CASASCIUS PHYSICAL BITCOIN - In Stock Now! (pic)

[casascius]

...along with a "user manual" for someone who's never heard of bitcoin...

I provided some text in another thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50386.0

I have some "2-by-2's" sized for the 1 BTC coin and will include these on request (either with the coins already installed, or ready for you to install with a stapler, you choose).  More info on what these look like: http://coins.about.com/od/caringforcoins/tp/coin-holders.htm

[1714329750]

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[1714329750]

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[mjcmurfy]

One of those cylindrical coin tubes, down at the bottom of the page, would be nice if you had a lot of the 1btc coins.
I'm sure they are available in the correct size somewhere online.



BTW, did you get my PM casascius?

[P4man]

I provided some text in another thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50386.0

Its a start.. I guess, but honestly thats the part everyone should write themselves, as its kinda the personal message (good template though, even if IMO it focuses a bit too much on the value of the gift, and not enough on the concept, but thats for everyone to decide).

Anyway, I was more looking for something "official", explaining things like how to redeem the coin, how to check if its been tampered with, and also what a bitcoin really is. Yeah I know, its not going to be a short note then, but thats okay IMO. Even a booklet would be fine, and it would also be nice if it was printed in a way that doesnt look like I printed it myself on my inkjet printer. This is something Id gladly pay extra for, particularly when combined with a wooden or whatever box that holds the coin and everything else. Like a "starter kit", something you can give and whoever receives it can at least read the "manual" without me having to say "just google it".

I have some "2-by-2's" sized for the 1 BTC coin and will include these on request (either with the coins already installed, or ready for you to install with a stapler, you choose).  More info on what these look like: http://coins.about.com/od/caringforcoins/tp/coin-holders.htm

Again, that would be a start. Now add a box and make it look pretty and valuable. After all, we might be gifting the future equivalent of a car or a house .

[casascius]

I have the gold bars up on my website, cost is 8.50 BTC.  I am still working on photos.

Two versions of the bar: one is preloaded with 100 BTC (has Casascius hologram), total cost 108.50 BTC.

The other has no denomination, no hologram, and I throw in a couple of plain gold stickers and sample private keys with their corresponding addresses.  The private keys still work and are secure, I am just assuming you don't plan to use them.  The intent is for those of you who want to generate your own private key, in which case you can also get to choose the BTC amount.

I will make a new post once I have a more formal announcement and photos to go with it.

[westkybitcoins]

I see that Memory Dealers is selling the 100btc bars now. Do they have the full-length private key affixed, or do they also use a mini version?

Just in case you missed my question, Casascius.

[casascius]

They use the mini private key as well.

[molecular]

I DID IT!  It was not easy but it is possible.  Hopefully there will be a more user friendly way to do this soon.  Ideally we can eventually add a way to import mini private keys directly into the wallet through the Windows GUI on the standard Bitcoin client.  For now I would settle for bribing the author(s) of pywallet into adding the mini private key format to pywallet.  Not having that, this is how I did it:

• I then made a file named “short” containing exactly these 22 characters.  This is not as easy as it sounds because most editors add CR/LF and EOF characters to a file.  I used hexedit to make a file of exactly these characters.
• Then I used openssl like so:   bash-4.1# openssl dgst -sha256 < short

this can be done more elegantly in one step without the use of a file:

echo "S4b3N3oGqDqR5jNuxEvDwf" | openssl dgst -sha256

[nmat]

Could you give us an estimate of how many 1 BTC coins you still have left? And how long is the second series going to take? I wanted to buy a few of each, but I'm afraid that the original series will go out of stock soon...

[molecular]

Could you give us an estimate of how many 1 BTC coins you still have left? And how long is the second series going to take? I wanted to buy a few of each, but I'm afraid that the original series will go out of stock soon...

Come to prague, you will likely be able to buy some.

[P4man]

My coins arrived today, much faster than I would have thought (I live in Europe). They look absolutely great, thank you for your excellent service! Will buy some more when v2 becomes available.

[BurtW]

I DID IT!  It was not easy but it is possible.  Hopefully there will be a more user friendly way to do this soon.  Ideally we can eventually add a way to import mini private keys directly into the wallet through the Windows GUI on the standard Bitcoin client.  For now I would settle for bribing the author(s) of pywallet into adding the mini private key format to pywallet.  Not having that, this is how I did it:

• I then made a file named “short” containing exactly these 22 characters.  This is not as easy as it sounds because most editors add CR/LF and EOF characters to a file.  I used hexedit to make a file of exactly these characters.
• Then I used openssl like so:   bash-4.1# openssl dgst -sha256 < short

this can be done more elegantly in one step without the use of a file:

echo "S4b3N3oGqDqR5jNuxEvDwf" | openssl dgst -sha256

Yes, I realized that after I published the post.  At any rate this is much easier "now days" since you can import mini private keys directly into a Mt. Gox or StrongCoin account.
Question:  besides Mt. Gox and StrongCoin does anyone know of any other places that accept the mini private key format for import?

[molecular]

Question:  besides Mt. Gox and StrongCoin does anyone know of any other places that accept the mini private key format for import?

I've been thinking about making a dedicated service solely for redeeming stuff (and have the coins sent to a specified address right away)

I dropped the idea because of the trust issues that'd be involved and because it's already offered, as you said, by exchanges.

Such a service might be well-placed on casascius.com, no?

[casascius]

Question:  besides Mt. Gox and StrongCoin does anyone know of any other places that accept the mini private key format for import?

I've been thinking about making a dedicated service solely for redeeming stuff (and have the coins sent to a specified address right away)

I dropped the idea because of the trust issues that'd be involved and because it's already offered, as you said, by exchanges.

Such a service might be well-placed on casascius.com, no?

Your service would do just fine if it paid out immediately.

[pc]

Question:  besides Mt. Gox and StrongCoin does anyone know of any other places that accept the mini private key format for import?

I've been thinking about making a dedicated service solely for redeeming stuff (and have the coins sent to a specified address right away)

I dropped the idea because of the trust issues that'd be involved and because it's already offered, as you said, by exchanges.

Such a service might be well-placed on casascius.com, no?

Your service would do just fine if it paid out immediately.

There's still a lot of trust there, since you're actually giving away the private key. A service could in theory start up, pay out the 1 BTC coins just fine to gain trust, and then once (if) Bitcoin value gets very high and someone tries to redeem a 100 BTC bar, they take the money and run.

You might be best making one of those client-side javascript-based pages that seem to be getting developed to somehow take a key and the transaction hash and index being redeemed, and have it generate the redemption transaction completely on the client side, and publish that somehow. Then, once the source code of the page is vetted, it could be saved and used without any additional risk.

It would be interesting if Casascius could include such a page for download from his site, or maybe included on a USB stick with the large-value purchases or something, customized already with the transaction hash and index associated with the coin/bar. So one would just need to put in the private key and could get the funds, without digging in BlockExplorer.

[BurtW]

I have redeemed several coins on Mt. Gox.  After I enter a private key there it moves the BTC from the coin into my Mt. Gox account.   Then since it is in sweep mode if anyone were to (foolishly) put any BTC on that same keypair anytime in the future the BTC get automatically swept into my Mt. Gox account.  I guess I do not understand the trust issue you are talking about (above and beyond the obvious trust we place in Mike when he makes the coins).  Since the account associated with the coin is now drained there is really no reason to ever use it again.  So the service has no way of getting any future coins from it - unless you use it again.

O, I see now, you are talking about a "fly by night" operation that builds trust in the community and then at some point runs away with some coins.  Well that is what "fly by night" operations do.

[pc]

Right. People putting their private keys into Mt. Gox are trusting that Mt. Gox will in fact credit their account with any bitcoins sent there, and that they'll be able to get their bitcoins out of Mt. Gox at any time. I'm proposing that if all one wants is to redeem a physical coin to a personal address, there are ways of doing it that don't require a third party. But certainly trusting a third party is a perfectly reasonable option as long as one recognizes that that's what one is doing.

[BurtW]

Not 100% sure on this because I have not tried it yet but can't you just create a single transaction to move the BTC from the coin/bar into any public address of your choice using the on line transaction creator here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51254.0

Is that what you are looking for?

[molecular]

Question:  besides Mt. Gox and StrongCoin does anyone know of any other places that accept the mini private key format for import?

I've been thinking about making a dedicated service solely for redeeming stuff (and have the coins sent to a specified address right away)

I dropped the idea because of the trust issues that'd be involved and because it's already offered, as you said, by exchanges.

Such a service might be well-placed on casascius.com, no?

Your service would do just fine if it paid out immediately.

There's still a lot of trust there, since you're actually giving away the private key. A service could in theory start up, pay out the 1 BTC coins just fine to gain trust, and then once (if) Bitcoin value gets very high and someone tries to redeem a 100 BTC bar, they take the money and run.

You might be best making one of those client-side javascript-based pages that seem to be getting developed to somehow take a key and the transaction hash and index being redeemed, and have it generate the redemption transaction completely on the client side, and publish that somehow. Then, once the source code of the page is vetted, it could be saved and used without any additional risk.

It would be interesting if Casascius could include such a page for download from his site, or maybe included on a USB stick with the large-value purchases or something, customized already with the transaction hash and index associated with the coin/bar. So one would just need to put in the private key and could get the funds, without digging in BlockExplorer.

I like the javascript-idea. Maybe BCCAPI by Jan could be used: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36892.0 ?

Question about the provision of tx hash and index by casascius (or other source): would that work with additional fund being sent to the coin address?

[molecular]

Not 100% sure on this because I have not tried it yet but can't you just create a single transaction to move the BTC from the coin/bar into any public address of your choice using the on line transaction creator here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51254.0

Is that what you are looking for?

Hmm, that might actually work. Pretty cool, StrongCoin.

I downloaded the .zip and looked at the page. Currently you need to grab the transaction history of the address from block explorer and enter the privkey in base58. Both could be automatically done with only the minikey as input, right?

After that, one can enter destination address, amount and fee and generate the tx, which can then be broadcast, e.g. via http://bitsend.rowit.co.uk/, which could also be done automatically.

This way, the privkey never leaves localhost and the process can be repeated should more funds be transferred to the address, right?

[naypalm]

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