In 2011, Mike Caldwell created the notorious Casascius physical bitcoin collection, and since then the series of coins has become extremely valuable. Over the last two months, a bunch of people have redeemed their Casascius coins and on December 23 someone peeled a 100 BTC ($723K) Casascius bar.
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2011-2013 Casascius Coins and Bars Sell for a Premium
Years ago, people made physical bitcoins and there’s been so many manufactured that there’s actually an encyclopedia that covers the subject. These days, however, there’s not as many physical bitcoin manufacturers as government regulations have stifled the industry. There are definitely a few creators still minting loaded crypto coins, but there’s nowhere near the number of physical coin makers as there was back in the day. Casascius coins are the most popular of all the physical BTC coinage ever created. Unfortunately on November 27, 2013, Caldwell had to suspend sales of all the items he manufactured that contained digital bitcoins. Throughout the Casascius manufacturing period, Caldwell minted coins and bars that contained 1, 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 BTC increments.
Casascius coins have always been in high demand and many have sold for a premium, well above the amount of BTC held on the metal. For instance, in April 2018, someone created a post on the shiresociety.com forum selling four 2011 Casascius coins for $10K per coin. Each of the coins sold on
