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

[electoken]

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?

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[jackg]

You can usbebitaddress but I'd scrape the source code and run it offline (I think they have a git repo or something).

If I were you I'd use vanitygen without passing parameters so it just makes an address: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen

If you're planning them to give the gift on a certain day you could ask them to install a wallet or install it yourself on their phone (depending on how close to you are to them obviously).

You could also give them a card with the seed words inside (a bit like a voucher) and instructions on how to get access to them.

[TryNinja]

Why don’t you help her open a wallet and you send directly to their address? Sending a private key over email isn’t the best option, but as long as she receives it and moves to another wallet (created in the properly secured way), it should be ok.

Maybe send the paper wallet along with a few words on how to create a wallet (e.g Electrum.org) and move the coins from the gift paper wallet to the new one. Make sure to help her with a few security advices. Tell her what are ponzi schemes and the basics of holding crypto (don’t save keys online, don’t go downloading random stuff and writing your keys anywhere, etc...)

[mk4]

I personally wouldn't do it that way, as it might cause her to do something similar with a friend of hers in the future; because it's obviously not a good idea in a security perspective.

How I would do it:

1. Let her download a reputable wallet like BlueWallet.
2. Ask her to send you her wallet address.
3. Send the coins.
4. Done.

With this, you actually made her experience her first bitcoin transaction as well.

[Coyster]

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

It's definitely not the best (safest) way to do so, for a friend who I'm sure hasn't handled cryptocurrency before, she could seek assistance from some shady person and lose the gift you sent to her. Since you want it to be a surprise (gift) you could also create the wallet yourself, send the bitcoins into it and then send the recovery phrase directly to her with directions on how to download the wallet from the official website and tell her to input the phrase and boom she claims the gift you sent.

[NeuroticFish]

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

No. Sending by email is an awful option. Also some may find difficult to work with private keys.
mk4 idea great if your friend wants to install a wallet right now. Then you can stop reading my post. Else...I have 2 other options:

If you want to really just send one private key and it's supposed to be a gift for long time hold, I advise you send something physical, like the chips from this raffle https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5267152.0 (there are surely many other examples too, just make sure you get from a very trusted seller) and after the physical object has arrived to your friend, you can fund the object if it's unfunded. The idea behind this kind of gifts is that one has to "break the seal" in order to access the private key and spend (the address is freely visible obviously).

Another option is a seed. That's 24 English words and it's easier to "give". Download Ian Coleman tool, https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39 generate a seed, test it too so you can also write down one or more addresses to fund, then you can just give her the seed via a phone call (preferably encrypted call with something like Whatsapp). Of course she has to write down the seed to a piece of paper (and keep it safe and offline).

[gentlemand]

She won't have the slightest clue what to do with a paper wallet. She won't take email security seriously enough and will leave the raw attachment there for anyone to pick up. You'd be better off not giving them anything at all.

Downloading, installing and backing up a wallet is simpler than handling a paper wallet. Get her to do that or leave the idea alone.

[Upgrade00]

A better option may be sending a comprehensive book (physical/online) about Bitcoin and the blockchain technology as a way of introducing the person. Sending a paper wallet to the person if he/she doesn't know anything about bitcoin would be like sending a game card to be redeemed by someone who does not play video games.

You can monitor the person's interest in bitcoin overtime, if they are not showing much, you could as easily just send them fiat as they would immediately attempt to convert it after checking it's worth. If they are indeed interested in the technology then they would value the bitcoins in its original form.

[virasog]

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?

Its not the best idea to send someone BTC as gift when the other person do not know about it. Even if you make her a wallet and give her private keys etc, she might know the importance of private keys and may not keep them save. If you send paper wallet to her email, she may forward it someone to share with her friends etc. I think you should give her other gifts until she has good know how of bitcoins.

[daneal stev]

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.

[hd49728]

No. Sending by email is an awful option.

Another option is a seed. That's 24 English words and it's easier to "give".

Sending seeds or private keys by email is terrible idea. You don't know how your friend secure his email. It will be terrible and bitcoin will be lost if the email is compromised.

Among wallet, Electrum is very common and it is also a SPV wallet, very light and easy to use, with seeds instead of private key. OP can create (offline) an entirely new wallet (legacy or Segwit) with new seeds. Store those seeds, and print it (offline), then give the printing seeds to his friend as a gift (with confirmed gift transaction). The link to official site of legit Electrum is needed too.

[akhjob]

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

If you are thinking of physical BTC gifts, you should check the collectible section. You can go for loaded Denarium and Casascius coins, if your budget is high or you could gift him a Coldkey

[FinneysTrueVision]

An OpenDime would be a better option.

[bob123]

Don't you have to option to send it to her via mail?
Sending an encrypted paper wallet by mail and the password via email / phone would be the more secure option.

You obviously also have to take all precautions when creating a paper wallet (i.e. on an offline computer and preferably without using a website).

1. Let her download a reputable wallet like BlueWallet.

Excuse me?
Downloading a reputable wallet or BlueWallet?

[TryNinja]

Excuse me?
Downloading a reputable wallet or BlueWallet?

Going a bit off topic, but why is that? I just downloaded the Blue Wallet app on my phone to receive some coins through the Lightning network...

Is it just because they don’t have enough reputation?

[hatshepsut93]

Sending a private key to an email is a bad idea, even if the amount is small, if the coins will get stolen, it would make a very bad first impression on Bitcoin. 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.

[bob123]

Going a bit off topic, but why is that? I just downloaded the Blue Wallet app on my phone to receive some coins through the Lightning network...

Is it just because they don’t have enough reputation?

Oh i didn't want to create the impression that the wallet is bad or insecure or something like that.
Basically, what you said. I wouldn't call that wallet reputable because they actually don't have that much reputation yet.

This definitely doesn't mean that it is not to be trusted! I was just expressing that it is not reputable in my opinion (yet).

[electoken]

Thanks for all the excellent answers.

Since posting the initial post, I've learned I may - via my non BTC-tech wife - be able to hand over a piece of paper to my friend. So I guess I could print out a piece of paper, something in the lines of the afore mention https://www.bitaddress.org/ BTC paper wallet, and have my wife hand that over to my friend. As noted by jackg, being an online service I must either download the generator to an offline computer, or I need to accept the risk of the service having been compromised.

[TryNinja]

Printing it is way better than sending it through something like Gmail. Make sure your printer doesn’t save it in their history or something like this.

Also, like I said above, take some time to teach her or link her some videos about Bitcoin’s basics. She doesn’t need to know how BTC works in a technical level, but knowing how to handle BTC and not fall for the common scams is a must.

I like Bitaddress. What I usually do for paper wallets is making sure I’m on the right website, download the .zip source code (bottom of their page) and run it offline (just open the .html page in your browser). Just like you said.

[mk4]

Oh i didn't want to create the impression that the wallet is bad or insecure or something like that.
Basically, what you said. I wouldn't call that wallet reputable because they actually don't have that much reputation yet.

This definitely doesn't mean that it is not to be trusted! I was just expressing that it is not reputable in my opinion (yet).

Hmm. Didn't expect that statement to be controversial LOL.

I personally placed it under the "reputable" category as I think in the 2+ years that they've existed, I don't remember reading anything shady about the wallet, and they seem to be going the right path. Sure they haven't existed as long as wallet's such as Electrum, but hey it's a pretty decent track record. 🤷‍♂️