What ever happened to casascius coins??

[rmilly]

I remember back on 2013 there were lots of people picking up casascius coins. Who still has theirs?? Anyone willing to sell some?

[Saidasun]

There are sales occasionally in the marketplace>collectibles board but they are not in demand unless they have unspent Bitcoin on them. Casascius coins were stopped minting many years ago probably because of demand and the feasibility of funding the coins when Bitcoin prices shift a huge amount on a weekly basis. The collectibles board is your best chance of picking up a Casascius coin that is not fake there are a huge amount of fake listings on Ebay and I would not trust them. Instead be sure to use a escrow and buy from forum members.

[pooya87]

These things are "collectibles" not for trading and people who bought them in first place did it not as an investment but mainly as a collection and collectors buy things to "store" and they rarely end up parting with anything in their collection unless they need money. This is why there is so little trades taking place.
There were also other attempts at creating "physical bitcoins" some of which sold a limited number but some failed.

[odolvlobo]

Casascius coins were stopped minting many years ago probably because of demand and the feasibility of funding the coins ...

Casascius stopped making coins because the U.S. government threatened to prosecute him.

[ranochigo]

Casascius started to sell unloaded ones AFAIK. The market for collectibles isn't really all that big. People buy them as a novelty, especially so when Bitcoin is starting out. The thing about loaded coins is that they are difficult to trade. If you need to sell the Bitcoin due to the higher Bitcoin prices, then you're going to be losing out because you need to either peel the coin or bite the bullet and sell it for a lower price. The mark up that you see are often tied to fiat prices.

I occasionally still collect them, but I wouldn't really pay that much for it.

[RickDeckard]

Casascius stopped making coins because the U.S. government threatened to prosecute him.

Just to add more specific into this, within the entities of the U.S. government, we're talking about the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Mike Caldwell, the "founder" of the Casascius coins had been selling them from at least 2011[1] and around 2013 he received a letter from FinCEN claiming that his activities would be seen as "money laundering" services. If you had accessed his website around that time (November), you'll see this warning on his website:

“For the time being, I have suspended accepting new orders, pending resolution of some concerns I have as to regulatory issues. I am anticipating a possibility of having to prequalify buyers, and am holding off taking orders until I know for sure.”

You can read a bit more about it here[2]. Just a quick note that Casascius coins weren't the only coins "shutdown" for this kind of service - at least with loaded coins - Ravenbit, Cryptmint and Titan Bitcoin (iirc there are others) are some companies that also saw their activity ceased on the grounds of "money laundering service". I suppose that one thing is to buy/trade theses assets on a digital level, the other is having this assets being issued a physical manifestation that directly competes with the currency of one's country - in this case the U.S dollar...

As a end note, if you are interested in knowing how many Casascius coins are still out there being waiting to be "claimed" you can check out this[3] website for a quick trip of information.
[1]https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoins
[2]https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2013/12/13/bitcoin-mint-casascius-shut-down-by-us-regulators/
[3]https://casascius.uberbills.com/