because that is what the coin SAYS.

If person C has the tools needed to verify the value of the coin (a cell phone with the right software) then he has the tools to perform a direct software transfer. And in fact such a transfer would be easier!

The only possible way for a coin to be worthwhile is the coin itself has a value. This means either a government declaring it fiat, or it is made out of precious metal (ex, gold). However putting a 1B logo on your gold coin is misinforming and disingenuous because the gold to bitcoin conversion ratio fluctuates

PS. The coin in question is 1BTC... thats a 1000$ coin. I can't just hand those out to people like the OP describe nor can I buy something with it.

[AnonyMint]

The only possible way for a coin to be worthwhile is the coin itself has a value. This means either a government declaring it fiat, or it is made out of precious metal (ex, gold). However putting a 1B logo on your gold coin is misinforming and disingenuous because the gold to bitcoin conversion ratio fluctuates.

Or as I proposed upthread, embedding the radio verifiable private key and marking it unspendable on the block chain (altcoins can support this feature, then Bitcoin will implement it) as I have suggested upthread. Then the coin tracks the BTC value and is reliable.

I wish someone would get serious about my suggestion.

Note no need to embed a battery, supply power to the embedded circuit via radio.

Not everyone needs to verify each coin, because the private key is unspendable.

[taltamir]

Or as I proposed upthread, embedding the radio verifiable private key and marking it unspendable on the block chain (altcoins can support this feature, then Bitcoin will implement it) as I have suggested upthread. Then the coin tracks the BTC value and is reliable.

Well, yes, and it is implied by my attack on the principle of the ability to electronically drain the physical coin of the bitcoins.

But I am seeing a plethora of technical issues with such a solution. What happens when the coin breaks? Can you backup the coins the way you do other wallets? Wouldn't backups mean counterfeiting? How could you prevent someone from stealing such a coin by reading the data and then making a duplicate? etc