PHYSICAL BITCOINS BEGINNING JOURNEY AS COLLECTIBLES

MANY DISCARDED BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T PERCEIVED AS VALUABLE

- JAMES MCCARTNEY

If you have never heard of physical bitcoins before, don't be concerned, because you aren't the only one. Though traditional rare coins have been collected for thousands of years, the physical cryptocurrency category was founded just over a decade ago and is very much still in its infancy.

When this category was first showcased in a numismatic auction in November 2021, traditional numismatists had the assumption that most people in the bitcoin field were already well aware of these physical incarnations. Over the past several years of conversations and conferences, I am convinced that this is untrue.

My firm was recently in attendance at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was host to some of the most famous, infamous and early adopters of the bitcoin currency in the world. I spoke with many seasoned bitcoiners who went down the rabbit hole just shortly after Satoshi Nakamoto's foundational white paper in 2008. Many of them amassed magnificent digital holdings of the currency and understand the blockchain technology and functionality down to a microscopic level.

However, when discussing the category of physical bitcoins as collectibles, most of them were shocked to discover their existence and were fascinated to learn more.