Coin Desk – A tiny island in the English Channel, Alderney, wants to mint physical bitcoins as part of a larger campaign to become one of the world’s first financial services centers devoted to digital currency.
The Financial Times reported that Alderney, just three miles long with a population of 1,900, wants to become known as an international center for bitcoin transactions. Intended to be fully compliant with anti money-laundering and other financial regulations, it would offer merchant payment services, exchanges, and a bitcoin storage vault of some kind.
The physical bitcoins, like other such tokens, would be collectors’ items rather than circulated, and would likely have a gold content (apparently around £500 worth) to further their appeal and allow them to retain value should bitcoin’s price crash. They would also serve as promotional tokens for the more ‘serious’ bitcoin payment and exchange services.
Alderney’s coins would hopefully be minted in a collaboration with the UK’s Royal Mint as part of a commemorative collection. Rather than having a private key sealed inside, like the popular Casascius physical bitcoins and their contemporaries, the Alderney bitcoins would be exchangeable for the more useful digital kind by its holder paying a visit to the island. They would not be official legal tender otherwise.
Production would be overseen by an independent company, who would also take the hit if bitcoin’s value vanished. The same company would also hold the coins’ keys in an escrow service. If the deal goes ahead, The Royal Mint would handle orders and take some of the money from sales.
