VIDEO: The first Croatian crypto stamp issued

The first Croatian crypto stamp issued (Photo: Croatia Post)

ZAGREB, 10 September 2020 – To celebrate Stamp Day on Wednesday, Croatian Post has issued the first Croatian crypto stamp. The stamp has been issued in five categories, with five different motifs depicting various means of transport: a van (60,000 stamps), a train (25,000 stamps), a ship (10,000 stamps), an airplane (4,000 stamps), and a drone (1,000 stamps).

The total issued quantity is 100,000 stamps. The stamp has been designed by Ivana Vučić and Tomislav-Jurica Kaćunić, designers from Zagreb. The stamp with a face value of HRK 50 has been issued in a souvenir sheet with one self-adhesive stamp on a PVC background.

The crypto stamp has been designed in cooperation with the Croatian blockchain community, and the digital token Postereum was developed by Croatian company Bitx. The crypto stamp package contains all the information needed to activate or transfer the digital crypto stamp. After the purchase of the crypto stamp, the part used for paying the postage may be detached, while the digital part remains to be used in the blockchain.
 
The Croatian crypto stamp is envisioned as the perfect combination of the analogue and the digital. Because each physical stamp comes with a digital token on the blockchain, the crypto stamp has the potential to live forever, which adds another dimension to philately – protection from deterioration caused by the passage of time. The digital token has been created on the Ethereum platform and is represented as a non-fungible token (NFT) in the blockchain, in accordance with the ERC721 standard. Such tokens have collectible value, just like classic stamps, which means that philately is faithfully transposed into the digital world.
 
The crypto stamp can be purchased at all major post offices and in the webshop at www.epostshop.hr, whereas 500 exclusive crypto stamps payable by cryptocurrency are available for purchase in the webshop at kripto.posta.hr/marka.
 
The crypto stamp project is extremely important for the development of this relatively new industry in Croatia, but also for putting Croatia on the blockchain world map, as well as on the world philately map since the crypto stamp also marks an anniversary: 180 years since the world’s first postage stamp, the “Penny Black”, was issued. Whether digital albums will replace philately albums remains to be seen, but it is already clear that the passion that people have for collecting rare items did not disappear with the emergence of digital technologies.
 
Stamp Day is celebrated on the anniversary of the issuance of the first regular postage stamp “Airmail Zagreb – Dubrovnik”, issued on 9 September 1991 to mark the beginning of operation of air routes for transportation of airmail across the territory of the Republic of Croatia.