One of the most common questions among #steemsilvergold enthusiasts has been

When is the 2018 Steem Silver Round coming?

The 2018 Steem Silver Round is in the planning stages and we want your input!!

Background Information

Back around August 2017, I proposed the idea to the community about creating a silver coin. The original post is available here. There was a ton of feedback and we started moving forward with the project. After being torn between a few mints, I was alerted that two Steemians (@phelimint and @ejr) had their own private mint. Their bullion shop is available online at www.phelimint.com, where they have a great selection of small batch coins!

We held a design contest for the reverse side of the coin! There were many incredible entries, but in the end @bearone came out victorious with her "community" design!

There were only 1,500 coins minted and they were completely sold out before the coins were ever shipped!

Each coin came enclosed in a coin capsule and was individually numbered on the edge with a matching serial number.

There are still some coins floating around out there on the secondary market of the 2017 variety! I have some available if you are looking for some! You can contact me via Steemit.chat (@sevinwilson) or Discord (Sevinwilson#5606) to order a 2017 Steem Round

Updates/Questions about the 2018 Steem Round

We are still a few weeks out from having the design contest for the reverse side of the coin, but we need your help and suggestions for how we proceed with the 2018 Steem Silver Round.

Details about the Die

As far as the obverse side, we will use the same design as the 2017 Steem Round for the foreseeable future in order to help create some consistency. As you have probably noticed, this is not a Steemit round, but a Steem round as a Steem is open-sourced, while Steemit is its own corporation.

With the 2017 Steem Round both the reverse and obverse sides were 2d designs, but we feel that it would be extra special if we did a 3d die for the reverse side of the coin. When the design contest rolls around there is nothing you will need to do as a designer because the sculptor will create the awesome 3d effects for the coin. In the next few days, @phelimint will go into further detail about the process of how a die gets created!

Brilliant Uncirculated or Proof-Like Finish

This is one of the more important decisions that need to be made as it directly correlates to the price of the coin. The original 2017 Silver Steem Round was of the Brilliant Uncirculated (BU) type and came out incredibly well. The price difference is quite large in choosing BU or Proof-like finish as it is on average $5 more per coin for the Proof like finish.

No matter whether we choose the BU or Proof finish, each coin will come with the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) with the matching serial number engraved on the edge and will be enclosed in a coin capsule.

Here is an example of the difference between a BU(left) and Proof (right) in the Temptation of the Succubus from the Phelimint website.

Total Mintage

The 2017 Steem Round was the first coin and since it was newer to the community there was a smaller mintage (only 1,500 coins). We were unsure if we would be able to sell all of the coins, but we ended up selling all of them before they were even released. The total mintage is something we wanted some input from the community on as we want everyone that wants some to be able to have some, but we do want to keep it as limited as possible. Our initial thought was somewhere between 2,500 - 5,000 total rounds with it more than likely being towards the higher end in terms of total mintage. Similar to the first round, we do not have to have all of the coins minted all at one time and can release in batches of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 if we do not sell the total mintage number at the beginning.

After discussing with @phelimint, we contemplated creating a maximum order that one could order to the Hunt Brother scenario coming in to play where the market was cornered and it drove the price up. With the first order there were many orders above 60 rounds and some as high as 200 rounds from a single individual. If a cap was set since the total mintage is higher, we were thinking somewhere around the 250 number.

Crowdfunding the Steem Silver Round

I think everyone here has been impressed with what the Steemit community has been to accomplish in not even two years. After talking with @phelimint we thought it would be unheard of to get the price of this coin as close to spot as possible by donating all of the SBD that any posts we make regarding the Steem Round go to a fund that will offset the final price of the coin. With that being said, we have created an account, @steemsilverround, that we will deposit all SBD earnings from posts related to the coin. We encourage others that post and promote the coin to donate the SBD from their posts to @steemsilverround. We have already received a donation from @tzcap!!

Pre-Sale

There will be a pre-sale at some point for this coin, but do not want to do it too soon as depending on which die we ultimately choose may determine how long it takes until the coins are in hand. A 3d design may take up to 3 months since there are so few sculptors in the world that are qualified to create the molds for the dies. The pre-release will most likely take place between 2-4 weeks from the coins being released. Do not send any payments until the pre-release has begun

If there are any questions about the coin or for more discussion, feel free to comment and we can discuss and see what we can come together and create this year!

---

Stay tuned for more information over the coming weeks as the design contest will begin before long!