Do many people collect bitcoins with interesting histories for their numismatic value, the same way they collect real coins? Is there a market for specific bitcoins that are worth more than their face value because they're somehow special? If a celebrity buys something from you in bitcoin, can you turn around and auction off that bitcoin to their fans?
"They don’t understand the difference between art and crime." -J. S. G. Boggs
Speaking to ARTnews after Mr. Boggs’s death, Mr. Weschler said, "He was just short of being a con man, but no more than anyone in the art world, or for that matter in the world of finance — which, of course, was his whole point."
People will pay for bespoke "vanity" addresses (this can be done securely or insecurely, the latter being a way of scamming people...), but those are not tied to any specific bitcoins.
Another thing I've seen is mined blocks of bitcoin being sold at a premium - the miner (or pool) will take your address and mine a block to it.
Is this purely for sentimental reasons (“freshly mined bitcoins”) or are there any practical uses for that? I can imagine coins with no history on the blockchain can be useful somehow.
Now that you mention it, I'm blown away that coins with "auspicious" numbers don't sell for a ridiculous premium in China, India and other cultures that believe in that garbage [1]. Might be a good business...
Those are not “coins”, they are addresses, which anyone can generate for free. Coins (strictly speaking, “amounts of bitcoin”) can be sent to and from them, but those coins don’t have an identity. Transactions and addresses have numbers; “bitcoins” don’t.
https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-nostalgia-can-bitcoins-wort...
Too bad J. S. G. Boggs recently passed away -- I wonder what kind of abstract performance art he could have done with bitcoin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/arts/design/jsg-boggs-dea...
"They don’t understand the difference between art and crime." -J. S. G. Boggs
Speaking to ARTnews after Mr. Boggs’s death, Mr. Weschler said, "He was just short of being a con man, but no more than anyone in the art world, or for that matter in the world of finance — which, of course, was his whole point."