Bitcoin Forum

I know this has been mentioned before, but its such a great concept, its worth repeating:

If you want BTC to succeed, the single most influential thing you can do is buy 1 bitcoin, and literally send paper wallets containing $10 worth to 80 people you know.  

Send one to a wife, and the husband.   One for each of the three kids.  Send to your house cleaner.  Your childrens teacher.  Your Vet.  Send to your friends, and everyone in their family.   Especially their kids.  Send to anyone you have any sort of relationship with. 

Buy the bitcoin, print out a paper wallet from bitaddress.org and snail mail it to them.   Include a note saying "Keep this safe.  It may be worth a lot of money one day.  You can sign up on "X" exchange and send more value to this wallet address anytime you want."

There is no better way to get people interested in Bitcoin, following bitcoin, and yes - out right promoting Bitcoin, than to send everyone you know a paper wallet.

-B-

It seems like a lot of people gave paper wallets over Christmas. It would be interesting to see how those wallets are doing. Did the people use them at all or not.

Yup. Excellent idea. I gave out a dozen or so.

Are you tracking them to see if they're used or not? Too bad we can't start a db of gifted coins to see if they're used. It would be nice to see how effective gifting is.

Yeah, I'd love to see the "results" of that as well.

Word of mouth goes a long way too, which is what I mostly did during my holidays with family and friends.

So, what would people be willing to upload / see on a gifting tracker?

I can put together a basic Gifter record, that could include:

• Gifter's LoginID (some username - this would be your login ID to create/update records)
  
• Gifter's IRL Country
  
• Gifter's IRL PostalCode
  

Then under the Gifter, they can enter as many Giftee Records as they like:

• Generic Association: Relative, Vendor, WorkMate, etc, etc... what general categories?
  
• Giftee's IRL Country
  
• Giftee's IRL PostalCode
  
• Date Gifted
  
• BTC Address - this wouldn't be shown in public, but would allow to check for activity?  Would people upload that? (This would also double as the index for the record)
  

With the country/postalCode, they could be shown on a map (that would take longer)
The record would only look for if a new transaction is added to the BTC Address (buy/sell, doesn't matter, but a transaction implies that SOMEONE used the paper wallet)
Then it could report:

• Average days till gift is used
  
• Percentage of reported gifts that have been used
  
• ?Any other data desirable?
  

If there is no interest, then I can't really spend the time creating it. But, if there is interest, then it could be a permanent data source with it's own URL and I'll put up a couple "how to use your paper wallet" tutorials.

All half a dozen of them ended at the bottom of drawers. I gave them with a nice looking little list of sites to  spend them on, especially the ones that had their URL's printed with christmas themes. If the value becomes high enough I'm sure some of those coins will find a new home.

Sorry not interested in further tracking but interesting idea.

Thanks for the honest feedback!

For some reason, paper wallets seem to suck as gifts (possibly because "it's a digital currency so wtf are you doing giving me a shitty old piece of paper?"). Who knows. I've had way better experience setting up a wallet on someone's phone and sending them some mBTC. Never fails to impress. A quick poll among my immediate circle of mostly nerdy friends suggests that not a single one knows what a QR code is, even though they see them every day. Most have heard about bitcoins. A bitcoin gift card would probably be the optimum way to impress right now.

And how many of these people would lose the wallets or look at you like you've just given them monopoly money? I think the best way to spread the word is to just tell these people about Bitcoin and plant the seed. Some will be interested, some wont care, and some will think you're trying to scam them or are nuts, but at least you've got the name out there. There's only so long before the masses have to take notice.


They can always import the wallet to their phone. Paper Wallets can be a nice little gift and you can design one to suit them. It's just like a voucher at the end of the day.

I think the way to make Bitcoin succeed is to spend a few bitcoins to mine even knowing that you won't get that many coins in return.

bitcoin doesnt need anything to survive. it will survive all by itself. what the OP should title his thread as, is: "how to ensure further growth above natural growth"

so the only way to help bitcoin succeed is to ruin yourself financially by buying unviable mining equipment which will never realize an ROI ? o_O

Right. Gotta recruit more suckers.

Remember, Bitcoin is zero-sum. For ever winner, there must be a loser. The supply of losers must be constantly replenished with more suckers.

For small amounts, I much prefer to use the email function on blockchain.info.  I think Coinbase has something similar.  Much faster, easier, and more user-friendly than paper wallets.

I then tell them to set up 2FA and to get in touch with me if they want to purchase a larger amount and I'll help them with security.  So far, these small gifts have been very well received, and some have appreciated considerably.

What's this email function all about?

The question is how much more 3 figure coin I can get my hands on before the next run to $5400. Bitcoin needs no help now. It's out of the bag. It is a factor of 10 in greater efficiency than any other account settlement technology, it is so far superior that I'm just trying to get all the fiat into it I can before everyone else knows about it and has got accounts at exchanges.

Sounds like a great idea, will definitely look into doing this some time.

Ok I'd like to do this. Can anyone write a little step-by-step guide how to make paper wallets, how people can claim them, etc. etc.? I'm not really familiar with how this whole paper backup thing works and stuff.

Edit: my friends are mostly European (Dutch). Not sure if you can claim these paper wallets at any exchange you like, but it'd be best if they can claim it with SEPA if they want to.

Here is a tutorial for paper wallets: https://blockchain.info/wallet/paper-tutorial

I think that the ability to use SEPA will depend on what exchange they might decide to use if they ever wanted to convert to a local currency. The SEPA is separate from the paper wallet issue.

Ok cool, thanks. I'll see into it :)