would people be interested in something like this?

[ali97hakim]

I have been trying to brainstorm business ideas for anonymous bitcoin purchase business.

Would really like some input on this idea. I'm sure some one has tried this before anyway.

Allow people to buy paper bitcoin wallets online anonymously with bitcoin loaded on them
   
-> I could accept payments by credit card (then there is the fraud problem). But to keep it really anonymous, I could offer payment by money orders, cash deposit, or ACH transfer

-> I would charge like $1-$2.50 for the actual paper wallet + free shipping. and maybe a 0.5%-0.75% fee for bitcoin and send overnight

-> The only way I could offer purchase by credit card, is wait until the payment is fully processed (about 4-5 days depending on payment processor). Once it goes through and is deposited we ship the paper wallet with your bitcoin loaded overnight.

[1713893877]

1713893877

[1713893877]

1713893877

[1713893877]

1713893877

[1713893877]

1713893877

[1713893877]

1713893877

[xhomerx10]

How would you guarantee the security of the private key?

[Jet Cash]

So you want us to go back to writing cheques?

[justspare]

I have been trying to brainstorm business ideas for anonymous bitcoin purchase business.

Would really like some input on this idea. I'm sure some one has tried this before anyway.

Allow people to buy paper bitcoin wallets online anonymously with bitcoin loaded on them
   
-> I could accept payments by credit card (then there is the fraud problem). But to keep it really anonymous, I could offer payment by money orders, cash deposit, or ACH transfer

-> I would charge like $1-$2.50 for the actual paper wallet + free shipping. and maybe a 0.5%-0.75% fee for bitcoin and send overnight

-> The only way I could offer purchase by credit card, is wait until the payment is fully processed (about 4-5 days depending on payment processor). Once it goes through and is deposited we ship the paper wallet with your bitcoin loaded overnight.

The free shipping part might be a huge mistake. If you are shipping it across the world, it would be very expensive for you. Maybe make people pay a bit more for the wallet.

[pooya87]

it can be a good idea but has a big problem, and that is the issue of trusting you.
since you are the one creating the paper wallets and the private keys, the buyer needs to trust you are don't have the the private keys so the paper wallet won't go empty after the purchase.

[ali97hakim]

So you want us to go back to writing cheques?

no not really, just an idea

[xhomerx10]

So you want us to go back to writing cheques?

no not really, just an idea

 Might be cool for vanity addresses if you could somehow guarantee the security of the private key.

[ali97hakim]

it can be a good idea but has a big problem, and that is the issue of trusting you.
since you are the one creating the paper wallets and the private keys, the buyer needs to trust you are don't have the the private keys so the paper wallet won't go empty after the purchase.

True, but I am in the USA. Plus if I did what you are saying, and I'm taking payments by credit cards, there is no doubt that I would get arrested within a week.

[ali97hakim]

For security, I could create a system where after the purchase the private key gets sent to you via email. And we send the wallet address with QR code by mail. This could maybe work?

[achow101]

For security, I could create a system where after the purchase the private key gets sent to you via email. And we send the wallet address with QR code by mail. This could maybe work?

No. That makes no difference. There is no need to send the wallet address if someone is already getting the private key because the address is derived from the private key.

The problem is that since you created the private key, you still have access to that private key and therefore can spend any Bitcoin associated with that private key. People have to trust you to not steal their money.

[xhomerx10]

For security, I could create a system where after the purchase the private key gets sent to you via email. And we send the wallet address with QR code by mail. This could maybe work?

 No you have to use part private keys so nobody but the buyer gets to see the private key.  The receiver would have to combine the private key you send with his part private key to get the actual private key of the address containing the coin.  This would remove some of the trust issues around purchasing a paper wallet but it would also complicate the process.

[bitbaby]

It is a bad idea, don't try to make it work. Drop it and go back to the board.

And frankly we want to take bitcoin mainstream, we want the whole world to use it as they'd use cash, so we'll have to give up the anonymous buying/selling part, the two can't co-exist together.

[lixer]

Not a good idea I think. People won't be interested in such things and free shipping part would be difficult for you. I guess there must be some security issues you might face with this work.

[pereira4]

It is a bad idea, don't try to make it work. Drop it and go back to the board.

And frankly we want to take bitcoin mainstream, we want the whole world to use it as they'd use cash, so we'll have to give up the anonymous buying/selling part, the two can't co-exist together.

Mmm, how are you going to use cash if you give up the anonymous buying/selling part? Cash is not cash if it's not anonymous. One of the big selling points for Bitcoin will be the fact that everything will be monitored in future when governments get rid of cash, so we want Bitcoin to be as anonymous as possible.

[Pursuer]

sorry to disappoint you but this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons.
first and biggest problem as others have already pointed out is the trust part. because nobody is going to trust some random person on the internet to buy bitcoin from let alone but private keys from.

also there is lack of interest. making paper wallet is an easy task which anybody with a printer can do, and if they are new to bitcoin and don't know about bitcoin they buy it from some popular place like Coinbase and again not from a random guy on the internet.

I think you should remove the paper wallet part and stick to only selling bitcoin and come up with a way for the anonymous selling bitcoins. also trust works both ways, anonymity might cost you since you might get scammed.

and one more thing, you might want to look at some laws about taxes and trading bitcoin in your country because you are doing a business and it might come back and bite you in the ass later.

[Shawshank]

Yes, it is possible. You should use BIP38.

You could redirect the user to https://www.bitaddress.org , on the Wallet Details tab, BIP38 encrypt.

If you want to do it more user friendly, you create a REALLY RANDOM private key automatically in the user browser, in a similar way as it is done in bitaddress.org. You just ask the user for a password on his browser, and you send to you the BIP-38 encrypted string and the associated Bitcoin address. Then, you fund that address and send the physical BIP-38 string to the purchaser.

However, I wouldn't recommend you fund a Bitcoin address that is not yours. You may bump into legal issues. That is one of the reasons why Casascius had to stopped creating physical Bitcoins.

[virtualdn]

Not a very good idea due to security issues... you basically have the private keys as well

[Jonsnowstark]

The essence of having it digital is really making no sense with this idea. Yes paper wallets bring security but for it to go through the mail would diminish the security, which is the main purpose of the project. Also, shipping across the world would cost you more than the paper wallet you are selling. I don't think that would be such a good idea.

[Thirdspace]

---snip---
Allow people to buy paper bitcoin wallets online anonymously with bitcoin loaded on them
    
-> I could accept payments by credit card (then there is the fraud problem). But to keep it really anonymous, I could offer payment by money orders, cash deposit, or ACH transfer
---snip---

is it possible to make payments with credit card anonymously? any credit card will do that?
wouldn't the credit card company keep transaction records between your business name, CC # and his name
money order and ACH transfer, most likely to leave transaction records too

For security, I could create a system where after the purchase the private key gets sent to you via email. And we send the wallet address with QR code by mail. This could maybe work?

why the need of mailing wallet address with QR code? receiving private keys via email is enough (but insecure)
to generate an address, you might want to read on how to generate vanity address with split key
so you will only know partial private key, and your customer will use your private key and his own to access the fund

[onnz423]

The idea of this is great and I know quite a few people who want to purchase bitcoin as anonymised as possible. Although I want to point out a few things that might go wrong with this: 1. Free shipping – doing free shipping would be a huge although shipping prices are decreasing at the current time I would suggest charging for shipping; 2. Trust – If you are going to give the private key to someone that means you have access to the private key and you could simply spend any money in the wallet itself. Certainly free shipping is only possible to certain parts of the world, as even small packages can cost more than $10 to certain third world countries.