21st Birthday Key to the Lavish Address in BlockChainVille.

[spruce]

This is a possible use for a paper bitcoin wallet key-pair (well, public address + private key in two formats). I'm a great fan of such rather than trusting myself to stay ahead of all bitcoin-related computer malware.

Maybe you intend to give a 14-year-old relative a bunch of money when he or she turns 21. If you send the money to a public bitcoin address and tell the person what the address is, but don't give them the private key, then they can see the money has been set aside but cannot access it until you give them the private key. Of course, you can withdraw the funds at any time, but the general idea here is that you don't want to jerk them around and as long as they don't do anything too outrageous until their gift matures then they will receive it as promised. So the 21st Birthday Key to the Door can become the 21st Birthday Key to the Address in BlockChainVille.

In addition, if the value skyrockets as many think it will, a relatively small number of bitcoins now might just result in that average BlockChainVille address becoming a very swanky address indeed.

[1715579780]

1715579780

[1715579780]

1715579780

[1715579780]

1715579780

[Jalum]

In addition, if the value skyrockets as many think it will, a relatively small number of bitcoins now might just result in that average BlockChainVille address becoming a very swanky address indeed.

Please post more fantasies about this get poor quick scheme. 

[TraderTimm]

In addition, if the value skyrockets as many think it will, a relatively small number of bitcoins now might just result in that average BlockChainVille address becoming a very swanky address indeed.

Please post more fantasies about this get poor quick scheme. 

Hi spruce, I see you've met one of our resident trolls. Don't sweat it, their bark is much worse than their 'bite'.

You could do as you suggest and have a wallet under your control which you can 'offline' for a while by having the information printed in whatever media you prefer. You'd just have to reintegrate the wallet to a current client and download the blockchain to update things before sending your gift.

[spruce]

Hi spruce, I see you've met one of our resident trolls. Don't sweat it, their bark is much worse than their 'bite'.

You could do as you suggest and have a wallet under your control which you can 'offline' for a while by having the information printed in whatever media you prefer. You'd just have to reintegrate the wallet to a current client and download the blockchain to update things before sending your gift.

Thanks for the warning.

If it were me, I wouldn't need to have an online wallet at all. For example, I could get some bitcoins at an exchange like Mt Gox, withdraw them directly to a paper address generated offline by someone I trust, then just hand over the private key when I was ready to transfer the coins. I wouldn't have to import the key into my wallet at all. I wouldn't even need to keep a wallet if I didn't want to, although I would probably still retain some small anount of spending money in one. If the recipient wished to spend the money he would have to import the key somewhere, but that would be up to him once he had the private key.