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As of the latest data, 352.3 BTC valued at $23.5 million linked to Casascius physical bitcoins have been redeemed this year. Despite 155 physical bitcoin peels, an estimated $2.7 billion in value remains unclaimed and associated with these tangible assets.
18,741 of Mike Caldwell’s Casascius Coins Still Remain Unpeeled
In the early days, Mike Caldwell minted nearly 28,000 physical coins and bars, integrating digital BTC with these assets. In 2011, he devised a method to attach bitcoin (BTC) to physical items by creating coins and bars made of brass, silver, or gold-plated metal, featuring intricate designs and the Bitcoin logo. Caldwell securely generated a unique private key for each coin, and printed it on a tamper-evident holographic sticker that covered a QR code representing the private key.
He then loaded the corresponding bitcoin onto the public address associated with the private key, which was also included on the coin. When a user peels the sticker to reveal the private key and transfers the funds to another address, the coin or bar is officially “peeled.” So far in 2024, casasciustracker.com shows 155 of these assets have been peeled, with February seeing the most activity with 44 peeled coins.
However, the highest value redeemed in a single month was in January, with 153.1 BTC spent, while February saw 92 BTC spent. March recorded 50 BTC redeemed, and April had the lowest amount with 18.2 BTC redeemed. As of May, 16 coins have been peeled, resulting in 39 BTC redeemed. Currently, there are 18,741 active coins containing 40,674 BTC valued at $2.7 billion. The high BTC per coin ratio is due to Caldwell’s Casascius assets being available in 0.1, 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 BTC increments.
While there are 18,741 active coins or bars, 9,187 have been redeemed since Caldwell first introduced these tangible items. These 9,187 coins held 50,590 BTC worth $3.3 billion at current bitcoin exchange rates. Interestingly, while BTC reached a new all-time high in March above the $73,000 threshold, not many Casascius assets were redeemed.
The biggest redemption period remains December 2017, with 411 coins redeemed, amounting to 1,172.8 BTC. However, the highest value redeemed in a single month was in June 2013, with 2,852 BTC redeemed. During the BTC bull run of 2021, 513.7 BTC was spent in January, and 395.9 BTC was transferred in April 2021.
What do you think about the $2.7 billion worth of unredeemed Casascius bitcoin assets? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.