The easy answer is probably still: “No.”

Recently, an innovative Bitcoin enthusiast named Mike Caldwell from Utah decided that his beloved bitcoins were too virtual and decided to make a product that could represent them. Casascius Bitcoins are a physical brass slug, struck with a Bitcoin symbol and a few words, and affixed with a hologram containing a printed sequence of letters and numbers representing a private-key to redeem the underlying bitcoins.

Writer Eric Mack at CNet has asked the question, “Are physical Bitcoins legal?”

He uses a fiat-currencies created by a citizen that ended up crossing the line with the law, his example—the Liberty Dollar—invented by Bernard von NotHaus of North Carolina, landed its creator in prison for producing and minting coin in violation of US law.

In the United States the all-powerful Dollar ($) is the fiat currency of the land. The very law entitles the US Federal government to mint, address, and distribute a currency and to keep it regulated; it also empowers it with the authority to strike down competing currencies by the states, citizens, and businesses—almost always in the case of currencies designed to mimic the Dollar as to be close-to-forgery.

However, BitcoinBlogger argued that comparing the physical Casascius Bitcoins to the Liberty Dollar amounts to nothing more than FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)—a type of propaganda designed to undermine a particular position without arguing against it directly. The Liberty Dollar had been minted by von NotHaus not just in competition with the US Dollar, but designed it to look extremely similar to the fiat currency of the land. Casascius Bitcoins look nothing like US coins (except that they’re round) and a lot more like arcade and bus tokens.

Furthermore, I’d like to add that the Casascius Bitcoins themselves have no inherent value as trading tokens except that they have the representation of a private key on them that permits them to be redeemed for bitcoins. In fact, the actual bitcoins they represent can be transferred away devaluing the bitcoin value of the Casascius coin. The hologram on the back covers the private-key and is damaged when it’s peeled away to reveal it; thereby allowing an owner to tell if it been tampered with.

The Casascius Bitcoin is just an interesting token of love connected to the Bitcoin market and has as little chance of running afoul of US law as much as any coin-like token redeemable for specific product or service might be. The Casascius coins aren’t designed such that they look like US coins and they wouldn’t work like US coins.

Bitcoins themselves are a mathematical and cryptographic commodity; they’re currently valuable insomuch that people exchange them for fiat currencies like the Dollar, the Euro, and the Yen. In this fashion they’re not unlike any other virtual currency (except for the obvious difference that they’re a limited commodity without a central authority.) Physical bitcoins cannot actually work because the coins they represent can be transferred out from under them. They are, however, a charming gimmick.

Mike Caldwell’s Casacius Bitcoins are beautiful; and although I wouldn’t buy one to store bitcoin value, I certainly wouldn’t mind one just to have an interesting reification of a virtual cryptocurrency.