CASASCIUS PHYSICAL BITCOIN - In Stock Now! (pic)

[Otoh]

I have just received 150 Casascius 1 BTC in Spain, everything about the experience was great, I ordered Sunday 17th March, the order was processed the same day & was shipped on the 19th, US tracking showed it to have reached LA by the 24th where it would continue to Europe, with Semana Santa holidays about to kick in tomorrow for nearly 1 week I checked my PO box on the off chance today, the 27th, & there they were - may even have arrived earlier this week.

Perfectly packaged & declared, no customs or duty or anything, all in rolls that were vacuum sealed & with instructions, I'd already been emailed a list of all the addresses which was a bonus that I wasn't expecting, with a couple of cool Leet ones amongst them:

1337qbfsHGxvzN6wrckdFoBniMdTRyt9qE
1337YWoEf5PP4V9sbP8gXTHmt621pZgyCu

I had planned to offer 50 for re-sale, especially for people living in Spain, but have decided now to leave them all vacuum packed as they are & to order some more for this instead.

While these were paid for with bitcoins that I already had & planed to hold anyway long term, rather than with freshly purchased with dollars bitcoins, it is interesting to note that in the short time since I ordered them the $ value of the bitcoins alone has increased from $47.50 to $87.

Will edit to add some pics...

I hope that Casascius decides at some stage to make some 0.005, 0.01, 0.05 & 0.1 btc coins in the future as well as the 0.5 btc ones he's planned, as 50 cents, $1, $5, $10 (if/when the exchange rate gets to $100) I think ppl would find very useful, especially the 3 lower denominations. Perhaps start a line of Satoshi coins with 500k, 1M, 5M, 10M satoshis instead of the above bitcoin fractions.

Another way to do them perhaps is like how small, say 1 gram, gold bars are sold by some refineries/mints sealed in to hologram-ed assay cards, like these:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56562.msg1667440#msg1667440

http://www.ebay.com/itm/UBS-1-gram-Gold-Bar-in-Assay-Card-Hologram-/12108384164

UBS make the best in my opinion, the coins could be made in a rectangular shape similar to how the gold bars are.



Edit to add pics. Note coins have been placed in my bank safety deposit box.



Note coins have been placed in my bank safety deposit box.



Note coins have been placed in my bank safety deposit box.

[steelboy]

Another thing I have been wondering is regarding the extra costs that are in addition to the face value of each coin.

For example, the 1000btc is currently 1030btc. Meaning an extra 30coins. At current rate of £60 that's an extra £1800.

Has it always been £1800 extra to the face value or has it always been 30btc extra?

Just wondering if he extra charge is flat in bitcoins or flat in fiat.

Hope I explained that well enough to understand

[Otoh]

I may be wrong on this but I believe you can pay $200 or so over the spot gold price per Troy ounce, with a minimum of $1,800 + the $200 as he made them when the gold price was around that & then just pay an additional 1,000 BTC for those loaded on to the coin, so really you will pay a premium of about $400 (as the gold price has fallen to around $1,600 atm) which comes to about 4.45 BTC (@ $90/BTC) so 1,004.45 + shipping/insurance. My apologies if I haven't recalled totally correctly or missed any changes on this though.

With the bitcoin price going bananas atm anything priced in them gets quickly out of date, Casascius was kind enough to refund a part of what I paid for shipping due to this as it had been quoted in bitcoins valued at when the price was lower per dollar.

[casascius]

I have upped what I charge on the gold coin since first offering it, since I had sold so few as to not really recover my production costs.  I didn't want to scrap it and think the continued availability of the gold coin at any price serves the community image well, regardless of how many I sell, so I opted to continue to offer it, but at a higher price point.  That said, it's always been fundamentally priced in fiat; its price has come down as the bitcoin price has risen.

[steelboy]

I have upped what I charge on the gold coin since first offering it, since I had sold so few as to not really recover my production costs.  I didn't want to scrap it and think the continued availability of the gold coin at any price serves the community image well, regardless of how many I sell, so I opted to continue to offer it, but at a higher price point.  That said, it's always been fundamentally priced in fiat; its price has come down as the bitcoin price has risen.

I may be wrong on this but I believe you can pay $200 or so over the spot gold price per Troy ounce, with a minimum of $1,800 + the $200 as he made them when the gold price was around that & then just pay an additional 1,000 BTC for those loaded on to the coin, so really you will pay a premium of about $400 (as the gold price has fallen to around $1,600 atm) which comes to about 4.45 BTC (@ $90/BTC) so 1,004.45 + shipping/insurance. My apologies if I haven't recalled totally correctly or missed any changes on this though.

With the bitcoin price going bananas atm anything priced in them gets quickly out of date, Casascius was kind enough to refund a part of what I paid for shipping due to this as it had been quoted in bitcoins valued at when the price was lower per dollar.

Thanks for the answers. Made that nice and clear.

I didn't actually realise that the coin was real gold. I suppose I should have really.

Is that 24carat?

[rme]

Hi,
I think that I have discovered a vulnerability related to the Casascius Public Keys.

Each Casascius coin has printed a Public code made of 8 characters, for example this 1GdySJP4.

This code is a FirsBits address that resolves to 1GdySJP4RvRPQydyJVavKKuwtNaTvxaa4C.

Checking the public code is the only way of prooving that a coin has not been opened (apart of the hologram).

Using vanitygen I can generate a bitcoin address to cybersquatt your firsbits (1GdySJP4) so when you check the coin balance you will be checking my address balance and the coin is maybe opened and spended.

How is that possible?, Firsbits is unique.
The firsbits of the example coin is 1gdysjp and not 1gdysjp4 (as printed in the coin), so the firsbits 1gdysjp4 is available for anyone.

[casascius]

The code printed on the coin is not claimed to be firstbits.  It is the first 8 characters, meant to be referenced against my published list. If I was concerned about nabbing firstbits I would be sending satoshis in mass batches to squat them myself.

[Otoh]

Hi,
I think that I have discovered a vulnerability related to the Casascius Public Keys.

Each Casascius coin has printed a Public code made of 8 characters, for example this 1GdySJP4.

This code is a FirsBits address that resolves to 1GdySJP4RvRPQydyJVavKKuwtNaTvxaa4C.

Checking the public code is the only way of prooving that a coin has not been opened (apart of the hologram).

Using vanitygen I can generate a bitcoin address to cybersquatt your firsbits (1GdySJP4) so when you check the coin balance you will be checking my address balance and the coin is maybe opened and spended.

How is that possible?, Firsbits is unique.
The firsbits of the example coin is 1gdysjp and not 1gdysjp4 (as printed in the coin), so the firsbits 1gdysjp4 is available for anyone.

Apart from what Cas has already posted, as soon as he loads his coin/address say 1GdySJP4 that creates a FirstBits address after a few confirmations which is the currently shortest unique prefix, it could be just 1GdySJ (expressed in lower case as all FB's are that's 1gdysj) but no one can get any other FB address with the same prefix until they have a different subsequent character than this first one, ie 1GdySJP4xyz would give a FB's of 1GdySJP4x (1gdysjp4x). Also it seems that FirstBits is down atm & has been for weeks so I'm not too sure about it's future, I like it though & hope that it re-appears.

[molecular]

I think that I have discovered a vulnerability related to the Casascius Public Keys.

Each Casascius coin has printed a Public code made of 8 characters, for example this 1GdySJP4.

This code is a FirsBits address that resolves to 1GdySJP4RvRPQydyJVavKKuwtNaTvxaa4C.

Checking the public code is the only way of prooving that a coin has not been opened (apart of the hologram).

Thats no vulnerability.

The hologram is destroyed when pealing it off. If you can manage to peel one off and fix it back on, then you have found a vulnerabitlity. Then I also don't need to have squatted the firstbits, I can just take the bitcoin after I've sold the casascius.

Also: Casascius sends out a list of the coins addresses to each customer when he mails the coins. I usually pass these on as a reseller to my own customers. He also publishes lists of these Addresses. Those sources should be used to check the balance of a coin... not firstbits.

[rme]

Solved, thanks for the answers.
 

[SgtSpike]

Hi,
I think that I have discovered a vulnerability related to the Casascius Public Keys.

Each Casascius coin has printed a Public code made of 8 characters, for example this 1GdySJP4.

This code is a FirsBits address that resolves to 1GdySJP4RvRPQydyJVavKKuwtNaTvxaa4C.

Checking the public code is the only way of prooving that a coin has not been opened (apart of the hologram).

Using vanitygen I can generate a bitcoin address to cybersquatt your firsbits (1GdySJP4) so when you check the coin balance you will be checking my address balance and the coin is maybe opened and spended.

How is that possible?, Firsbits is unique.
The firsbits of the example coin is 1gdysjp and not 1gdysjp4 (as printed in the coin), so the firsbits 1gdysjp4 is available for anyone.

Apart from what Cas has already posted, as soon as he loads his coin/address say 1GdySJP4 that creates a FirstBits address after a few confirmations which is the currently shortest unique prefix, it could be just 1GdySJ (expressed in lower case as all FB's are that's 1gdysj) but no one can get any other FB address with the same prefix until they have a different subsequent character than this first one, ie 1GdySJP4xyz would give a FB's of 1GdySJP4x (1gdysjp4x). Also it seems that FirstBits is down atm & has been for weeks so I'm not too sure about it's future, I like it though & hope that it re-appears.

I programmed FirstBits for FreeMoney.  I'm not sure what's happening with the site, but I know blockchain.info lookups of firstbits were much faster.  Perhaps he felt that his site wasn't necessary?  Regardless, if it stays down indefinitely and the domain comes back up for sale, I'll probably nab it and get it running again.

[naypalm]

Total active Physical Bitcoins: $7 million USD

[Richy_T]

I programmed FirstBits for FreeMoney.  I'm not sure what's happening with the site, but I know blockchain.info lookups of firstbits were much faster.  Perhaps he felt that his site wasn't necessary?  Regardless, if it stays down indefinitely and the domain comes back up for sale, I'll probably nab it and get it running again.

You may want to contact him directly. If it comes up for sale, it will likely be snapped up by domain squatters.

[SgtSpike]

I programmed FirstBits for FreeMoney.  I'm not sure what's happening with the site, but I know blockchain.info lookups of firstbits were much faster.  Perhaps he felt that his site wasn't necessary?  Regardless, if it stays down indefinitely and the domain comes back up for sale, I'll probably nab it and get it running again.

You may want to contact him directly. If it comes up for sale, it will likely be snapped up by domain squatters.

Yep, I did.  He's going to transfer it to me and I'll keep it running.

[Richy_T]

I programmed FirstBits for FreeMoney.  I'm not sure what's happening with the site, but I know blockchain.info lookups of firstbits were much faster.  Perhaps he felt that his site wasn't necessary?  Regardless, if it stays down indefinitely and the domain comes back up for sale, I'll probably nab it and get it running again.

You may want to contact him directly. If it comes up for sale, it will likely be snapped up by domain squatters.

Yep, I did.  He's going to transfer it to me and I'll keep it running.

Cool. I sent him a potential logo (for use to indicate that it's a firstbits address). It was only a rough but I'll send you a copy too later.

[odolvlobo]

Here's a bit of trivia:

At the current BTC price, the 100 BTC Casascius Gold-Plated Savings Bar is worth more than double its weight in gold!

[DobZombie]

Damn you casascius!  Creating a free market etc

I wish you had a good list of resellers posted in an obvious place.  I'm keen to buy stuff but I don't know what is available and from whom? I really want a 2013 coin and some blanks of all your other items (except the gold one of course, I'm not that rich...yet )

Any aussie resellers yet?

[molecular]

Damn you casascius!  Creating a free market etc

I wish you had a good list of resellers posted in an obvious place.  I'm keen to buy stuff but I don't know what is available and from whom? I really want a 2013 coin and some blanks of all your other items (except the gold one of course, I'm not that rich...yet )

Any aussie resellers yet?

DobZombie: just do it!

[molecular]

Here's a bit of trivia:

At the current BTC price, the 100 BTC Casascius Gold-Plated Savings Bar is worth more than double its weight in gold!

Here's a bit of insanity: There's an auction on ebay of a Casascius 1 BTC series 1. It's still 2 days to go and it's at $1,425 !!!

If this goes just a notch higher, then a series 1 Casascius "is worth" as much as a 1 oz gold coin ;-)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Casascius-Bitcoin-Minted-in-Sept-2011-Version-1-With-Error-/181115649401?pt=US_World_Coins&hash=item2a2b557d79

[Scott J]

Here's a bit of trivia:

At the current BTC price, the 100 BTC Casascius Gold-Plated Savings Bar is worth more than double its weight in gold!

Here's a bit of insanity: There's an auction on ebay of a Casascius 1 BTC series 1. It's still 2 days to go and it's at $1,425 !!!

If this goes just a notch higher, then a series 1 Casascius "is worth" as much as a 1 oz gold coin ;-)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Casascius-Bitcoin-Minted-in-Sept-2011-Version-1-With-Error-/181115649401?pt=US_World_Coins&hash=item2a2b557d79

I'm selling some of these. Will take 4 BTC each, so quite a lot less than ebay is charging!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=168152.0