They are made of gold so when the price collapses you can melt it down to recover some of the investment.
I find this not the least but ironic.
that article is weird, it says they wont have the private key on them. So it's just a lump of gold with the bitcoin symbol on it?
Not sure but it does sound bizarre. The original Financial Times article might give more details but it's behind a paywall... anybody have access?
It says an independent company would hold the coins' private keys in escrow ready to be exchanged by paying a visit to the island. Can anyone else see the problem with this? Doesn't this open the door to fractional reserve? What's to stop them issuing more coins than they have keys?