How to Give Bitcoin as a Gift

In this article, you will learn how to buy bitcoin and give it to someone for a birthday, or Christmas gift, etc.

Maybe you’ve heard of Bitcoin, but you’re not sure how to purchase it – or gift it to them without asking for their wallet address (ie, telling them what their present is going to be).

I’m going to show you how to give someone a wallet, with bitcoin already loaded onto it. 

First Step: Purchase Bitcoin on Coinbase

Now is the perfect time to give someone some bitcoin as it could prove to be even more valuable in time, especially now that it has broken its previous all-time high. So let’s go through the process of gifting bitcoin for that special person.

Well, the first thing that you want to do is to figure out the best & safest way to purchase bitcoin, and one of the best platforms to make purchases is on the Coinbase crypto exchange.

Coinbase is a licensed and regulated exchange, much like the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) or the NASDAQ stock exchange, but for cryptocurrency. On Coinbase it is very easy and simplistic to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency and today we’ll be guiding you through the process of buying bitcoin.

The first thing that you have to do in order to be able to purchase cryptocurrency on Coinbase, is to make an account.

Making an Account on Coinbase

On the homepage of their website, click the “Get Started” button in the top right corner.

Clicking this will bring up a form for you to create an account. Fill out the form with your information, first and last name, email, and password. Make sure to use a secure password, don’t use the same password from another website or account.

Using a random password is one way to create a secure password as it makes it very hard to hack. Just make sure to write your password down somewhere, ideally offline, like on a piece of paper so it can’t be stolen or hacked on a computer.

Once you fill out this form and create your new account, you will have to verify your email account to activate your Coinbase account for trading.

Head over to your email and click the “Verify Email Address” blue button and it will take you back to Coinbase where there will be a couple more steps before we can purchase bitcoin.

Once you are back on the website, you will be prompted to set up two-step verification by providing a phone number. This will another layer of security to your account and future purchases as every time a transaction is to be processed, it needs a verification code from this number to complete the transaction.

Once you add a phone number you will get a code texted to you. Enter the code and press “Submit”.

You are now verified! You now have the ability to buy/sell cryptocurrency on the Coinbase exchange. Now we just have to add a bank card to be able to buy our bitcoin.

Add a card that you would like to purchase bitcoin with, enter all the information needed, and press “Add Card”.

After adding your payment card, you will be brought back to the main page of Coinbase wherein the top right corner there is the “Buy/Sell” button. Click on it and then we just have one more step before we are ready to buy our bitcoin.

Coinbase has one more verification required before we are allowed to buy. They require identification to be allowed to buy or sell on their exchange as it allows them to know who is buying, selling, and using their platform. To finish our verification process, press “Submit ID”.

You have a couple of different options when it comes to verifying your identity. Choose the one you feel most comfortable giving or one that you have available to you now and press the button accordingly.

Once you go through the prompts of submitting your ID, you’ll have to wait until they approve you before you can trade on their platform.

Buying Bitcoin on Coinbase

Congrats! Once you are fully verified by Coinbase, you are ready to make your purchase. Go back to the main page, click the “Buy/Sell” button again.

Now that you are verified, you will see this screen and have the option to buy, sell, or convert. Unfortunately, there is a maximum amount that you can buy on your first purchase. In this example, the maximum is CAD 375.00 whether it’s done in one order or over a weekly time period.

The limit increases every time you buy more crypto, so if you are planning to gift more, you’ll have to make more than one purchase. Lucky person if you are gifting more crypto!

 

Decide how much you want to purchase and press the “Preview Buy”

Make sure your order is correct and then press “Buy Now”

Let the transaction process, don’t click out of the window or refresh the browser. Once it is successful, you will see this image, and the Bitcoin that you purchased will be in your Coinbase account.

Congratulations! You have successfully purchased Bitcoin! Now all that is left to do is to gift it to your special someone.

If you remember from earlier in this post, Bitcoin is a digital currency and not something physical. To send it to someone you either have to send it to their own wallet address or if they don’t have a wallet, you have to give a crypto wallet with the bitcoin inside.

There are many good crypto wallets that you can find here. We are going to be using the Exodus.io wallet in this post today as it is easy to use and has a nice design touch to it.

Setting up your Exodus Wallet

Once you are on the Exodus website, go to the top right corner and press the “Download” button.

You’ll be given two options to download the app, either desktop or mobile. Use the one that is most convenient for you. We’ll be using the desktop version in this example.

Choose the proper OS of your computer and start the download.

You will prompt to create a password for your account and to backup your 12 phrase word recovery code. This code is very important! You will not be able to gift this wallet if you do not write down this code.

Please write it down on paper or even the birthday card that you are going to give. Please do not store it online as it may be stolen and then your wallet and bitcoin are gone forever. We will discuss this a little bit more later.

Now that you are on the Exodus app, let’s move that Bitcoin from Coinbase to your Exodus wallet.

Click on the Bitcoin tab. Here you will be able to send, receive, or transfer Bitcoin. It will also tell you how much Bitcoin you have in this wallet and how much it is worth in fiat (USD in this example).

To move your Bitcoin to your Exodus wallet, click the “Receive” button and it will show your Bitcoin public address. This address is just for receiving Bitcoin. Make sure to copy this address as it will be the address that you send your Bitcoin to from your Coinbase account.

Now back we can go back to Coinbase where you can now send your Bitcoin to your wallet. Click on “Send/Receive” and you have a form pop up to fill in the information of your transaction.

Paste your Bitcoin receiving address from your Exodus wallet into the tab “To”. This will send the Bitcoin to that address in your wallet. Next click “Send all” to send all the funds that you used to purchase Bitcoin.

It will show up as how much Bitcoin you have in dollars. Now just press “Continue” to review your transaction.

Look over the information to confirm that everything is correct and then press “Send Now” and your Bitcoin will be sent to your Exodus wallet.

You will get a notification on Exodus that a transaction has been made and it is pending. Here again, you can see all the information about the transaction. You can even click on the “Transaction ID” to see the status of your transaction.

Once it’s confirmed you will now have your Bitcoin on your wallet ready to be gifted!

Last steps

Now that all the funds are in the right place, it’s time to talk about the back up 12-word recovery phrase. As mentioned above, this code is the only way to gift this wallet. Write it on a piece of paper or on a greeting card that you can give as the ticket to this present.

If you didn’t write it down when you first download the Exodus wallet, don’t worry you can access it through the settings tab demonstrated below.

Press “View Secret Phrase” and it will prompt this window where it will require you to scroll over each word with your mouse as a security measure, so make sure that you are alone and no one can steal this phrase. Once you have it written down close this window.

Your gift is now ready to be gifted! The lucky person will be very happy I’m sure. The only steps left are to give the gift (the 12 words recovery phrase) and recovering the wallet when it is received.

Recovering Exodus Wallet from 12 Word Recovery Phrase

Now the recipient will have to do the same process of downloading the Exodus.io app but the only difference is, they need to restore the wallet from the backup code. Press the button “Restore from Backup” on the main screen of the wallet and it will prompt the person to type in the secret 12-word phrase.

Once that is complete, the wallet will restore and the Bitcoin will be in that wallet.

The wallet will now restore, load back up and the Bitcoin will now be in that wallet.

I hope this guide has helped streamline the process of you purchasing Bitcoin, maybe for the first time, and gifting it to a very special someone. Let us know in the comments below if this guide helped you or share it with someone who might even just be interested in getting into crypto and doesn’t know where to start and how to buy Bitcoin.