Write down bitcoins on a piece of paper

Question

I am a newbie when it comes to bitcoin. I am using the default bitcoint client and I have some bitcoins in my wallet. How can i write them down and give it to some one and then the person how can they use them

Is this possible ?

Related question: How to save bitcoins as paper – Murch Sep 04 '13 at 23:29 — Murch, Sep 04 '13 at 23:29

score 7 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:47

Here's a simple way to do it:

On bitaddress.org, use the "Paper Wallet" tab and create 1 address
Using your Bitcoin client, send an amount of bitcoins to the Bitcoin Address on the paper wallet
Print the paper wallet and give it to your friend
Tell your friend to create a wallet at My Wallet. He can then use the "import from paper wallet" feature and simply scan the QR code to import the bitcoins.

Please note that when handing over a private key "offline" like this both you and the receiver will have access to the funds if you keep a copy of the private key. The receiver has to trust you to not take advantage of that before he has had the chance to move the funds.

bitaddress.org by the way is a client side tool so you are not trusting them with your money, though you might want to read this: Should I trust bitaddress.org?

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:24

5

You can give them the private keys associated with given Bitcoin Address, but it's generally not the best way of transferring Bitcoins over. You ought to just make a regular Bitcoin transfer. Both of you would need to be using those for handling Bitcoins anyway, so this way would be identical to what you will be doing anyway.

answered Aug 13 '12 at 01:24

ThePiachu

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I don't like 3-d party services for handling my money. That's why I use bitcoin so your answer is the best. But you can be more specific for a newbie how can I print the private keys and how to import them in the bitcoin client?I thnik manny users will find this useful – opc0de Aug 13 '12 at 06:24
You generally don't need to import private keys if you want to receive money. You just create a completely new key, tell your friend the associated address and have her send coins there. – Thilo Aug 13 '12 at 06:41
@opc0de If you want to use only the Bitcoin client, you need to use dumpprivkey Bitcoin API command, and your friend would have to use importprivkey. The process of setting this up would be a lot more complicated than just your friend giving you an address to send the Bitcoins to. Unless one of you is a programmer or at least knows how to write and run some code, it might be quite hard. Explaining all of that would make the answer quite lengthy and detract from its message I guess. – ThePiachu Aug 13 '12 at 11:59

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 13 '12 at 05:03

Create an Instawallet, send the funds you wish to pass to the bitcoin address for that Instawallet, and then just give the Instawallet URL to the other person.

The transfer payment from your wallet will need to confirm before the Instawallet balance will reflect the payment but once it does, those funds are available to anyone who knows that Instawallet URL.

There is a nearly identical service called EasyWallet.

Write down bitcoins on a piece of paper

3 Answers3