Joint Edition

What Is a Joint Edition?

A Joint Edition is a crypto stamp edition emitted simultaneously by multiple national postal services with a shared motif, each with national variation. It is the defining format of the "Crypto Stamp Family" from 2022 to 2025.

Format Core Properties

A joint edition is characterized by five properties:

1. Shared motif: all variants use the same basic design (e.g. Bull, Lion, Dragon)
2. National differentiation: color, background country highlight, face value, design details vary per country
3. Synchronous sales start: all issuers start on the same day (typically)
4. Shared tech platform: Variuscard (Vienna) as common infrastructure
5. Identical blockchain: Polygon Mainnet for all variants

Scaling 2022-2025

The joint edition tradition shows remarkable consistent scaling:

Every year a new postal service joined the family: PostNL (NL) as pioneer 2022, then POST Luxembourg (2023), bpost (2024), CTT (2025).

Strategic Logic

Joint editions are strategically attractive for participating postal services:

• Cost efficiency: shared tech infrastructure reduces per-issuer costs
• International visibility: each country reaches all other collector pools
• Collector cross-pool effect: 5-country collectors buy all 5 variants
• Marketing multiplier: synchronized campaigns
• Format establishment: joint editions build a consistent collector universe

"Crypto Stamp Family" — Self-Designation

POST Luxembourg CEO Claude Strasser publicly established the concept of the "Crypto Stamp Family" in 2024:

"We are looking forward to continuing this exceptional collaboration. And it gives me great pleasure to welcome bpost to our 'Crypto Stamp Family.'"

This familial self-designation positions joint editions as equal partnership, not as an AT-centered appendage model.

Collector Sets

Joint editions enable multiple collector set strategies:

• Complete national set: all variants of one edition (e.g. all 5 Mythology variants)
• Vertical set: all joint editions of one issuer (e.g. all PostNL joint variants)
• Cross-country premium set: all gold variants of one family (see Cross-Country Gold Edition)
• Pan-European complete set: all joint editions across all years

Significance

The joint edition is the most important structural innovation of the crypto stamp world after the first issuance in 2019 — it has transformed the crypto stamp format from an AT solo initiative to a pan-European collector tradition.