The Gift That Keeps Giving

Sats is the best gift for friends and family, and everyone

We all have that someone dear, who we want to convince but just can’t get them into bitcoin. That is because Bitcoin is an experience; you can’t explain it in simple words. Probably why many bitcoiners have found that gifting sats is a great way to get someone to experience Bitcoin and hopefully get them exploring the rabbit hole. As Hexa is focused on onboarding pre-coiners, this was a must tool we put in the app that bitcoiners can use to get their friends and family started.

Introducing Gift Sats

With this feature, you can send a gift link or QR code to anyone with preloaded sats. When the recipient follows through the steps, they receive Gift Sats without having to interact with you again. You will know when they have accepted it into their wallet; else, you can even reclaim it. There is no need to ask the recipient to download a wallet, then ask for an address, and finally send. And unlike in the case of a paper wallet, you are not left wondering if they transferred the sats into their wallet for safekeeping or they did not care and threw away the piece of paper.

What’s more? Once they have accepted the Gift Sats, they can send it to someone else if they want to without incurring a fee. Like passing a digital paper wallet.

Encrypted, digital paper wallet

When you create Gift Sats in Hexa, a new private key is generated unrelated to your wallet or xPub. The specified sats amount is transferred to the address generated from this private key. The private key is then encrypted on the app (with the contact’s phone number, email, or an OTP if none is available). The Gift Sats are then sent via a shortened link to the recipient to accept or decline. If accepted, the private key is stored in the receiver’s app, and a notification is sent back to the sender. The recipient can then decide to keep the Gift Sats separately to send it forward (in which case it is encrypted again with a new key) or add the balance to their account so that they can use it in the usual way. If they decide to decline it or simply ignore it, the sender can ‘reclaim’ the gift, meaning the link is no more accessible. The Gift Sats is now in an ‘available’ status and can be sent again to someone else with new encryption.

Gifts, not payments

Gifts are something you accept from someone you trust and is not a payment against goods or services. That is the premise on which this feature is built. There are many ways for the gift to get “stolen”. For example, if a sender wants, they can collude with BitHyve (the company behind Hexa) and “double-spend” the gift even after you have accepted it. But in that case, why will they gift you in the first place? The app does give you additional tools for security against BitHyve as the attack vector. The second-factor authentication (like the recipient’s phone number or app-generated OTP) ensures that the gift is encrypted with a secret that only the sender and receiver know. BitHyve or any party who may access the link will not be able to steal the gift.

tl;dr: It is imperative not to use this feature to accept payments or for large amounts.

We hope you enjoy this feature and use it to onboard many pre-coiners. On our part, we will be doing a giveaway: ‘21 Days of Christmas’ starting on 12.12.21. Several Christmas-themed gifts will be posted on the Hexa Twitter account every day. Anyone ready with the Hexa app can click on the link and accept the gift.

Download the wallet: hexawallet.io/store

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