Key Takeaways
- Not everyone understands crypto (or wants to learn). It’s crucial to know your recipient.
- Giving Bitcoin is relatively easy through exchanges, apps, and hardware wallets.
- Bitcoin is highly volatile, swinging between a low in the mid-$70,000s and a high in the mid-$120,000s this year.
Giving Bitcoin for Christmas might sound like a great idea. For one thing, it’s far more memorable than a gift card or a sweater. However, Bitcoin is not a typical present. Its value moves up and down significantly. Plus, not everyone wants to manage a digital asset.
So before sending someone perhaps their first investment in cryptocurrency, it’s worth understanding what you’re actually giving, and whether the recipient will appreciate it.
Would Bitcoin Make a Good Christmas Gift?
Bitcoin can make a thoughtful gift for someone interested in investing in crypto. But it can also feel overwhelming to people who prefer predictable, low-risk financial assets. The biggest factor to consider is Bitcoin’s volatility. Over the past year, Bitcoin has traded between a low in the mid-$70,000s and a high in the mid-$120,000s—a massive swing, even by crypto standards. A gift of $100 in Bitcoin could be worth significantly more or less by the time you hand it over to the recipient, which might excite some people and stress out others.
For the investor who appreciates buying for the long term and can weather the ups and downs, a gift of Bitcoin can be a good idea. However, someone who never touches financial apps or doesn’t have a high risk tolerance may not like the unpredictability.
Receiving Bitcoin requires at least some basic understanding of crypto apps and wallets and the security involved with holding this type of asset. If the recipient isn’t going to keep up with that, the gift could easily get lost or become something they can’t access later.
Bitcoin Is Volatile, but Long-Term Growth Has Been Remarkable
While Bitcoin’s short-term price swings can be dramatic, its long-term performance is hard to ignore. Despite the deregulated nature of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin remains among the strongest-performing assets of the last decade. That’s why some people view it as more than a speculative gift—they see it as a starter investment.
A simple example highlights this growth. In early December 2020, a Bitcoin was worth about $18,000. If you bought $500 worth of Bitcoin then, it would be worth about $2,405 by December 2025, which is almost a 400% return.
Bitcoin remains unpredictable and can move sharply in either direction. But when evaluating whether Bitcoin works as a gift, it’s helpful to remember that it has substantially increased since its inception just over 15 years ago, even as past performance isn’t a guarantee of future returns.
Tip
You don’t need to buy a whole Bitcoin. Most exchanges let you purchase fractions of the cryptocurrency—sometimes as little as $1—making it easy to gift crypto at any budget.
How To Give Bitcoin
Giving Bitcoin is easier than ever, and there are several beginner-friendly options:
- Direct transfer on the blockchain: If the recipient already has a crypto wallet on a crypto app like Coinbase, you can send Bitcoin directly to their wallet address. This is the quickest and easiest method. However, you will need to be certain of your intended recipient’s wallet address—sending it to the wrong one can result in a permanent loss since these transfers can’t be reversed. This approach should only be used if the recipient understands how to manage their wallet and if you are certain of the address to which you are sending the crypto gift.
- Direct transfer via cash apps: You can also send Bitcoin via apps like PayPal and Venmo. These platforms typically charge a small transaction fee when purchasing Bitcoin, but transferring it is often free.
- Gift Card: Another option is a Bitcoin gift card. Services such as Fold allow you to purchase a physical or digital gift card that the recipient can redeem for bitcoin later. A Bitcoin gift card may feel more like a traditional gift and doesn’t require the recipient to create an account immediately.
- Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares: If your recipient already has a brokerage account, you can gift shares of a spot bitcoin ETF. These funds, approved in January 2024, track bitcoin’s price and trade like regular stocks. This option skips the crypto wallet entirely and may feel more familiar to traditional investors, though they won’t technically own bitcoin directly.
- Hardware wallet: Finally, you can gift a hardware wallet, such as Ledger. This device offers secure, offline bitcoin storage. You can preload it with Bitcoin or simply gift the device. For security reasons, it’s better to let the recipient set up the wallet so that they can generate their own recovery phrase. This ensures they have full control of the asset from the start.
The Bottom Line
Giving Bitcoin isn’t like handing someone cash. With Bitcoin, the value can jump around pretty quickly, and that’s not something everyone is comfortable with. Still, when you look at its long-term performance, it’s hard to ignore how much it has grown.
If your recipient likes to learn new things, is interested in investing, or has been curious about crypto, Bitcoin can be a memorable gift that stands out under the tree. And with so many easy ways to give it, whether through an app, a gift card, or even a hardware wallet, it doesn’t take much effort to make it happen.
