CASASCIUS PHYSICAL BITCOIN - In Stock Now! (pic)

[dave111223]

I don't realistically expect my coins to be used much for trade - it's rather infeasible with the premium I must charge to continue to make them.  Anything can be compromised or counterfeited given enough resources or ingenuity.  The only thing I can realistically promise is that I've mailed out only honest coins.  That said, I'd expect competition long before I'd expect counterfeiting - it is far more rational economically to make legit physical bitcoins than fake ones.

The argument would be, why invest all the resources to make fake 1BTC coins for a short run that won't be sustainable when the market is willing to pay a good percentage of 1BTC in the form of a markup for a legit coin in the long run?

But surely the end goal of casascius coins is to become a physically form of bitcoins that are tradeable without any internet access?  Otherwise wouldn't they just forever be a novelty item?

And as I see it the only way to truly validate a current casascius coin is to destroy it by pulling out the private key (as someone could have accessed the private key via a scanner or something, or coin could be fake, especially if someone figures out how to get the hologram off without making a mess)?

And obviously having a coin that is destroyed upon every transaction doesn't work in the real world.

With coins permanently fixed to an address you could continue to reuse the coin without destroying it.

To combat counterfeiting I have two ideas:
1) Use difficult-to-fake markings (as with all other physical monies)

2) You could have generations of coins.  And you bring out a new generation with different markings every 10 years or so.  When a new generation was released coin owners would have the option to send in their coins and have them re-minted (for a fee of course).  You could destroy their old coin and mint a new generation coin with the same address.

You could record each coin address and generation in a database.  So if someone handed me a 2nd generation coin I could look it up in the database, and find out that actually this coin has already been minted in the 3rd generation, so I'd know it is fake.

If there was no counterfeiting users will be happy to continue to using old generation coins without much difficulty, but if counterfeiting became prolific owners will be eager to re-mint their coins as soon as a new generation was released.

As for the additional cost of producing coins I don't see this as a problem as there would simply be two values.  A casascius BTC would have a slightly higher value than a digital BTC.  In fact this additional cost only make sense if the coins cannot be converted directly back to digital, and would need to be "exchanged" instead.

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[camolist]

updated my thread today after getting a few sales

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131828.0
    
credit cards, paypal, and bitcoin for original casascius coins

paid for with btc
1.3btc each
$1.69 converted to btc covers confirmed delivery on up to 5 coins

paid for with paypal/credit cards
1.4 btc converted to usd each
$3.89 signature confirmed delivery on up to 5 coins


for small orders this is a decent deal on both coin price and shipping cost. along with offering what i believe to be a safe way for both the buyer and seller to deal btc on paypal

[tymm0]

Recieved my coins yesterday! Love the design. It helped my wife realize they were real.  They definitely make it easier to explain the basics of BTC.
I also purchased some 5 BTC blank coins without BTC attached. Hoping to roll my own from them.

[DeaDTerra]

Hi!
Just wanted to ask Mike (Casascius) are you coming to the Bitcoin 2013, in San Jose in May?
//DeaDTerra

[casascius]

Hi!
Just wanted to ask Mike (Casascius) are you coming to the Bitcoin 2013, in San Jose in May?
//DeaDTerra

Yep, am planning on it.

[DeaDTerra]

Hi!
Just wanted to ask Mike (Casascius) are you coming to the Bitcoin 2013, in San Jose in May?
//DeaDTerra

Yep, am planning on it.

Awesome will you bring with you some coins so that people at the conference can purchase?
Last year in London (bitcoin2012) they sold like butter, I managed to sell about 20 single, 3 10s and one 25
//DeaDTerra

[BTCurious]

Hi!
Just wanted to ask Mike (Casascius) are you coming to the Bitcoin 2013, in San Jose in May?
//DeaDTerra

Yep, am planning on it.

Awesome will you bring with you some coins so that people at the conference can purchase?
Last year in London (bitcoin2012) they sold like butter, I managed to sell about 20 single, 3 10s and one 25
//DeaDTerra

Yeah, I assume he will -- otherwise I'll be forced to bring my stack, and I don't think TSA will like that

[DeaDTerra]

Hi!
Just wanted to ask Mike (Casascius) are you coming to the Bitcoin 2013, in San Jose in May?
//DeaDTerra

Yep, am planning on it.

Awesome will you bring with you some coins so that people at the conference can purchase?
Last year in London (bitcoin2012) they sold like butter, I managed to sell about 20 single, 3 10s and one 25
//DeaDTerra

Yeah, I assume he will -- otherwise I'll be forced to bring my stack, and I don't think TSA will like that

I am going to probably buy some and bring with me xD
I just plan to have them in my wallet ^^
//DeaDTerra

[casascius]

Yeah, I will bring coins.

[Richy_T]

Bitcoin's increasing value/price is making these too expensive to buy as cheap gifts. I think you may have to come out with a smaller denomination version.

[Stephen Gornick]

Bitcoin's increasing value/price is making these too expensive to buy as cheap gifts. I think you may have to come out with a smaller denomination version.

One half BTC denominations are coming:

I’m adding a 0.5 BTC coin.  This coin is the same style in every way, but is 1 inch instead of 1.125 inches in diameter.  This is being added due to the rise in bitcoin value.  The pricing will be the same as the 1BTC coin (other than being 0.5BTC less).

- http://casascius.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/the-first-of-the-2013-1btc-coins-have-gone-out/

[molecular]

Bitcoin's increasing value/price is making these too expensive to buy as cheap gifts. I think you may have to come out with a smaller denomination version.

One half BTC denominations are coming:

I’m adding a 0.5 BTC coin.  This coin is the same style in every way, but is 1 inch instead of 1.125 inches in diameter.  This is being added due to the rise in bitcoin value.  The pricing will be the same as the 1BTC coin (other than being 0.5BTC less).

- http://casascius.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/the-first-of-the-2013-1btc-coins-have-gone-out/

This is awesome! Can't order yet, though.

What are your plans regarding pricing? I've seen the price for 100+ 1 BTC coins drop from 1.1 to 1.07. Is this going to happen again soon?

Are you going to keep the premium for single coins high (BTC 1.5 for the 1-BTC coin?). What are the plans for future pricing (1, 10, 100) of the 0.5 BTC coins?

This is important info for a reseller to plan long-/mid-term. Please keep prices relatively stable so I don't suffer from surprises.

[StarenseN]

Great news, I was sure you'll do that move very shortly.

You can already look for .25 and .1 coins

[Richy_T]

Yeah, you'd better hurry or the 0.5 btc then will be worth the same as 1 btc now.

[casascius]

The drop in pricing is simply to follow changes to the exchange rate, though I drop them a little bit slower than MtGox.

Notably though, I haven't dropped the 1.50 price for 1-9 coins despite the exchange rate, so nobody reselling them should be disadvantaged.  I have essentially allowed that price to go up with the exchange rate.

On any other denominations I do in the same item class (small token), the premium will be exactly the same.  It takes equal planning and effort to make and ship a 0.25 BTC token as it does to ship a 1 BTC token as it does to ship a 5 BTC token.

[jtibble]

How did I miss that you now have a blog?! Update the first post in this thread and put the link in your casascius.com page!

[BTC4Amazon]

Notably though, I haven't dropped the 1.50 price for 1-9 coins despite the exchange rate, so nobody reselling them should be disadvantaged.  

So I take it then you have no problem with resellers? I would love to buy around 500 of these coins...to sell some give away some keep some etc. But I dind't want to do so and you be upset with the reselling.

EDIT: As I see memory dealers is out of your Bitcoin products I would love to start selling them for CC for you also.

[casascius]

Yes, I would like to encourage resale - if I ship all orders myself, I'll spend more time preparing packages than producing coins.  And yet it's in the interest of Bitcoin to get as many of these things out there as possible.

People who just want one coin are demonstrably willing to pay a decent markup on it, so there is definitely an opportunity for resale, and a definite self-interest for me to encourage that.

[johnniewalker]

Hey everybody,
Does anyone store their coins in round, hardshell airtites? If so, what is the right size and where did you order them? PM me.
Thanks!

[Otoh]

Hey everybody,
Does anyone store their coins in round, hardshell airtites? If so, what is the right size and where did you order them? PM me.
Thanks!

See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=41892.msg1324189#msg1324189