Earlier quoted context omitted.
except I can't write down the serial number of my hundred dollar bills, give the bills to you and then spend them myself.
I think this is why you don't load them yourself. Essentially it is this company backing the coin, not you. When they send you a loaded coin it probably won't be loaded with the coin you bought it with. Another interesting property is that unlike a bank they cannot issue more money than they have assets, as each coin is linked to a unique private key. (assumes they are not just a one-time scam)
Bitcoins get physical
41–49 of 49 posts
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#42Even if you trust the coin issuer 100% to not keep a copy of the private key, these sorts of schemes only work until anyone anywhere counterfeits the first BitBill or Casascius coin. At that point, it becomes necessary that all of the other physical tokens in the world must then be immediately destroyed on redemption and validated as a normal network spend... Which defeats the purpose of these transferable tokens to…
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you gave someone the coin, it still doesn't confer ownership It does because the coin has the private key. Maybe it's better to think of it as a key to a (public) safe. The key represents the right to open this safe. So, by giving you the key, I give you the ownership to the content of the safe. (However, if I have another copy of the key it get's problematic.) > It's essentially an anonymous IOU Which is exactl…
except I can't write down the serial number of my hundred dollar bills, give the bills to you and then spend them myself.
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#44What's the point? That just defeats the whole philosophy of anonymous cryptocurrency and... 25 physical BTC = 29.50BTC!! You loose money if you buy physical coins...
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You loose money if you buy physical coins... Gold and silver coins also cost more than spot.
That's why gold and silver isn't used for coins anymore (except for special limited editions). Nowadays fiat money coins face value is much more than the material of which the coins itself are made.
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#46I don't get it. If I recieve a physical bitcoin, how do I know it was not previously "redeemed"?
To redeem the coin, you have to peel back a sticker. The hologram for peeled coins takes on a honeycomb appearance according to the link.
So it is sort of "centralized" with the hologram makers, right?
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#47Even if you trust the coin issuer 100% to not keep a copy of the private key, these sorts of schemes only work until anyone anywhere counterfeits the first BitBill or Casascius coin. At that point, it becomes necessary that all of the other physical tokens in the world must then be immediately destroyed on redemption and validated as a normal network spend... Which defeats the purpose of these transferable tokens to…
What do you mean by counterfeiting? Do you mean selling coins online that don't have real codes? Because you certainly couldn't pay for goods with a counterfeit coin, since they're instantly verifiable.
The moment I start circulating them, this now means that everyone who wants to accept these coins needs to destroy them, reveal the private key, and transfer those coins.
That defeats the purpose of the whole tamper-evident system - the idea behind it is so that they DON'T need to be redeemed.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ne/the_parable_of_the_dagger/
They are _not_ instantly verifiable without destroying the coin.
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#48Even if you trust the coin issuer 100% to not keep a copy of the private key, these sorts of schemes only work until anyone anywhere counterfeits the first BitBill or Casascius coin. At that point, it becomes necessary that all of the other physical tokens in the world must then be immediately destroyed on redemption and validated as a normal network spend... Which defeats the purpose of these transferable tokens to…
At that point, as long as you trust the cryptography and tamper-resistance (of mint hardware and coin hardware), you can trust that a coin someone hands you is valid.
It's probably about $5-10 to make a "coin" with these properties, and $200-300k to make a mint. There are a lot of hybrid online/offline token based currencies which would meet the requirements, but assuming the right hardware, you can build the whole thing as a wrapper around arbitrary data.
There is still no real market for this, though.
Re: Bitcoins get physical
#49So, the thing that it is printed on should be really cheap, like card stock or just paper. It shouldn't be considered currency, but more like a check. People accept a check on the assumption it won't bounce because they know the person who signed the check to them.
When you get one, it should be off the person who wrote the check, and you should cash it immediately (transfer it to an address you trust).
I could see keeping a few business cards in my real wallet with public and private keys on them with empty addresses. I can load them on demand from my cell phone, and write the amount and sign them when I hand them to someone. This way I can give them money without them needing a digital device handy. I could even do this in advance in a few denominations for completely offline access, but it would still require the trust of two individuals on the same level as writing them a check.
In this case, obscuring the private key would be pointless since both people would have access to it.
Here is a good resource for printing address: https://www.bitaddress.org It has QR codes on it, so you can use the Android app to scan the pub key and transfer money to it. The addresses are generated client side with your browser, so they should be safe from snooping.