Thanks for your replies - I DO think it's a really good idea.
I try and tell folks about BTC, but often their eyes just glaze over. Nothing like them seeing a graph going up (hopefully) each week to encourage them to buy BTC.
And yes, for security, the has to be a way of managing the private key info.
Option #1Perhaps this way: sender enters a 10 character PW for their specific gift on the
www.thebitcointrust.com account they sent up for the receiver. The sw then generates the keys, and before the sender sees the private key, it's encrypted with the PW, and stored on the server. There is no way for the system to see/store either the PW or the clear private key.
Then the sender sets a date to "release" the BTC to the receiver. At that point (3 years in the future?), the receiver gets an email and enters the PW on the site, and the private key is released (perhaps into their account with blockchain.info or such like). That way, even if the sender dies or disappears etc., the receiver still gets their BTC at a certain date.
Perhaps the encrypted private keys need to be stored somewhere else as well for total security. If the site did not work out, and we wanted to close it, then we would let everyone know and release the encrypted private keys.
I think that the receiver would have to know that they will be getting the BTC for sure, and that the sender could not ever withdraw the gift in the future - e.g.: when the 1BTC gift is now worth 5 Porches and 2 Rolls Royces :-)
Option #2The sender generates the keys on
www.bitaddress.org and then just sends us the public key. This is a good way to kick-it-off and there is total security for the sender. Simple as well.
I guess we could charge a small BTC fee for each "deposit". Plus there would be some ad revenue.
