Hi Crypto_Collection,

Thank you for asking these very important questions.

First of all, as all of you must have realized by now, ALL physical things in the world can be copied. Then the copying is intentional and authorized, people call them "replicas". When they're done maliciously, they're called "forgeries" and "knock-offs". Almost everything in the world have seen attempts made at copying them, including Gucci handbags, Rolex watches, Picasso paintings, Casascius coins, and even Porsche sports cars.

Again, EVERYTHING can be copied. And with enough money and resources, the copies are indistinguishable from the original (except under the expert eye).

That said, I'm happy to share with you what we at Ballet have done to minimize copying of our products.
(Please note that some of the more advanced security techniques used require physically altering the product.)

A) For both the regular REAL Series wallets and the Bitcoin BLOCK, we have special molds made, so any copies will not be 100% identical. On the REAL Series wallets:
   1. the front design is very special, with raised lettering that's shiny. You can't just easily stamp that out with steel.
   2. the intricate logo on upper left corner. Hard to copy.
   3. the backside has the round "In Crypto We Trust" seal, with embedded black ink. Again, very hard copy properly.

B) We have the tamper evident stickers on top, in place of what people traditionally call hologram stickers. Our achieve the same effect, and is even harder to duplicate than your average hologram stickers. Here are 4 important features on stickers:
   1. They're made of two-layers: the bottom layer (in yellow color) contains the encrypted private keys
   2. They have a reflective gold Ballet "B" logo on the upper right corder. This is embossed onto the sticker as a separate process, and not merely "printed" on.
   3. Under UV light, there's special UV-senstive ink, which will display our Ballet logo on the upper left, and also the name of the primary currency on the right side. (see photos below)
   4. On the QR code itself, there's fragrance added, similar to those "smelly stickers" from the 1980's. So if you use your finger name to scratch the QR code, then you can smell that fragrance. This was done for both branding and security reasons: so that someone cannot cover it up with a fake QR code.
   5. for evidence of tampering, the sticker will leave behind a hexagon pattern once peeled.

C) The passphrase scratch-off is not only tamper evident, it's also hard to copy, due to the micro-font and inks used. Look at one under the a magnifying glass.

D) Further, you can use our app (and website) to perform enhanced digital verification or our wallets and product:
   1. Scratch off the first 4 characters on the passphrase, and you can get a verification from our mobile app that you have the genuine wallet/block. We store the hash of these first few characters in our database, to we can definitively tell when there's a match or error.
   2. If you scratch off the full passphrase, you can do a full BIP38 verification against the confirmation code (which we provide in the app on on our website). This will give you full confidence that the passphrase can indeed decrypt the private key underneath the sticker. With this step, we also decode and provide you with all of the public address for all of the cryptocurrencies we support.
   3. And finally, without actually moving coins on-chain, you can choose to do a full-decryption test by using our open source tools on an offline computer (provided at website: https://www.balletcrypto.org/), and can get 100% confirmation that the private keys and passphrase are correct and can unlock your coins.

I hope the above information is helpful. You've given me an excellent opportunity to showcase our design work. Thank you!


And I'll address each of your points as well:

1 ) The design is simple. There is no unique texturing or elements that would be difficult to copy on the titanium block or card.

"Simple" is subjective. "Difficult to copy" is a matter of degree, and not an absolute yes/no answer.
We also designed this to be attractive. The wallet cards are made of stainless steel, which are readily available, but the block is made of titanium, which isn't exactly easy to source or make into this shape.

2 ) Fonts (typeface) used in the design are all free fonts accessible to anyone with the internet (Avenir, Helvetica, Times New Roman, ect..)

Yes, you are correct. We did not choose to use fonts as a means of resisting copying.

3 ) The logo used in the design is available on the internet

Yes, as it is for ALL products. Which secure product are you aware of, where the logo is NOT available on the Internet?

4 ) There is no holographic "sticker"

We have an even more advanced tamper-evident sticker, which we call the "Ballet sticker". (see above)
Try and copy that.

5 ) The scratch off and sticker covering the private key are 2D and would be possible to mimic

Again, EVERYTHING can be copied. It's a matter of time and resources. We've tried hard to prevent simply copying. Can you do better?

6 ) The exact dimensions of the block are posted online

Yes of course. Anyone who buys one can easily measure themselves.
Even Channel / Gucci bags, when dimensions aren't posted online, the copycats just go buy one from the store, take it apart, measure it, and go to work to copy it. So what's your point?

7 ) The layout (front view) is available on this thread

Again, see my comments above.
I honestly don't think that by posting photos of the product, that I'm reducing the security or making it easier for people to copy it.

8 ) The block # & reward stickers could potentially fall off over time (not a security concern)

With enough time, everything falls apart.  Will the hologram stickers on Casacius coins fall off over time, in dry or humid storage? We spent a lot of time choosing a very good vendor for this. They use top of the line 3M adhesives. I'll have more to show later.


Any more questions?

thanks,
Bobby