The best way to give Bitcoin as a gift this Christmas

[infra172]

Inspired by all the questions on Reddit about giving Bitcoin as a Christmas gift, I have worked hard this past week to code a Bitcoin gifting game. Today, I am launching it and I am asking for your feedback.

The game is called An Elf Has Your Wealth and it differs from other ways to gift Bitcoin. Rather than give your friends, family, or coworkers the Bitcoin right away, you hold onto it for them for a set number of years. My website tracks the address in the block chain to keep you from spending it. It also sends the recipient of your gift an email every Christmas letting them know how much it is worth.

As the years pass by, they will notice how much it is increasing in value eagerly anticipating the Christmas when the game will end and they will get to spend their fortune.

I hope BitcoinTalk finds the game a useful way to increase awareness of Bitcoin and I look forward to reading your comments.

Merry Christmas!

An Elf Has Your Wealth

[vadoff]

1) The site is down.

2) What's the guarantee that the money won't just be stolen? Especially since it can't be touched for several years?

[Damnsammit]

3)  Elf only has one "L" in it.  AKA you linked your site wrong.

[infra172]

2) What's the guarantee that the money won't just be stolen? Especially since it can't be touched for several years?

I never handle the money for the gift. The gift giver just signs a message using the Bitcoin address where it is stored to prove they own it. The website watches the block chain to see if the money gets spent. If it does, the gift giver has a week to replace it. If they don't, the gift recipient gets notified and shames them into replacing the funds.

[infra172]

3)  Elf only has one "L" in it.  AKA you linked your site wrong.

How embarrassing. That's what I get for posting this without sleep. Thank you for pointing out my mistake.

[TTBit]

Last Christmas I gave out delayed bitcoins as a gift using LBAAT.net. The site can *never* know the private key, as it is a combination of something only you know (private key, under scratch off in picture) and secrets that LBAAT.net publishes on a timely manner. All LBAAT secrets are connected and provable, so there is no Tom Foolery.

Here is an example of one of the 5 BTC cards I gave away to my nephew: I hope Uncle TTBit gets a decent christmas gift this year. Once the secret is published on christmas 2013, my nephew can combine the secrets and redeem the coins.

[infra172]

Thank you for linking to that. I hadn't heard of it before. I still like mine better but maybe there are ways I can improve it.