Sending BTC as a gift to someone who doesn't have a wallet

[pakhitheboss]

Why not send her a Bitcoin Gift Card, she does not need to have a wallet for receiving the gift card. There are a few websites that provide such a service. You only need to select the denomination, enter a few details, and make the purchase. The gift voucher is then emailed to the specified address, it is that simple.

You can buy Bitcoin gift card here

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

Why not send her a Bitcoin Gift Card, she does not need to have a wallet for receiving the gift card. There are a few websites that provide such a service. You only need to select the denomination, enter a few details, and make the purchase. The gift voucher is then emailed to the specified address, it is that simple.

You can buy Bitcoin gift card here

Sending a friend a bitcoin gift card would be fantastic. But I think it is much better if you will help your friend to create her own bitcoin wallet or buy her a hardware wallet because maybe someday she could buy more Bitcoins as her own investment and buy other cryptocurrencies.

[dondonk]

Why not send her a Bitcoin Gift Card, she does not need to have a wallet for receiving the gift card. There are a few websites that provide such a service. You only need to select the denomination, enter a few details, and make the purchase. The gift voucher is then emailed to the specified address, it is that simple.

You can buy Bitcoin gift card here

Sending a friend a bitcoin gift card would be fantastic. But I think it is much better if you will help your friend to create her own bitcoin wallet or buy her a hardware wallet because maybe someday she could buy more Bitcoins as her own investment and buy other cryptocurrencies.

I think sending bitcoin gift card and give hardware wallet is better idea . besides, maybe it can teach a friend to make or use a wallet, so that he will be able to operate the wallet properly in the future.

[The Cryptovator]

Sending paper wallet credentials via email was the worst idea. Emails would be hack easily and you will have the access to the wallet of your friends. That's good you have realized it. I am not sure how much amount you want to send to your friends. But likely you want to give a surprising gift. So I think sending a hardware wallet like Ledger would be more surprising to him. Then ask him to create his wallet by himself and send him a few sat.

Anyway either you send a hardware wallet or paper wallet, it would be good practice to open wallet by your friends. So he will know how to use it and would gain more technical know about bitcoin and wallet. It's better always to practice the right things.

[bob123]

Why not send her a Bitcoin Gift Card [...]

Bitcoin Gift cards? I never heard of something like that before and it doesn't sound like a good idea at all.
The advantage of BTC is, that it is completely decentralized and trustless. And you propose to use a centralized entity which requires trust to gift some BTC?

I think sending bitcoin gift card and give hardware wallet is better idea .

Anyway either you send a hardware wallet or paper wallet [...]

While a hardware wallet is a more secure option, i don't think this is always feasible.
If you intend to gift like ~50$ worth of BTC, you'd first need to buy a HW wallet for ~90$.
IMO a hardware wallet is only worth it when it costs less than half of your holdings.

[o_e_l_e_o]

She won't take email security seriously enough and will leave the raw attachment there for anyone to pick up.

Even if she deletes the attachment, if she is using a terrible email provider like Google or similar, then the attachment will be backed up unencrypted on dozens of servers around the world, putting any coins at considerable risk.

Sending an encrypted paper wallet by mail and the password via email / phone would be the more secure option.

If asking your friend to create a wallet is not an option, try to at least meet in person to give her the copy of the private key. Yes, you'd better to store a backup copy of the key in case she loses it, because while she'll have to trust you, the risk of losing the key is much higher.

I often see suggestions like this when talking about gifting bitcoin, and I 100% disagree with them. You should not gift pre-generated wallets in any format, regardless of how secure/encrypted they are, because it teaches the person bad habits. If this is their first experience of bitcoin, then right from the outset you are teaching them to trust a third party (you), rather than verify for themselves. They have to trust that you have set up the wallet securely, and they have to trust that you haven't kept a copy of the seed phrase or private key for yourself, or if you have kept a copy "for their own safety" that you have secured it well. The whole process is the opposite of what bitcoin is supposed to be.

Don't trust, verify. Far better to sit down with them, talk them through setting up and backing up their own wallet, and then send some coins to one of their addresses.

[bob123]

I often see suggestions like this when talking about gifting bitcoin, and I 100% disagree with them. You should not gift pre-generated wallets in any format, regardless of how secure/encrypted they are, because it teaches the person bad habits.
[...]
Don't trust, verify. Far better to sit down with them, talk them through setting up and backing up their own wallet, and then send some coins to one of their addresses.

Sitting down with them and talking about how to properly secure a wallet for a few hours doesn't seem to be a good gift tho.

IMO this is a pretty bad present.. "Come here, sit down with me.. we gonna talk now, that's my gift for you..".


A prefunded paper wallet is absolutely fine IMO.
Just hand them the paper wallet. That is the gift. Afterwards you are still free to show them how to generate a wallet and how to transfer the funds (they even learn doing their first transaction this way).

The problem is not really the pre-generated paper wallet, but how it is being utilized and explained.

[o_e_l_e_o]

IMO this is a pretty bad present.. "Come here, sit down with me.. we gonna talk now, that's my gift for you..".

Put it in a card then.

"Dear x
Happy Birthday!
My gift to you is $100 worth of bitcoin.
Lets sit down together sometime over a beer and I'll help you set up your first wallet!"

A prefunded paper wallet is a rubbish gift to someone who has no idea how what bitcoin is or how to use it. Like if someone gave you $100 in a foreign currency you can't spend and you don't know anyone or anywhere which will exchange it in to dollars for you. The real gift is someone knowledgeable helping them get set up for the first time. There's also the possibility that they aren't interested enough to sit down with you, and so they have a paper wallet that they don't understand the value of, which they store insecurely or unsafely and later gets damaged or lost.

At least if you offer your time first and they aren't interested, then you can spend the bitcoin you were going to gift them on an actual gift they will appreciate.

[bob123]

Put it in a card then.

"Dear x
Happy Birthday!
My gift to you is $100 worth of bitcoin.
Lets sit down together sometime over a beer and I'll help you set up your first wallet!"

This seems to be somewhat acceptable, i'd say.
But i still don't think that it is a retarded idea to gift pre-generated paper wallets.

Another thing is, that the majority doesn't know how to properly secure a wallet. So they definitely also won't be able to tell others how to.

[Peanutswar]

It's better to help the receiver to configure their wallet because this is the easiest way to transfer your gift but if you want to do this and keep this as a secret it's better to get the address and wait for the right time to send your surprise sometimes sending funds or the wallet supported to have a description to their platform so you can leave a message and I think this is the easiest way to could apply. This is just my suggestion only.

[hatshepsut93]

I often see suggestions like this when talking about gifting bitcoin, and I 100% disagree with them. You should not gift pre-generated wallets in any format, regardless of how secure/encrypted they are, because it teaches the person bad habits. If this is their first experience of bitcoin, then right from the outset you are teaching them to trust a third party (you), rather than verify for themselves. They have to trust that you have set up the wallet securely, and they have to trust that you haven't kept a copy of the seed phrase or private key for yourself, or if you have kept a copy "for their own safety" that you have secured it well. The whole process is the opposite of what bitcoin is supposed to be.

Don't trust, verify. Far better to sit down with them, talk them through setting up and backing up their own wallet, and then send some coins to one of their addresses.

For starters, the person who gifts a private key can keep it a secret the fact that they kept the copy, and give all the instructions on how to store it. This way it will be likely that they won't need to use this copy, but if it will happen, then the person who lost their keys will understand that this was the last time they were saved. I believe that letting people lose their coins when it's their first time trying Bitcoin will very likely push them away from it. It's like riding on a bike - some people just can't do it without training wheels and will give up from falling.

[noormcs5]

I did such a thing with one of my friends several months ago, and I sent $ 100 of Bitcoin, and the matter was done by putting the amount into a portable wallet, and then I wrapped the wallet and presented it to him. When he opened the wallet, he was surprised by the amount and was very happy.

What did you mean by "Portable wallet" ?  It seems that you send bitcoins in an hardware wallet but that also have a good price.
By the way i liked your idea and would send some speical a nano ledger as a gift with no bitcoins in it. 

[NavI_027]

If you can afford to give him a hardware wallet with bitcoin (like Ledger) then much better. Because I believe that tangible things' presence makes the gift more special because it can build a sentimental value, that's what digital things can't do. Plus, it was a nice way to poke the interest of the receiver because he will surely become curious on how that flash drive-like thing works .

Then after that, follow what others said, give him a short introduction with crypto and hope that he will like the concept. Be his mentor afterwards! You not only made him happy because of your gift but also help to expand our community — win-win situation .

[bakasabo]

If I were you and have a lot of time, I would take a physical coin like krogothmanhattan used to raffle and add a QR code with address and a readme how to create a wallet on one side of the coin. This will look rather cool, as you are giving someone a Bitcoin as a coin.

Sending a wallet by email or just a printer paper (which will actually look like you have simply printed a gift certificate/coupon/Voucher) is kinda lame. It will look like you did not put enough effort to make gift as something special.

[o_e_l_e_o]

For starters, the person who gifts a private key can keep it a secret the fact that they kept the copy, and give all the instructions on how to store it.

But that's kind of my point. If you are going to lie to other person and tell them that you don't have a copy of their key, you are teaching them to trust you completely, which is the exact opposite of what bitcoin was designed to do. The whole point is to remove trusted third parties, be that your wallet provider, your exchange, or your friend.

I believe that letting people lose their coins when it's their first time trying Bitcoin will very likely push them away from it.

The vast majority of people who are currently using bitcoin did not have someone else secretly backing up their keys or seed phrases for them, and yet here we all are. I think it's far more valuable to sit down with someone and teach them proper security practices than it is to treat them like a child and secretly perform the security for them. I think doing so would lead to carelessness down the line as you are teaching them there is a safety net (you) which won't always be there.

[Insanerman]

Hi.


I'm going to purchase some satoshis as a gift for my friend, and will have to email them to her.

To make it look more like a gift, I'm thinking maybe transferring the sats to a paper wallet from https://www.bitaddress.org/, and just send her the paper wallet as attachment to the email.

Is this the best way to give sats to someone, or are there better ways to do that?

That's a hassle man. Plus it is not the safest way. Also, I assume that someone that you will be sending your satoshis is just a beginner. She probably lacks knowledge about wallets, specially paper wallets. For me, paper wallet is not recommended for beginners. For now just assist them on a reputable and trustworthy wallets like Trustwallet.
Just to add... you use paper wallet to be away from online attacks, so do not send or store any paper wallet details on emails.

[nakamura12]

You could teach that person on how to use the wallet to manage the bitcoin you wanted to gift. Just do what mk suggested by creating new wallet and give it to that person. If that person doesn't know what bitcoin then you should explain it to that person and be able to spend or use the gift you wanted to give.

[hatshepsut93]

The vast majority of people who are currently using bitcoin did not have someone else secretly backing up their keys or seed phrases for them, and yet here we all are. I think it's far more valuable to sit down with someone and teach them proper security practices than it is to treat them like a child and secretly perform the security for them. I think doing so would lead to carelessness down the line as you are teaching them there is a safety net (you) which won't always be there.

This is different, people who came to Bitcoin on their own are much more motivated about the proper use of it. But when you gift someone Bitcoin, especially a small amount, they'll likely just put it in a drawer and forget about it, and then years later, when the price increases by x10, they can no longer find it, which will likely cause them to never want to be involved with Bitcoin again. This is the scenario that I kept in mind when I suggested to keep the copy. But if the person who receives the gift shows a lot of enthusiasm, they can indeed be encouraged to move the coins or use their own wallet from the start.