A crypto user, known on BitcoinTalk as "John Galt," recently moved 100 Bitcoin from a physical Casascius bar to a hardware wallet after holding it for roughly 13 years. Galt purchased the bar in 2012 for about $500 when Bitcoin's price was under $100. Casascius bars are physical representations of Bitcoin with the private keys needed to access the funds attached to the objects.
Galt said he thought Casascius coins were "cool and maybe the future" and believed they would become a part of history if Bitcoin became successful. These bars, minted in Bitcoin's early years, have become collector's items. According to Casascius records, only 35 unopened 100-BTC bars are believed to still exist.
On May 13, when Galt moved the Bitcoin, its price was around $104,000, making the 100 BTC bar worth over $10 million. Galt had considered selling the bar before 2025 but found it hard to find legitimate buyers for such a valuable item. Redeeming the Bitcoin felt like "destroying a piece of history" to Galt, who would have preferred to sell the bar intact.
Despite now having easier access to the funds through a hardware wallet, Galt has no immediate plans to cash out. He had been keeping the bar in a vault outside his home before redeeming the private keys. Galt stated that having 100 BTC is life-changing, but for him, it was more about staying safe than suddenly getting rich.
However, after posting the path to unsealing the gold bar's mini-key hologram on the Bitcointalk forum, Galt made a costly mistake. Because the wallet predated major forks like Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and BSV, it also held rights to those coins. Shortly after the seed was made public, someone took 100 BCH, worth over $50,000, and other forked coins.
The decision to redeem the bar was driven by its extremely high value, making it too risky to keep in a single place. Instead of cashing out, Galt chose to split the BTC across multiple addresses for security reasons. To redeem the coins, Galt had to use a tool to convert a mini seed to its full version and a user-friendly QR code.
Casascius bars theoretically protect the private seed for years if they remain untampered with. These bars have been swapped and traded over the years, with some reselling at a premium. The latest auction for a Casascius coin was in 2022, and unopened coins and bars now hold significant value based on the current BTC price.
