THE GUIDE
There are five real ways to give someone bitcoin: send it to a wallet they already have, transfer it inside an exchange, set them up with a hardware wallet, build a DIY paper wallet, or load a physical bitcoin gift card and hand it over. Which one is right depends on one question: does the person you're gifting already use bitcoin? Here is each route with its honest trade-offs, including where ours isn't the answer.
FIVE ROUTES
If the recipient already runs their own wallet, this is the best route and we will say so plainly: ask for an address, send the bitcoin, done. It costs a network fee and nothing else. The only thing it can't do is be wrapped, handed over, or given to someone who doesn't have a wallet yet.
best for: people who already hold their own keys · cost: a network feeSome exchanges let you send crypto to another user or buy a crypto voucher. It feels easy on your end, but the recipient must create an account, pass identity checks, and what they receive sits in the company's custody until they move it. You are gifting a signup, then an IOU.
best for: recipients who already use that exact exchange · cost: spread + feesBuy them a hardware wallet, help them set it up, send bitcoin to it. For large amounts this is a great gift, genuinely. But the device costs $50 to $150 before any bitcoin, and the setup burden lands on the recipient: initialize the device, learn the software, back up the seed. It is a project, not a present they can open alone.
best for: larger amounts, willing learners · cost: $50 to $150 + the bitcoinGenerate a key, print it, fund the address. It costs nothing, and done perfectly it works. The catch is that "perfectly" means generating keys on a machine you trust offline, never exposing the private key, and the recipient later sweeping it correctly. One mistake at any step and the bitcoin is exposed or gone, with no tamper evidence to warn either of you.
best for: technical gifters who accept the risk · cost: free + your diligenceA Bitcards card is the paper wallet idea done as a finished product: the key comes in two halves, our half printed and sealed on the card, your half made by your own phone as 12 words that never leave it. You load it with your own bitcoin from any wallet, and hand someone a gift they own from the first second. The recipient opens it later with just a phone camera: no app, no account, no exchange for either of you. The honest catch: it works like cash. Lose the card or the words and no one, including us, can restore it.
best for: gifting to anyone, bitcoiner or not · cost: $15 + the bitcoin you loadTHE AMOUNT
Whatever the occasion calls for: that part is entirely up to you, and nothing about the amount shows on the outside of a card. Two practical notes, though. First, on-chain network fees apply when the recipient eventually moves the bitcoin, so a very small amount can lose a meaningful slice of itself to the fee; if you're gifting a token amount, know that going in. Second, the gift can simply sit: bitcoin on a sealed card doesn't expire, so a modest amount given early can be the point of the gift rather than its size.
// gift and tax rules differ by country. for anything sizable, check your local rules. we sell cards, not tax advice.
WITH A BITCARDS CARD
Scan the QR with any phone, write down the 12 words it generates offline, load the card with your own BTC from any wallet, then hand it over. The recipient needs only a phone camera.
Scan the QR with any phone camera. Your phone makes your 12 words on the device, offline if you like.
// your words never leave your phone. the page is one file with no backend.Copy them onto the card's strip by hand, then re-type them so a miscopied word can never cost anyone the bitcoin.
// ink is the backup. nothing gets typed into a website.The card's address exists only once your words do: it is our sealed half and yours, added together. Fund it from any wallet, any amount.
// scan again any time to check the balance. our sealed half stays shut.Give it. To open later, they scan, peel the seals, and follow the phone. The finished key is a standard one that sweeps into Sparrow, Electrum or any normal wallet, with no Bitcards involvement.
// works even if we disappear: a saved copy of the page, a short published script, or the one-page spec opens it.WHAT GOES WRONG
Buying bitcoin in your own exchange account and telling someone "this is yours now" gifts them nothing they control. If they can't move it without you logging in, it is your bitcoin with their name said over it.
The 12 words are the money. A photo syncs to a cloud account; a notes app is one phishing email away. Handwriting on the card's strip is the whole point of the object.
One miscopied word and the bitcoin is unreachable forever. Any good flow makes you re-enter the words before an address ever exists. Ours won't show you the address until all 12 are confirmed.
A paper wallet where someone else ever saw the whole key is an IOU from that person, however honest they are. Look for designs where the full key never exists with anyone but the final holder.
Physical bitcoin works like cash: whoever holds it, owns it, and destruction is final. That is the feature. Store a loaded card the way you'd store the same value in banknotes.
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
THE GIFT ROUTE
$15 for the card, or 3 for $30, plus the bitcoin you load yourself. Keys made offline on your phone, never sent to anyone. Charged only when it ships.
Buy now · $15