[Blog Post] Our Discovery in Vienna – The Bitcoin Card

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Beautifully written by Erik Voorhees along with a few pictures.

http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/6/19/our-discovery-in-vienna-the-bitcoin-card.html

Enjoy

Charlie

[fatigue]

WANT. NOW. The future awaits....

Edit: is there any dev site for this currently?

[viboracecata]

Cheers, It's looked so cool

[cypherdoc]

get rid of the colors.  just black and white like an ipod.

otherwise, nice option.

[ArticMine]

Sounds very exciting. Here is my question: Can the keys be backed up to a computer / server under the user's control? 

[apetersson]

get rid of the colors.  just black and white like an ipod.

otherwise, nice option.

i suspect the user interface is still "beta" and for developer interaction.

[LightRider]

Wow, I didn't even have to click through a dozen reddit links to actually see the content! This is great!

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Wow, I didn't even have to click through a dozen reddit links to actually see the content! This is great!

hahaha...I know what your referring to!

[beckspace]

get rid of the colors.  just black and white like an ipod.

My wife like the colors. Told me that looks "japanese".

[[Tycho]]

Photo 400 pixels wide and 2.82 Mb in size ? Sorry, but you are doing it wrong :)

The rest of the article looks cool.

[Luceo]

Very impressed with the details. Definitely want one.

[evoorhees]

Photo 400 pixels wide and 2.82 Mb in size ? Sorry, but you are doing it wrong

The rest of the article looks cool.

Hehehe true, but you can open the image in a new window for the full high res version so it's not a total waste of precious bandwidth

[Kupsi]

The devices hold private keys on them. These can be backed up via the company’s website, but it is not necessary to ever interface with the company in order to use the device.

If you can't back it up yourself, it's a weakness. It should be able to display the private keys or a seed on the screen so you could take a picture of it.

[Piper67]

It should also have some kind of robust security feature, like a thumb print scanner or at least a password, so that if you lose it someone else can't spend your coins.

[MoonShadow]

get rid of the colors.  just black and white like an ipod.

My wife like the colors. Told me that looks "japanese".

It does in a way.  I'm sure that different designs will be popular in different regions.  After all, an image of Karl Marx is popular on credit cards in Germany.  Could be because the users like to rub his face in it, literally.  Could be because they used to have his face on the 100 Mark note.

[REF]

Wow, I didn't even have to click through a dozen reddit links to actually see the content! This is great!

+1

I like the design and colors but at this point its such a minor detail. Nice blog font on those bullet points is a little small. Market range of $10-25 sounds great. Backing up the private key is nice but who really cares? This is a replacement for cash/debit cards. We should be happy with any extra security, with just there online back up this is already safer then cash/debit. I want my solar panels! 60% chance they wont be there. If it requires movement or flexing to use then we can tape them to objects/trees around our neighbor hood to expand the network.

Do they have a website set up for there company Megion Technologies GmBH?

[MoonShadow]

Great post, but I still have questions....

    First off, all those present were required to sign an NDA specifically related to the more obscure technical details (the explicit technology used in the device). Much of this technology is proprietary to Megion, and is not available anywhere in the world. Everything apart from explicit technological details we are permitted (and encouraged) to convey and communicate about.

Can you tell me if the mesh network uses any existing tech, such as Dash7?

    The mesh-network range of the device is 200-300 meters in open air, less if there are walls or other interferences.

Excellent, this is the practical minimum of an urban mesh network, in my opinion.

    Some people on the forums have (probably correctly) said that the alleged features of this card are impossible using any existing technology. This is because Megion’s technology is not available on the market. Again, Megion’s engineers developed many of the components in-house. What is in this card is better technology than what is available in the marketplace.

I doubt this statement.  As a ham myself, I've seen some pretty wicked tech that is hard to find in any commercial marketplace; but that doesn't mean that it couldn't in a hurry.

    The devices hold private keys on them. These can be backed up via the company’s website, but it is not necessary to ever interface with the company in order to use the device. In other words, someone can use the device anonymously and without creating any accounts anywhere.

This feature concerns me.  I'd rather have a device that was not replicateable at all than one that permits the company to do it via a distant server.  Even if the device asks for user permission, that does not mean that it must.

    If you lose the card and have not backed up the keys, your money is gone.

Which would make it no different than a regular wallet.

    The cards will cost, based largely on production quantities, in the range of $10-$25 each (retail).

Not as cheap as I had hoped, but not unreasonable.

An unaddressed question.  In the video it mentions the capacity to send arbitrary text from card to card (text messaging), did you see evidence that this feature is real?

[scribe]

Cuuurious. I like the local nature of it. But I'm left wondering - what does it do, other than generate its own power, that I couldn't do with my phone?

That's a genuwine question, because I do like the sound of the device. To answer myself a little, I like that it makes sending btc very easy, i.e. hides the idea of an "address" and replaces it with a device. Could a smartphone do something similar via Bluetooth/Google Maps/etc though?

[mccorvic]

Cuuurious. I like the local nature of it. But I'm left wondering - what does it do, other than generate its own power, that I couldn't do with my phone?

That's a genuwine question, because I do like the sound of the device. To answer myself a little, I like that it makes sending btc very easy, i.e. hides the idea of an "address" and replaces it with a device. Could a smartphone do something similar via Bluetooth/Google Maps/etc though?

Well, it's cheap which could aid user penetration into areas/demographics that cannot afford smart phones.  That's just off the top of my head.

I'm curious how they plan on reaching any sort of "critical mass" of users to make the thing work. "Here, buy this thing and hold on to it! It might work...eventually" doesn't sound like a promising business plan.

[Technomage]

I like this device. It's critical for this type of a device to be credit card sized. It just can't be bigger than that. The price is also excellent and the fact that it requires little electricity and can basically recharge itself. I do see this working out if Bitcoin gets bigger. Most Bitcoin projects are basically dependent on Bitcoin getting bigger, if Bitcoin fails then they fail. This is one of those that could be potentially huge if Bitcoin succeeds in general.