How to give a baby bitcoin
A newborn cannot hold a key, so every way of giving a baby bitcoin comes down to one question: who holds it for them until they are 18? There are two answers, and a crypto wallet for a baby is the second.
Option one: an account someone else holds
Some exchanges and brokers offer accounts for minors that a parent opens and runs, and some countries have their own wrappers for gifts to children. The provider holds the coins; you hold a login. That is simple, and a lost password can be reset.
The trade-off is that the gift depends on the company for 18 years: its rules on minors, its fees, whether it is still there, whether it lets the coins leave at all. Most exchanges do not open accounts for under-18s, and some family products cannot send the coins to an outside wallet.
Option two: a wallet the family holds
A self-custody wallet is a set of 24 words. Whoever has the words can spend; nobody else can. The words work in any standard wallet app, so the gift does not depend on any company staying in business. The price is responsibility: if the words are lost, nobody can reset them.
For a baby this usually means: the parents make the wallet, keep the words on paper in two safe places, and give relatives only the receiving addresses. At 18 the words are handed over and the young adult moves everything to a wallet of their own.
Setting it up, step by step
- Make the wallet offline. On address.baby, turn on airplane mode, type the baby's name and press Make the wallet. The page draws the 24 words in your browser and sends nothing anywhere.
- Write the words down. The gift card shows the words, the Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana addresses with QR codes, and the derivation paths a wallet needs. Write them in pen, or print the card on a printer you trust, and check three words when asked.
- Send the gift link. It carries the name and the three addresses only. Grandparents can scan a QR code from an exchange app or paste an address into any wallet.
- Watch the balance. The balance page reads the public addresses, so you can see gifts arrive without ever typing the words.
Bitcoin, or other coins too?
The same 24 words hold a Bitcoin address, an Ethereum address (which also receives ERC-20 tokens such as USDC) and a Solana address. Relatives can send whichever they already own. Each coin must go to its own address on its own network: bitcoin to the bc1q address, ether to the 0x address, SOL to the Solana one.
A few things to settle early
- Write down who has the words and where, in the same place you keep a will or other family papers, so the gift is not lost if something happens to the parents.
- Check the rules where you live. Gifts to minors, gift allowances and tax on crypto differ by country; this site cannot tell you yours.
- Keep the amount in proportion. For a large sum, a hardware wallet or a multi-signature set-up spreads the risk better than one sheet of paper. The guide to keeping a seed phrase for 18 years covers that.