Quote from: BonkNit on December 23, 2017, 06:02:05 AM

Instead of moving bitcoin between wallets, what's stopping people from trading wallets? I've been following bitcoin since 2013 and though I have not had much experience with wallets, I know that each wallet has a private key that opens it. What's stopping bitcoin development from creating wallets with set amounts of bitcoin in them and allowing them to be traded?

this is basically a money transfer system known as "hawala" where funds are transferred among parties without actual movement of money. there's nothing wrong with this premise. in fact, it's the underlying idea behind opendime:

Quote

OPENDIME World's First Bitcoin Credit Stick Wallet
The 1st Bitcoin Bearer Bond or just call it a "Bitcoin Stick". Opendime is a small USB stick that allows you to spend Bitcoin like a dollar bill. Pass it along multiple times. Connect to any USB to check balance. Unseal anytime to spend online. Trust no one.

Quote from: BonkNit on December 23, 2017, 06:02:05 AM

In terms of people writing down the private key, when a wallet is traded can't there be a new key generated for it? And so instead of trading bitcoin between wallets, people could trade wallets and reduce the strain on the blockchain and potentially lower fees of transferring bitcoin between people.

this is a tricky problem. generating a new key and sweeping the funds to it incurs miner fees. opendime has created an interesting solution. the USB wallet device is disposable and must be physically broken in order to spend any funds kept on it.

as long as the device is intact, you can check the balance and use it for trading.