Ciphers.me

What is Ciphers.me?

Ciphers.me is an NFT platform for phygital collectibles, founded in late 2022 as a joint venture of the Dutch security printer Royal Joh. Enschedé (founded 1703), the specialist provider ProxID, and the Concordium blockchain foundation. Platform CEO is Marinus Kreuze. The marketing claim reads: "#1 platform for collecting and trading valuable phygital collectibles worldwide".

In the crypto stamp ecosystem, Ciphers.me is the third established issuer-specific platform alongside:

• Variuscard (Salzburg, AT) — joint family stack of Austrian Post + NL/LU/BE/PT/HR
• Stampsdaq (Lisbon, PT) — CTT's own platform, later also Gibraltar 2023+
• Atomic Hub (Wax-based) — Gibraltar 2021 first edition

Ciphers.me differs from these through its peculiar dual architecture: Concordium as identity layer and Polygon as operational NFT chain. This separation is so far unique in the crypto stamp universe.

Founding Consortium

The consortium behind Ciphers.me brings together three specialized actors:

Royal Joh. Enschedé — security printer in Haarlem (NL), in family ownership since 1703, today a subsidiary of the US-American printing group Authentix. Specialized in state security documents: banknotes, passports, stamps. Has printed all German crypto stamps physically since 2023.

ProxID (Digital Value Solutions) — Dutch specialist provider for blockchain, NFT, and KYC solutions. Brings the operational software development into the consortium.

Concordium Foundation — Swiss blockchain foundation focusing on identity-anchored privacy. Founded by Lars Seier Christensen (Saxo Bank co-founder). Concordium has an integrated ID framework that enables KYC-compliant NFT transactions.

The three-way partnership combines: traditional printing competence (Royal Joh. Enschedé), modern blockchain software (ProxID), and identity anchor (Concordium).

Architecture

The technical architecture has two layers:

PHYSICAL
└── Crypto Stamp (printed at Royal Joh. Enschedé)
    ├── QR code → frontend
    └── hidden 12-word password → wallet access
        └── PIN + Public-ID → NFT activation

DIGITAL
├── Frontend: ciphers.me (web app + custodial wallet)
├── ID layer: Concordium (KYC anchor)
└── NFT chain: Polygon (operational mints + transfers)

Important: Polygon is the operational blockchain, not Concordium. This is confirmed by public Polygonscan holder data of the Deutsche Post editions. Concordium serves as ID anchor — presumably for KYC-compliant trading functionalities, which however (see below) have not yet been activated.

The wallet structure is custodial ("Ciphers Easy Wallet"), not non-custodial: collectors have an account on the platform, the NFTs are held for them. Ciphers.me thus follows the user-experience pattern of Variuscard (joint family) and Stampsdaq, not the self-custody pattern of Atomic Hub.

Customers and Volumes

As of May 2026, five series with a total of around 28,900 collectibles are documented on Ciphers.me. The customer base is small:

Deutsche Post is the largest customer by far with 550,000 produced booklets — its editions presumably account for over 95 % of the volume processed through Ciphers.me. If Deutsche Post pauses the program (as is the case between October 2025 and 2027), the platform is effectively without significant major customers.

Platform Stagnation and Trading Feature Cancellation

Observers have documented a stagnation of platform development since 2024:

"The NFT platform ciphers.me, a central component of the concept, has not been further developed for years. An announced feature for trading and exchanging stamps was silently removed. A symbolic signal for the waning engagement around the crypto stamp." (Paketda, 2025)

Specifically: Ciphers.me had promised a secondary market trading feature at the original market launch 2022/2023 — collectors should be able to trade their NFTs on the platform. Royal Joh. Enschedé explicitly advertised the concept that collectors could earn permanent royalties through automated smart contracts:

"Collectors can sell their unique and valuable collectables and earn permanent royalties through our automated smart contracts." (Royal Joh. Enschedé, 2022)

This feature was silently removed. Ciphers.me is thus effectively a mint-only platform without secondary market function — collectors can only trade their NFTs outside the platform (on OpenSea, Rarible, etc.), provided they enable self-custody.

Comparison to Other Crypto Stamp Platforms

Ciphers.me is thus the only of the four platforms without an active trading feature. This has strategic implications for collectors:

• NFTs on Ciphers.me cannot be sold within the platform
• Only trading path: NFT export to own wallet → sale on OpenSea/Rarible
• Royalties (e.g. to Royal Joh. Enschedé or Deutsche Post) are absent because they cannot be enforced
• Secondary market essentially takes place entirely on eBay/kleinanzeigen.de for the physical booklets

Significance in the Crypto Stamp Ecosystem

Ciphers.me has an unusual dual position:

Pioneer status: the platform represents the Royal Joh. Enschedé axis and an alternative tech stack to the dominant Variuscard joint family. The choice of Deutsche Post as the first major customer in 2023 was strategically significant — it established Ciphers.me as a serious Variuscard competitor.

Adoption stagnation: more than two and a half years after platform launch, Ciphers.me has not grown beyond the Deutsche Post application. Royal Joh. Enschedé's own series (Shanghai 2024, Dutch Blueware 2025) remain marketing demos for the platform, not mass-sold editions. Other postal services have not yet adopted the platform.

Strategic vulnerability: Deutsche Post's 15-month program pause (October 2025 to 2027) leaves Ciphers.me without significant revenue generator. If the 2027 series "Der Mensch als Entdecker" launches either with substantially lower volume or a tech stack change, the platform's existence comes into question.

In the crypto stamp universe, Ciphers.me thus remains an interesting outlier: technically independent, commercially weak, customer-side dominantly dependent on a single major customer.