A crypto user who had held physical Bitcoin for roughly 13 years talked to Cointelegraph about what led to his decision to finally move the coins to a wallet.
On May 13, a BitcoinTalk user going by the pseudonym “John Galt” said they had moved 100 Bitcoin (BTC) from a physical Casascius bar to a hardware wallet. Casascius bars and coins are physical representations of different amounts of Bitcoin, with the private keys to access them attached to film on the objects themselves.
Galt said he had purchased the bar in 2012 when the BTC price was under $100.
“Back then I thought Casascius coins were cool and maybe the future,” he told Cointelegraph. “I figured if Bitcoin ever got big these coins would be part of history so I started collecting.”
More than $10 million in physical Bitcoin
On May 13, the price of Bitcoin was roughly $104,000, making Galt’s bar worth more than $10 million. Though he told Cointelegraph he had considered selling it before 2025, it was difficult to find legitimate buyers for such a valuable commodity.
“Redeeming it felt like destroying a piece of history, like melting down some ancient gold necklace or something,” said Galt. “I would’ve way rather sold it whole with the sticker and everything still intact. But the higher the value went the harder that got.”
Though the funds were redeemed and more easily accessible through the hardware wallet, Galt said he had no immediate plans to cash out. Before using the private keys, he reported keeping the bar in a vault outside his home.
“Having 100 BTC is life-changing for anyone. But the thing is I’ve had it for so long that this was more about staying safe than suddenly getting rich.”
Related: Father-son team says they’ve recovered $6M in lost crypto
There is a limited number of unredeemed Casascius bars and coins still in circulation, ranging from 0.5 BTC and 1 BTC coins in brass or silver to 100-BTC gold-plated bars. The physical Bitcoin contains a private key that can be revealed by unsealing a tamper-evident hologram.
According to the Casascius tracker Uberbills, there were more than 17,000 coins and bars that were active and not yet redeemed. This included two 1,000-BTC bars worth more than $100 million, one 500-BTC bar worth $50 million, and 35 100-BTC bars.
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