5 Crypto Gift Ideas For Christmas

2022 was not a great year for the crypto space, to put it mildly. Year-to-date, the crypto market lost $1.3 trillion in value. This largely came from two sources. The Fed's interest rate hikes squeezed global liquidity. And Sam Bankman-Fried drove his FTX/Alameda vehicles filled with fraudulence right into the middle of the crypto space to detonate them.

Yet, all things considered, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have sustained these assaults remarkably well. Bankman-Fried alone had the equivalent force of Lehman and Enron combined. With the weight of fake value lifted from the crypto space, now is the best time to maintain discipline and prepare for the long haul because digital assets are not going anywhere.

With this mindset, here are the best crypto gift ideas for this Christmas. After all, it is extremely unlikely that 2023 will be worse than 2022.

Top 5 Crypto Gift Ideas for the Holiday Season

1. Customize a Gift Card

Customize your own gift, paid in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Coingate is a good example, with over 2,000 brands to choose from, going from travel (Airbnb) and entertainment (Netflix) to gaming (PlayStation), food (Walmart) and clothing (Nike).

Once you select the brand for your gift, just pick your region for redemption. Each gift card ranges across multiple price tiers, from $5 to $500. You can pay each tier with cryptocurrency, and then you receive the gift card code through email.

The rest is up to you. In this digital age, it is super convenient to send this code as a gift to someone you like. They would then get to spend the allotted amount at the merchant you picked.

2. Gift an NFT

Non-fungible tokens are the digital feathers of the online world. Very appropriate as artwork in a convenient form. Just as someone would announce their social status by rolling around with a Bugatti in the real world, online dwellers would do so with NFTs.

All major social media platforms have already implemented NFTs for user avatars — Twitter, Reddit and Instagram. More importantly, the prices of NFTs have gone down drastically during this bear market. To buy one, go to the OpenSea NFT marketplace and filter through any price range and art style you want.

There is no end to quality NFTs to choose from, at every price point. Of course, you would need a browser wallet like MetaMask to connect to OpenSea and get the NFT gift.

With the NFT in your wallet, just make sure that you send it to the right wallet address that supports NFTs (ERC-721 tokens). Typically, the recipient would have a MetaMask wallet as the most popular browser wallet with over 21 million monthly active users.

Each social media platform has its own process of connecting NFTs as profile avatars. They are quite simple to follow, as showcased in this Twitter NFT guide. Lastly, be mindful that NFTs are extremely speculative digital assets.

You may end up gifting someone an NFT that is worth $50 in the present, only for it to skyrocket to $100,000 a year later. But, the NFT may also drop to $5. This is the beauty of NFTs as a gift. Imagine how your friendship turns out in either scenario!

3. Cryptosteel Capsule

After FTX imploded and customers lost billions worth of crypto assets, self-custody has been skyrocketing. In the last month, over 200,000 BTC has been withdrawn from centralized exchanges. But where?

Largely into non-custodial (or self-custody) wallets, either hardware wallets or hot wallets like Trust Wallet. However, there is an ultimate wallet to keep in mind as the perfect gift — a cold wallet without any electronics or software involved. This is the Cryptosteel Capsule.

Made out of stainless steel, this capsule makes your wallet's seed words fireproof and waterproof. It can store up to 123 steel-cased characters or 24 abbreviated words for your seed phrase. As such, Cryptosteel is designed for the long-term containment of your crypto wealth.

When you are ready to deploy it, you then simply use that seed phrase as the master key to create a new wallet, thus restoring your access to the blockchain network. Cryptosteel is an indispensable gift that would have saved a lot of people a LOT of money.

And the best part? What is there to review? It's not like high-grade steel is going to fall apart in your or your grandchildren's lifetimes.

4. SafePal S1 Hardware Wallet

Cryptosteel Capsule is fine as the ultimate self-storage, but what if you want a bit more convenience? After all, you might not want to go through the hassle of recreating new wallets when you want to trade cryptocurrencies. This is where hardware wallets come in as the middle ground.

Although hardware wallets are electronic, they do not have an online connection unless you specifically allow it. Produced from Binance Labs, SafePal S1 is the robust middleman between security and convenience.

Without connecting to Wi-Fi, NFC or Bluetooth networks, you sync up your hardware device with your mobile SafePal app (both Android and iOS supported). This is done by signing your transactions offline with a QR code, thanks to SafePal's inbuilt camera. It also has a small display screen to confirm your actions.

Best of all, SafePal S1 is a one-stop hardware wallet. It supports all types of coin storage, from Bitcoin to BEP2 tokens and ERC-20 tokens, which makes for the bulk of cryptocurrencies in existence. As the cherry on top, SafePal S1 is one of the cheapest hardware wallets on the market.

If you know someone who is into crypto, it is exceedingly likely they use Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange handling over 75% of all trading volume. It is then a small step to get them into self-custody with this neat Binance-based wallet.

5. Bitcoin Gift

Lastly, what better gift than digital gold itself — Bitcoin? This can be done in a number of ways, but there is one simple one that you may not be aware of. The creativity of this simple gift is off the charts!

You go to Ballet Real Bitcoin to buy a stainless steel physical card — a cold storage Bitcoin wallet with a scratch-off passphrase. Dubbed as the "world's easiest cryptocurrency wallet," this card works in tandem with its companion Ballet app as its online trading gateway.

Before gifting the card, you could pre-fund it by sending the cryptocurrency of your choice via the QR code. The card is not only classy, but it can hold over 200 types of crypto assets, including NFTs.

Despite its elegant design, Ballet's Real Wallet is cheaper than both SafePal S1 and Cryptosteel Capsule. Definitely a worthy gift for either crypto beginners or veterans.

Are Crypto Gifts Taxable?

Under the current U.S. tax law, gifts up to $16,000 per individual are tax-free and up to $32,000 for married couples. Next year, this will be further raised to $17,000. Crypto gifts themselves are considered traditional capital assets, such as bonds or stocks.