Bitcoin soars past $8,000; marketers take note

It pays to follow headlines if you are in business.

The value of Bitcoin has now passed $8,000.

I check its price on the www.kitco.com website when I check the values of gold and silver.

Bitcoin has no physical existence.

You can’t eat it.

You can’t wear it.

You can’t build something with it.

You can’t even stack it on a table in front of you like Silas Marner and enjoy how rich you are.

However, Osborne Coinage Company is tackling that last "can’t" and is turning it into a "can."

It is striking a new one-ounce silver piece that it calls the Bitcoin Value Conversion round.

David M. Blumenfeld, the director of Business and Product Development for Osborne, describes its new addition to the marketplace this way:

The reverse of the coin features a two-dimensional QR (Quick Response) code that can be scanned with a QR reader from most smartphones and take owners to www.preev.com. This is a website that displays the current value of a bitcoin.

Blumenfeld adds that as a timely happenstance, iPhones updated to the new iOS 11 operating system will scan the value checker with its camera, no downloaded app required.

I do not yet have the latest iPhone, so I will take him at his word.

“This will be the first ever bitcoin commemorative silver ‘coin’ that with a scan of your phone will update owners with the current BTC value,” Blumenfeld said.

Like all popular things, you will have to wait a little while longer to obtain one.

Three weeks, to be exact.

Blumenfeld says the silver rounds then will be available for purchase from APMEX, JM Bullion and The Coin Shoppe.

Will they sell like hotcakes?

Probably.

My email is filling with individuals who are trying to get their heads around something that has value but has no physical form.

A nice, familiar silver round might just be the form that will help them.

Or, it might just be the perfect Christmas gift for a family member who is hard to buy for.

It will prove that you care and that you are also up to date with the news.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017 . He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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