WoW the mwixnet idea is really clever. It reminds me of zero knowledge ceremonies where only one person has, to be honest for it to work. Thanks for the link!

I am glad that you value the transparency offered by Bitcoin, this is a solid reason for how Bitcoin currently is!

This is definitely a great answer. I looked at your list and it is great. I bookmarked it! Thanks again for the response!

Thanks for the info! I will look more into the issue that you mentioned!

I recently began diving into the Mimble Wimble protocol. I found the white paper and general work around it to be amazing. It brings me to question the existence of utxos and addresses in Bitcoin. Coins like monero and mimble wimble derivatives function today with no on-chain addresses, and I am curious as to why addresses exist on the bitcoin blockchain. My understanding is that you can get rid of addresses and have people sign utxo's directly with ECC. It seems that addresses sorta function like accounts in eth and utxos's function for transactions in mimble wimble. Bitcoin seems to have both utxos and addresses and has some of the downsides of both approaches. Addresses in bitcoin lead to address reuse which is bad for privacy. Address reuse is prevalent today also. I thought all last night about the issue and I could not come up with a fundamental downside to Bitcoin ditching addresses and just going utxo only. I also thought about bitcoin going the opposite direction and just using addresses as accounts and getting rid of utxo's, sorta like eth. I know bitcoin would unlikely adopt these things due to coordination issues. I would love to learn more about these technical questions. Any links to further readings or thoughts on the issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time!

Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah, posting to the bitcoin reddit wasn't the best idea  . I will definitely get around to posting to r/PrivacyGuides, and I already posted to  r/CryptoCurrency.

I can only speak for amazon lockers in the united states but I think all of them load from the front. They could probably be opened with a crowbar, but they are usually inside stores where an attendant would probably call the cops. I have also pivoted my marketing away from hardware wallet deliveries since something about ht hardware wallet use case makes people very uncomfortable and it leads to unproductive discussions. I haven't had that happen here, but on places like reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/z1w0uw/comment/ixf076d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3. I think it's just easier to discredit the amazon locker portion of the supply chain instead of people to admit that the entire supply chain from the hw maker to your front door has hundreds of opportunities to be exploited and offers no real protections from tampering. It maybe goes back to the advice about trust I was given earlier in the thread. I am not sure but I have had much better success going after just general privacy deliveries with amazon lockers. I am currenlty working on a private loyalty program. Also thanks for all the great feedback and discourse, I enjoy talking here much more than I do on reddit.

What your saying about trust makes sense, thanks a lot for asking about the amazon locker attack vector. I was thinking more about it, and I think the amazon locker portion of the service is the most secure part of the hardware wallet supply chain. The locker has cameras, and one time use codes with a tracked record of access. No other portion of the supply chain has any security features. There is little to no security along the supply chain even if you buy direct. But trust is very hard to build, so your so right about that part.

I never thought of that attack vector. In the usa you can not open amazon lockers twice, but I could in theory still perform this attack. It would require me telling amazon customer service to give me a new locker code. This is possible and would leave a paper trail leading back to me. The lockers also have cameras on them. So if I drive to the locker you chose, tamper with the wallet and get amazon customer service to let me place it back in, I could in theory give you a tampered wallet. That sounds like a lot of work to just go to jail though, since this entire process can and would be traced back to me with amazon message logs and camera footage from the locker and business the locker is in.  So although this attack is possible, I think it's not a reasonable fear to have. But what other people see as reasonable varies.

As far as tampering in general goes the only solution is multi-signature with different wallets. There is no other solution to prevent tampering when buying a premade hardware wallet. If you buy from ledger directly, amazon, or in person with cash at best buy, you face tampering issues. No supply change fix solves the tampering issue, and the only way to fix that is to go to the wallet manufacturer assembly line and build the hardware wallet yourself.


I do not need any personal information from the customer for them to use my service. No app is 100% hack proof so I just don't collect information that could compromise your privacy. The only information needed for my service is: payment, what items you want, and the locker you want to pick up from. No name, no address info, email, phone number or any other information is used or collected by my service. So you can think of my service as guaranteed way to protect your privacy when you get a hardware wallet, something trezor nor ledger can offer you if you buy from them directly.

Thanks for all the great feedback guys. I decided to pause this idea since the path to be profitable was a unclear one for me. I will probably visit it again in the future or maybe someone else who reads this will find the idea interesting. Thank y'all for the great feedback also, this forum has the most informed users I have found across the internet.

Wow thanks for all the great feedback guys. The question of buy directly from them and give up your info vs use some private 3rd party is definitely a tough one, but after I studied more about how trezor and ledger use  customer info and give it to third parties I would use the third party option every time. Its cool that ledger has partnered with best buy but people have also had issues with using that method. The trust issues makes sense but I have to start somewhere. I already got one positive review on reddit, so I just have to give great customer service to build up trust. My service accepts ltc, btc, eth, and monero. The original idea was a more general service, but the only customers I found who made it worth it were the hardware wallet people so I made a special landing page for that market segment. The general landing page can be found at https://anonymouslocker.app/.

Hi,
I just started a service that uses amazon lockers to enable anonymous delivery of hardware wallets and other items, https://anonymouslocker.app/ . I have been a long time advocate of hardware wallets but hardware wallet manufacturers have shown a general disregard for their users safety by mishandling their name, phone number and email, in my opinion. So I made a service that lets you get a hardware wallet delivered near you without giving up any personal information. I am sure a lot of people here already have a hardware wallet, but I would love to hear any feedback y'all might have. Thanks and have a great day!

In my current implementation no, the sender would have to retrieve the funds. Your suggestions made me rethink the infrastructure and I think ill just have the server do the refunds and the gift certificate act more like seed phrase in its use. Thanks for the input.

With the new design it would work similar to coinbin , but a serve would store a refund transaction to be broadcast when the card expires. I will create a technical spec sometime before I launch to mainnet.

Not by default but it could be if the sender wished for it be. Thats a good idea also. It would be stored in the senders local computer so yes.

There is local data stored on the creators computer that would be needed, (or a gift certificate with the new design you inspired).
I don't think that creates a gifting experience that I would want to support with my app. I think that bitcoin should be used by new people not stored on paper in hopes it'll be worth something. My app will be secure enough for small amounts of crypto, but not for large amounts. 100 dollars of bitcoin today could be worth 1,000 dollar+ in 4 years and a paper wallet should not be used to store that amount (in my opnion). So I will keep the life of the wallet under 30 days. Use it or loose it type deal, but I see how people could want a longer life. I just don't agree. I also have a question since you seem to gift bitcoin alot. How do you manage your cards once you give them? Like if give 10 cards and track them for 4 years, do you just have a stack of paper wallets that you check up on periodically?
Your right, i'll correct my statements concerning this moving forward.
I tried to redeem a paper wallet this way and it was much easier than I thought it would be. I think most people should be able to get through it, so thanks for bringing this method up. I still think the experience would be easier with my app, but easier is dependent  on someone's goals and opinions.
If they choose to buy a giftcard then thats fine in my book. They got to send their first crypto transaction and got some crypto exposure and education. If someone is interested in crypto Id rather give them a bitcoin giftcard that they can choose to convert to a amazon, ebay or whatever giftcard rather than just give the amazon card originally. Users of my app will feel the same way, or they can use another way to gift. No Hard feelings.

Thanks for all the great input, the questions about the server made me ralize it really isnt needed for transferring info. Im going to work on the giftcard encoding directly to a bitcoin mnemonic then wallet vs using encrypted data.

Thanks for the words of encouragement.  I think that the process for gifting a non-coiner bitcoin is not as easy(simple) as people think it is. I think its similar to the idea that everyone thinks making a peanut butter sandwich is easy until they have to write the steps down for someone who isn't informed about the process. I think it would be very hard to condense the instruction set for a no-coiner , with no crypto experience, to send a transaction using electrum from a mnemonic seed down to just one page. These instructions would take no less than  30 minutes to complete correctly if they did exist. So I know my app will be easier and simpler for nocoiners to get started with than any process that currently exist. I think that the easier for nocoiners value prop is hard for experts in the crypto space to value and appreciate, until they have to actually write instructions down for a nocoiner and have them go through the process without extra input.

I mentioned kyc because when you google gift bitcoin, the first link is for coinbase gifting. Someone can argue if coinbase is a wallet, or if some bitcoin wallets require kyc. I know that the top google alternatives require and promote kyc so I contrasted my idea with those top alternatives.

I encounter the lack of ease in a lot of bitcoin spaces and products. I don't think that decentralization and self-custody should be hard, require a printer or take an expert guiding you through the process. I like working on products that make things easier and more accessible than the status quo because crypto is competing against easy and centralized processes like coinbase, so I think decentralization has to get easier or it will loose to centralized forces. Decentralization is currently loosing in the gifting bitcoin space , since coinbase is the top result and the following guides also recommend exchanges. I think gifting is a easy win to have, since no one likes doing kyc to get a gift, so I'm pursing that goal.

Here is the github repo: https://github.com/DecentralizeJustice/giftMonerodotapp. Thanks for the wallet suggestion.

Thanks alot for checking out the app SFR10. I'm glad you thought it was simple, that was one of my founding ideas for making this. The wallet is fully in ran in the browser. There is server that holds the encrypted wallet info for transferring between people but the information is encrypted with the giftcard and has ~128 bits of security. So its non-custodial as a local web wallet on the useres machine.   The gift recipient will be given the option to spend the funds as they see fit. They might choose to buy a amazon giftcard from me with the funds. I would make money from this transaction, but its not a required transaction for the gift recipient. They would be given other options such as setting up a wallet or swapping to another crypto that they can choose from. Once the wallet expires the funds will be refunded back to the gift sender. The server would hold a refund transaction to broadcast once the wallet expires. The wallet lives in the senders browser, so they can retrieve the funds at anytime they choose. Thanks for the great questions around custody, there is a lot of nuance to be had so I hope I was clear in communicating how this is non-custodial from the technical aspect. At no point can the service send your funds anywhere you did not sign a transaction approving for them to go. If the website goes down, the code is open source and runs locally. So the user can clone the repo and continue on their way. Feel free to ask anymore technical questions about custody with the gifting app. Also the 2 hours is for testing purposes, in production the gifter will set the refund time as long as its under 30 days.

As far as paper wallets go. There are a lot of informed people who hate paper wallets and think they should not be used for gifts like andreas antonopoulos . I don't mean to appeal to authority but show that people have different opinions of the use of paper wallets. That goes to say that because you like paper wallets that does not mean that they are the best for everyone, and some people would like the convivence of an app to gift bitcoin. This app will be the easiest way to gift btc without app download or kyc, since a paper wallet requires an app to use. Even open dimes require an app to use. If you don't think an app download is a big deal that's is a reasonable opinion to hold. The opinion that an app download isn't too much to ask does not change the value prop of this app, you just don't find the value proposition of the app to be useful for you. If there is another way to give bitcoin without an app download or kyc I will gladly qualify the value prop.

Thanks for feedback and questions also, I can see that effort was put into them.  

Those seem really cool since they give you exposure to btc price, but allow you to spend like visa. I agree with you about how useful they would be for gifting.

Do you have a link to this product? I cant find any debit cards that can be loaded with bitcoin.

I am not sure I understand how scammers would benefit from a website that lets you give bitcoin to other people.

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I also have a working(ish) demo, https://giftmonero.app/,  that I have built for gifting monero if that is something more concrete to help visualize how this would work for bitcoin. I was hesitant to post if before because this is a bitcoin development, but I think it would help with the technical demonstration.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Thanks for checking out the site @dkbit98. Its just a mockup that I spun up to gauges interest.

What kind of outcomes are you seeing when you gift bitcoin this way? When I suggest doing it this way , people don't have the motivation to for small amounts of btc. When they do get over installing the wallet, I have to walk them through what it is, and where they can spend it. Do you have a more streamlined way of going about this process of gifting?


The code would all be local browser based that reaches out to public api's for chain data. I could piggyback of large website host like GitHub, so I don't think DDOS would be and issue. Since its all local browser based, the creator and gift receiver would control the keys. As far has hacking goes, the small amounts involved in gifting would be the same risk profile as spending btc with online websites so I don't think that is a major concern my customers will have when sending small amounts to friends and family. 

 
I plan to make some percentage of the giftcards, swap services built in for the gift receiver. Its digital only so the cost to run is low.

Thanks again for taking the time to check everything out!

I was thinking that asking someone to download an app adds a considerable amount of friction to the process, but I could be wrong about that assumption. Oh yeah it would be open-source, I would not do bitcoin any other way.