Hello, I’m wondering if I can gift Bitcoin (BTC) to a newbie without buying a 2nd Trezor cold wallet for them.
My idea is to use my Trezor cold wallet, then create a new wallet with a new 24 word mnemonic phrase and perhaps a new passphrase?
This 2nd wallet can then have BTC funds added.
My understanding is I can just provide the gift receiver with the 24 word mnemonic phrase on an engraved allen key. The gift receiver can then access the gifted funds by recovering the wallet with the 24 word mnemonic phrase and their passphrase?
No, this won’t work and is also wrong, for several reasons.
Firstly, you can’t create another Recovery seed (24 words mnemonic phrase, as you put it) on a Trezor device which already has a Recovery seed. The only way to do this is to wipe everything from the device, reset it to Factory defaults, and set it up again from scratch, but then you’d lose the current setup with the current Recovery seed and everything else on the device. It’s possible to recover it later though, if you have the Recovery seed and Passphrase(s) (if used).
Secondly, you shouldn’t share a Recovery seed with another person who don’t share your private economy too (like a wife/partner or similar).
Thirdly, you don’t have to share the Recovery seed with someone to let them have access to a Hidden wallet on your device. It’s enough to share the Passphrase for the Hidden wallet, plus the PIN code to login on your Trezor device (if used).
But understand that all this sharing undermines the security of Trezor, as a cold wallet, so it’s not advisable to go down this route.
You may gift Bitcoin to anyone who control a wallet, either a hot wallet or cold wallet.
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Thanks, yes, maybe I’ll have them create a soft wallet until they’re ready for a proper cold wallet with 2 engraved Allen keys for the mnemonic phrase backup and a passphrase.
It seems like the idea would work if I reset the Trezor to Factory defaults and then I enter my mnemonic phrase, passphrase and PIN.
The gift receiver could then reset the Trezor to Factory defaults and enter their security credentials, all privately with no sharing.
Why would you do that? If your Trezor is already set up you’d only set it up again, uselessly. It’s not necessary to reset your device just to add a Hidden wallet. You can do that at any time.
Then they’d have your Trezor device and you’d lose control of it. If you want to gift away your Trezor device to another person then just reset it to Factory defaults and let the other person set it up again.
But the absolute easiest solution would be for the other person to aqcuire a new Trezor device or other cold wallet, not use yours.
Both you and the gift receiver need to read up on how Trezor and a cold wallet works before you do anything more. The idea you have now is really a bad one.
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