As bitcoin (BTC) continues to weather the storms of the bear market, the asset’s OG holders are waking up. A few days ago, an anonymous holder redeemed a physical bitcoin 15 years after it was created, receiving 25 BTC from the redemption.
According to a tweet from Galaxy Research, the physical coin redeemed is an S1-COIN-25, part of the Casascius coins created between 2011 and 2013. The redemption netted over $1.78 million in bitcoin, calculated at current prices.
OG Holder Redeems 25 BTC
A Casascius coin is a physical token created by the early Bitcoin adopter and software engineer Mike Caldwell. The tokens were created with denominations of 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 BTC, meaning they held real digital bitcoins. With receiving bitcoin addresses printed on the outside, each coin has a tamper-evident hologram concealing the matching private key at the back.
Caldwell created brass, fine silver, gold-plated coins, and gold-plated bars, with their sizes ranging from 25.4 mm to 30 mm in diameter. The bars would weigh about 12 ounces if they were solid gold, but since they are metal alloys with gold plating, they weigh 4.2 ounces instead. They were all available as pre-loaded BTC coins and bars and are currently available on secondary markets like eBay, even though Caldwell stopped production in 2013 because he was operating as a money transmitter without a license.
To redeem the coins, one has to peel the hologram at the back of the token to retrieve the private keys. The coin’s balance can be verified on platforms like Block Explorer by inputting the eight-character code seen on the outside of the coin.
From Conversation Pieces to Storage Vessels
Over the last 15 years, Casascius coin holders have redeemed their tokens for BTC, netting millions of dollars in profits. Some of the coins were worth less than $100 dollars at creation, but bitcoin’s rally over the years has increased their value significantly. These coins were created as conversation pieces to help talk to people about BTC; however, they ended up as forms of storing the asset long after their production.
The Casascius coin that was redeemed within the week was created in December 2011 alongside thousands of other coins. In fact, data from the Casascius tracker shows that there are 27,916 coins and bars in existence, 10,479 of those having been opened. The collective value of the coins and bars created now stands above $6.2 billion, given bitcoin’s latest price.
Meanwhile, the latest redemption comes as other OG holders wake up to move long-dormant assets.
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