Bitcoins Being Minted Into Gold Coins

At the end of 2013, the Channel Island of Alderney announced that it was planning to produce physical, gold Bitcoins as part of a new economic policy to reduce their dependency on the British Pound, but we have not heard any updates since the initial announcement.

But a recent post on 8btc.com, a Chinese Bitcoin news site, displayed photos of intricately designed gold coins featuring QR codes that contain the private keys of the corresponding Bitcoins. The 1oz pure gold coins are meant to equal 1 Bitcoin.

The coins were created for a private collection and as such are not eligible to be purchased or meant to be in circulation.

Just a novelty item? 

Probably. There are technological and market limitations to the idea of physical Bitcoins. As Bitcoins are anonymously traded via unique, secure, and private digital key codes, there is no way to determine whether the physical coin's Bitcoin has already been spent. There is also no way to tell if the seller of a physical Bitcoin kept a copy of the digital keys, and if that were the case, the Bitcoins could still be spent even after selling the physical coin.

The trading price of Bitcoins has fluctuated drastically over the past 2 years and the currency lacks the same stability as gold. The 1oz pure gold in the coin will hold its value over time, but there is no way to know if Bitcoins will even exist decades from now.

Want proof? The idea to mint these coins might have made sense when the Bitcoin or BTC was trading at over $1,200 last year, but it has since bottomed out and is now trading at just over $600 per BTC. Gold however, has remained solid and continued to rise in that time, currently sitting around $1,300 per ounce.