⚡️🪙 READ & SHARE - Casascius Coin, the coins that made Bitcoin tangible! Only 18,447 of these coins are still active today, and they're becoming rarer and rarer as their value rises... Discover on Nostr the incredible story of these collectible Bitcoin coins that have become even rarer than Bitcoin itself. 👉 The origin of the Casascius coin: In 2011, Bitcoin began to attract the attention of the general public thanks to its ever-increasing value. Yet its all-digital, dematerialized aspect still posed a problem for many people, who found it hard to rely solely on digital, holding back Bitcoin's widespread adoption. That's when Mike Caldwell, an enthusiast of Bitcoin and the Blockchain technology that surrounds it, decided to make Bitcoin tangible! "Now we can cross out the line in the first sentence of the Bitcointalk forum FAQ, which says 'bitcoin is not tangible'. "The fact that a bitcoin is no longer invisible, I think, is huge in itself." He decided to create a physical Bitcoin coin, an object that would quickly become emblematic in the cryptocurrency world. Caldwell's idea is to design coins with varying face values, just like the coins we use every day. But also to combine the security of offline wallets with the convenience of physical transactions. You have control over your Bitcoins. You don't need to trust a third party to store your keys. Casascius requires no Internet connection to use. So he starts making coins from 0.1 Bitcoin up to 1000 Bitcoins! Each of these coins contains a private key, essential for accessing the Bitcoin value it represents. Between 2011 and 2013, Caldwell issued around 28,000 of these coins. In all, these coins contained more than 90,000 Bitcoins. "There will never be more than 11,000 coins in the original series, probably much less than that. This coin can be identified by a misspelling of "CASASCIUS" in the small background print (the middle S is missing). " "There are 7.5 million digital Bitcoins as of October 2011. If I were to make 11,000 1BTC coins, I would still have created less than 0.2% of all Bitcoins." Caldwell has issued 3 distinct series of Casascius coins. The first coin series contains coins each featuring between 1 and 1,000 Bitcoin. The first series is recognizable by the missing "S" in the term "CASACIUS" on the hologram. The second series from 0.5 to 500 Bitcoin. The third and final series from 0.5 to 1 Bitcoin. 👉 How to get hold of these coins back then? Caldwell didn't accept US dollars or any type of fiat currency. Only Bitcoin! You had to send him Bitcoin and he would send the coins back to you directly by post and exclusively in the USA. Caldwell charged about $50 for each coin he made. In the early days of coin creation, he charged around 1.25 BTC per 1 Bitcoin Casascius coin. 👉 The question of device safety This is one of the big questions surrounding these parts. To understand it, you need to understand how it works. Each Casascius coin is protected by a private key hidden beneath a hologram. This is the security method chosen by Caldwell to ensure that only the owner can access the Bitcoins, keeping the private key safe. "Each Casascius Bitcoin is a collector's item backed by real Bitcoins embedded inside. Each coin has its own Bitcoin address and a private key under the hologram." 👉 But what happens if the hologram is removed? Caldwell answers this question: "The private key is on a card embedded inside the coin and is protected by a tamper-proof hologram. The hologram leaves behind a honeycomb pattern if it is removed." "The 8-character code you see on the outside of the coin are the first eight characters of the Bitcoin address assigned specifically to this coin. It allows you to check the coin's balance on the Block Explorer. " "Of course, since the face value of coins depends on the integrity of the key, you should only accept Casascius bearing an intact hologram." 👉 Who makes these holograms? Do they have access to the private key? "The holograms were made by a leading manufacturer, and they did a very good job." "The alteration pattern is extremely sensitive and not concealable once exposed. It's so sensitive that I ruined over 10% of the holograms just to prepare the pieces and threw them away." "I didn't keep the private keys, and I'm the only person who ever had control of the private keys. I either inserted the private keys into the coins myself, or directly supervised others doing the same thing. On the Series 1 coins, the hologram manufacturer pre-printed the addresses on the hologram labels, but we only gave them the 8 characters you see, not the private keys themselves." "I digitally signed a list of Bitcoin addresses used in this project. I did this so that if I were to perpetrate a scam, it would be possible to prove it and hold me legally accountable. You should demand the same of anyone handling your cryptocurrency." 👉 Stopping coin production! In 2013, production of Casascius coins that contained Bitcoins came to a halt. "On November 27, 2013, I suspended the sale of coins containing digital Bitcoins. From now on, the items on sale no longer contain Bitcoins." Authorities feared that these coins could be used for illegal transactions or that they did not comply with anti-money laundering laws. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the Treasury Department, informed him that minting physical Bitcoins qualifies him as a money transmitter business. This necessarily involves federal registration and state licensing. The cessation of production has had the effect of making the remaining coins even rarer. By then, 27,920 Casascius had been created. With the dramatic increase in the value of Bitcoin and the scarcity of these coins in circulation, their value has exploded in recent years. 👉 The number of active Casascius coins remaining According to casasciustracker.com statistics, approximately 18,447 Casascius are awaiting activation. There are 744 active Casascius coins of 0.1 BTC left. 2,966 active Casascius coins of 0.5 BTC remain. 13,467 active Casascius coins of 1 BTC remain. 625 active Casascius coins of 5 BTC remain. 323 active Casascius coins of 10 BTC remain. 319 active Casascius pieces of 25 BTC remain. 3 active Casascius coins of 1,000 BTC remain. A total of 29,124 Bitcoin still active in Casascius coins. This corresponds to $1,863,961,600. 👉 Counterfeits Many counterfeit Casascius parts can be found on the Internet. Quite often they are replicas or "modified" Casascius that have already been activated. Counterfeit coins even seem to imitate the misspelling of Series 1 coins. 👉 Conclusion Casascius coins have an aura of mystery around them and rarity that make them highly prized collectibles for collectors and bitcoiners alike. Their value has continued to rise, buoyed by the soaring value of Bitcoin and growing interest in cryptocurrencies. They remain a rare object, a piece of Bitcoin history. Every day that passes makes them even rarer than Bitcoin itself.