The regulations have ruined the physical industry of bitcoins

Economics and regulation

While the bitcoins celebrate Satoshi's tenth anniversary of the invention, veteran enthusiasts will be aware that much has changed since the early days. A business that was once incredibly popular is the art of producing charged physical bitcoins. Government regulations forced operations to cease, causing the virtual bitcoin business to virtually cease to exist.

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Manufacturing Loaded Physical Bitcoin is a lost art

Not long after the launch of Bitcoin, people managed to create paper wallets and soon the concept of physical bitcoins was born. Subsequently, individuals brought the idea to another level and created coined bitcoins of metal. Casascius coins quickly became a collector's item with these bright memories loaded with digital currency. However, after Mike Caldwell, the creator of the Casascius coins, began selling his physical bitcoins loaded with whole units or fractions of BTC, he was arrested by the United States Financial Crimes Network (FinCEN). The US regulator took into consideration the possibility of minting Casascius coins of illegal money transmission and Caldwell had to stop selling coins loaded. Since then, a number of other manufacturers have tried to sell bitcoins charged to investors who could find numismatic value in these physical collections.

From 2013-2016, physical bitcoins are extremely popular and the demand for these coins has remained strong among collectors. Some rare Casascius coins have sold their loaded value over 4-10 times. In the early days there were so many physical bitcoins that the proponent of cryptocurrency Elias Ahonen managed to create a whole encyclopedia of physical bitcoins. In recent years, however, the art of molding has loaded physical bitcoins, but it has been lost. Companies like Ravenbit, Alitin Mint, Cryptmint and Titan Bitcoin have ceased their activities. Last April, the Japanese producer Satori Coin told customers that they were forced to close their operations due to the AML / KYC standards of the Financial Services Company introduced in 2018. Similarly, the cryptocurrency company BTCC launched its bitcoin forge physics and concluded its operations in October 2018.

Bobby Lee, the company's co-founder, explained to his Twitter followers how BTCC Mint's physical bitcoin sales in China hit record levels before closing operations. The mint managed to produce a 2018 series, which is still available to US customers through a company called Rogue Bitcoin. In fact, there are a lot of physical bitcoins sold on secondary markets as third parties have managed to accumulate these coins and sell them for a profit. On Ebay and many other auction and e-commerce sites, there are a lot of coins loaded Casascius, Satori, Titan and BTCC. However, collectors will find that prices are much higher than those for which the currency was originally sold and well above what it holds digitally.

Governments do not like competing with Bear-tie tools

The main reason why most of these companies is ceasing activity is the predominant regulation. The US government, for example, could be in agreement with people who exchange cryptocurrency in a digitally regulated way. However, the issue of charged physical bitcoins or any other type of bearer security instrument that competes with the US dollar is not a good idea and you could end up in jail.

This can also happen to coin makers, even if the products are coined without value digitally loaded into them. On March 18, 2011, the United States Government condemned Bernard von Nothaus, 67, to be the monetary architect of a currency. Basically, von Nothaus's "Liberty Dollar" transactions ended immediately and the American lawyer Anne Tompkins did not welcome the creation. "Attempts to weaken the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism," Tompkins explained at the time.

There are many coin manufacturers that sell "bitcoins" of metal without digital funds, but there is a company that still releases physical bitcoins that are loaded. Denarium sells a variety of pre-funded physical coins in bronze, silver and gold .999. The pieces are made by a Finnish company called Prasos and the private keys are covered by an anti-tampering hologram. Some of Denarium's products have units like 1 BTC connected to them, while with other types of coins, the customer can add a custom sum. The Denarium Custom Gold Plated 2018 can be loaded with fractions of BTC and up to a maximum of 2 BTC per coin. In addition to Denari and the overpriced secondary markets, finding producers of physical cryptocurrencies who are willing to sell loaded coins, unfortunately, is now all but impossible.

What do you think of the lack of physical bitcoin producers in 2019? Let us know what you think of this topic in the comments section below.

Images away Denarius, Satori coins, Titan Bitcoin, BTCC Mint, Casascius and Pixabay.

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