|
Title: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Free Market Capitalist on August 18, 2024, 11:09:48 AM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way?
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: OmegaStarScream on August 18, 2024, 11:16:22 AM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Free Market Capitalist on August 18, 2024, 11:22:10 AM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. I would say that in general it is not legal for them to go though your apps but I have seen border control programs where it does seem mandatory, or at least they can make it more difficult for you to enter the country or hold you if you don't cooperate. I was thinking hypothetically. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Hatchy on August 18, 2024, 11:28:49 AM Bitcoin isn't a physical asset, so it's unlikely that anyone can detect your coins. Unless you've committed a crime or shared information about your coins, it's unlikely that authorities would target a regular person who holds Bitcoin. If you use a hardware wallet, they might try to investigate, but it would be illegal and a violation of your rights to ask for such information without a valid reason. The only exception would be if your country has laws that strictly prohibit cryptocurrency.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Charles-Tim on August 18, 2024, 11:34:17 AM Encrypt it on disk or on a memory card. I do not think they will be brothered to check what is on your disk or memory card.
But if you think they can check what is on the disk or small memory card which I do not think they will notice, you can go to BIP39 word list to backup the numbers where the seed phrase words are and write some extra numbers and words which can make them no notice it. I like to use passphrase. Even if they understand what I wrote down, they will not have any access to my coins while they will not have any evidence but I do not think they can understand the way I will backup the seed phrase. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 18, 2024, 11:35:49 AM Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. You could argue you're not bringing anything physical. Otherwise hiding it from customs would be illegal.Bitcoin isn't in your wallet, Bitcoin is on the blockchain. You may have access to it, but that's kinda like having access to your bank account when you're abroad. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DaveF on August 18, 2024, 03:07:39 PM Something like this: https://satscard.com/
Get one of the blank ones and custom print something on one side and use a sticker or similar on the other. There are a few similar products out there, you would have to figure out which one works for you. But in your wallet it would look just like any other credit / debit card. https://www.amazon.com/Pounchi-Funny-Stickers-Transportation-Personalizing/dp/B0CVVWVD34/?th=1 -Dave Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Findingnemo on August 18, 2024, 04:09:44 PM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. I would say that in general it is not legal for them to go though your apps but I have seen border control programs where it does seem mandatory, or at least they can make it more difficult for you to enter the country or hold you if you don't cooperate. I was thinking hypothetically. I have been into security checks on a lot of countries and I don't think they never searched anything inside the phone, so I guess it's safe to carry the seeds in digital format like in a separate mobile that's never connected to internet. Or you can create new wallet and fund the amount you needed then upload the seed in a cloud by this they will not have a clue of it. We only responsible to disclose we're bringing physical items like gold or cash and no need to disclose about our digital assets. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: pooya87 on August 18, 2024, 04:17:02 PM Uninstall any bitcoin related apps from your phone, write down your seed phrase inside a book (can be one word per random page but in order) and when you reached your destination you can connect to the internet and install the apps again and restore your wallet using the seed phrase from the book.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Stalker22 on August 18, 2024, 07:04:03 PM And what about hardware wallets? I mean, most of the good ones let you set up multiple wallets on the same device, right? So even if some overzealous customs agent tries to force you to unlock your wallet, you could just show them an empty one. Its like having a secret compartment in your pocket.
Even if your device were confiscated, no one would have a way of knowing that there is a wallet hidden behind a secret passphrase. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DaveF on August 18, 2024, 09:13:41 PM Had another thought, and the amount of BTC would also matter, but what about a trusted friend / relative.
Before the flight send the BTC / other crypto to a trusted person. Remove all BTC / crypto apps from phone. (you do have a backup right???) After flight contact trusted person and have them send it to the new address that you just generated with the wallet you just reinstalled. You would have to trust that person, but there is also a different between beer money and vacation money and life savings money. From the way you were talking (going through airport) I would think vacation money. And I would hope that you have friends and / or family that you could trust with that amount. -Dave Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on August 18, 2024, 10:37:21 PM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. I would say that in general it is not legal for them to go though your apps but I have seen border control programs where it does seem mandatory, or at least they can make it more difficult for you to enter the country or hold you if you don't cooperate. I was thinking hypothetically. I would use an electrum wallet I would use a 13 word seed. it has that option. I would send multiple emails to multiple email accounts that I control in each email i would have two or three of the seed words. alternatively i would put the list of 2000+ words for seeds on this thread. I would number the seed words 1 to 2000 plus I would send emails to my emails with the numbers instead of the actual seed words. either method above is okay for a temporary move. certainly not perfectly safe. you could fuck up when you create the emails and lose the 13 word seed. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Mia Chloe on August 18, 2024, 10:47:54 PM I would use an electrum wallet I would use a 13 word seed. it has that option. I would send multiple emails to multiple email accounts that I control in each email i would have two or three of the seed words. alternatively i would put the list of 2000+ words for seeds on this thread. I would number the seed words 1 to 2000 plus I would send emails to my emails with the numbers instead of the actual seed words. either method above is okay for a temporary move. certainly not perfectly safe. you could fuck up when you create the emails and lose the 13 word seed. I think in a situation like the the old and regular paper wallet is nice enough. You can write those seed on a piece of paper, open up your pc and keep it in there. Alternatively get a second device, format it don't connect it to the internet, boot in your wallet. When you get past customs you can create a new wallet and moved your coins to ensure their safety. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DireWolfM14 on August 18, 2024, 11:23:31 PM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way? If it's just a small amount you want to take on your travels, you can create a new seed phrase and write it in a notebook with some random work related shit like it's just notes for work. Use different pages for each of the words mixed into the fake notes in a way that you'll remember them. For example, the first few pages can just be random gibberish, and then the twelfth word on the tenth page is word number one, the eleventh word on page eleven is word two, so on and so forth. Adjust according to your preference. Also, I've traveled with my ColdCard in my small backpack that airlines let me keep under my feet. It helps that it looks like simple calculator, but you never know if a customs official is going to recognize it or not. I will say, I've never traveled with it outside the US. I have traveled over-seas with hot wallets on my phone and laptop and have never had issues with that. But that's always been less than the limit that requires it to be declared. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: BlackBoss_ on August 19, 2024, 04:12:27 AM Uninstall any bitcoin related apps from your phone, write down your seed phrase inside a book (can be one word per random page but in order) and when you reached your destination you can connect to the internet and install the apps again and restore your wallet using the seed phrase from the book. I agree.Remove/ uninstall all applications for Bitcoin wallets, centralized exchanges from your smart phones, devices and have other ways to backup your wallets is good method to go. Using brain and memory is one method for worst case but we can not only rely on brain and memory that can be accidentally lost. Another back up method like highlighting it in a book is good and a main back up method to use. Brain and memory can be used as a supportive method only. How to back up a seed phrase (https://blog.lopp.net/how-to-back-up-a-seed-phrase/) Quote What about memorizing your backups? Well, I can only think of one situation in which I'd ever consider that - if I'm fleeing from some calamity without much time to prepare and I'm worried about physical attackers accosting me during the journey or at border crossings. That is to say - I only think memorization is a good strategy for temporary emergency use. As a long term storage strategy it creates single points of failure: You may forget the seed phrase. You could be injured and unable to recall it. You could die and your heirs would be unable to access it. You could have seed phrase coerced out of you. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Free Market Capitalist on August 19, 2024, 05:05:41 AM From what I see from several answers, I may not have explained myself well. Going on vacation and carrying less than the legal minimum is not a problem. I was thinking more of moving to another country, and taking the holdings you normally manage with your Hardware Wallet on your laptop or PC.
I mean, carrying 0.01 BTC on your mobile is not a problem but if we are talking about 0.5 BTC that you manage with the HW.... Although I see that this is pretty hypothetical, according to the answers. I had also thought of taking the seeds written in a book or notebook on several pages, but with invisible ink, so that no way that it will occur to customs agents to search through a book of 300 pages. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 19, 2024, 05:57:02 AM Had another thought, and the amount of BTC would also matter, but what about a trusted friend / relative. That goes against everything Bitcoin stands for: self-custody, be your own bank, "trust, don't verify", everything!Before the flight send the BTC / other crypto to a trusted person. Remove all BTC / crypto apps from phone. (you do have a backup right???) Quote After flight contact trusted person and have them send it to the new address that you just generated with the wallet you just reinstalled. And this is how you lose your money through a man in the middle attack.I would send multiple emails to multiple email accounts that I control There are so many ways this can go wrong.in each email i would have two or three of the seed words. ~ certainly not perfectly safe. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ranochigo on August 19, 2024, 08:18:16 AM The key to hide your seed phrase is actually trying to obfuscate it. To do so, there are tons of options. The simplest can be in the form of colours; you can assign each of the seeds in the BIP39 wordlist to a specific colour in hex, create an image with that sequence, and carry it with you. This is practically undetectable and this works for anything so long as you can have a specific pattern to convert the seed phrase back and forth.
Else, steganography would be a good option as well. Common methods to do so would be to encode it within an image and there is practically no difference visually. However, you can extract the seed from the edited image easily. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ABCbits on August 19, 2024, 09:59:40 AM From what I see from several answers, I may not have explained myself well. Going on vacation and carrying less than the legal minimum is not a problem. I was thinking more of moving to another country, and taking the holdings you normally manage with your Hardware Wallet on your laptop or PC. I mean, carrying 0.01 BTC on your mobile is not a problem but if we are talking about 0.5 BTC that you manage with the HW.... Although I see that this is pretty hypothetical, according to the answers. Aside from what other member said. WarpWallet (a variant of BrainWallet which is harder to brute-force) may work, where you remember specific passphrase and email (as salt). Obviously you need to use real WarpWallet and doesn't use common passphrase. I had also thought of taking the seeds written in a book or notebook on several pages, but with invisible ink, so that no way that it will occur to customs agents to search through a book of 300 pages. I think most of us only can say "it may work". Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 19, 2024, 11:02:41 AM The simplest can be in the form of colours; you can assign each of the seeds in the BIP39 wordlist to a specific colour in hex Not bad :) So "1476. reveal" would become 5C4, the color would be #5C45C4 (https://www.color-hex.com/color/5c45c4). I wouldn't feel safe with a seed stored in "plain color" on a computer though, and printing it means you can't find back the exact color.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DireWolfM14 on August 19, 2024, 09:05:08 PM I was thinking more of moving to another country... In that case, I would suggest a temporary brain wallet is most secure and least likely to get you in trouble with customs officials. If you were to start early enough and give yourself time, I'm sure you could remember a 12-word seed phrase. You could also add a 13th word that you already remember such as the middle name of distant ancestor, or a secure password that you already remember. Create a phrase offline and it's corresponding watch-only wallet. Write down the phrase and store it somewhere safe. Rehearse it silently for a couple of days, only pulling it out of storage when you need a refresher. After a couple of days restore it offline and compare to the watch only wallet. Keep that up for a couple of weeks, after which you'll have it memorized with a significant amount of confidence. Keep up the silent rehearsals and offline restoration checks leading up to your travel date. Once you're 100% confident in your memorization of the phrase, transfer your coins. Once you reach your destination you can create a more secure storage scheme, or write down the phrase that you've memorized in case your memory fails in the future. Most of us have memorized passages from religious texts, prayers, lyrics of our favorite songs, or lines from our favorite movies. And if it's only for short period of time it shouldn't be difficult to keep it fresh in your memory. It's more difficult to try to remember something like a seed phrase for years, but for a few days or a week while traveling, a brain wallet is probably the most secure and safe method. Certainly safer and more comfortable than using your prison wallet. :o Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: pooya87 on August 20, 2024, 07:31:03 AM I had also thought of taking the seeds written in a book or notebook on several pages, but with invisible ink, so that no way that it will occur to customs agents to search through a book of 300 pages. You can always use an extra word (the passphrase) with your seed phrase for extra security. Something you can remember. It is easier to remember 1 word.You can also always write down numbers instead of words. Just go to the wordlist page[1] and write down the corresponding number for each word in correct order. For example if the first word is "leaf" and second word is "alien" write down 1014, 51 and so on. Make sure to test what you wrote by recovering your wallet to make sure there is no mistake. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DecipherBTC on August 20, 2024, 07:45:36 AM Seed phrase with a password, so you can store the seed phrase wherever you want aslong as you keep the password separate :)
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DireWolfM14 on August 21, 2024, 01:21:42 AM There are lots of good replies here, and I think Pooya87 makes a good point; you could just write down the corresponding number of the word from the word list to obfuscate the words themselves, and just have a strong passphrase to encrypt the wallet. You could also convert those numbers to hexadecimal values to further obfuscate their meaning. That should buy you plenty of time reach your destination and create a more secure storage method.
I doubt that most customs officials are looking for evidence of bitcoin these days. That may change in the future, but for now I think Poker Player might be overthinking the issue. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 21, 2024, 06:21:02 AM I doubt that most customs officials are looking for evidence of bitcoin these days. That may change in the future, but for now I think Poker Player might be overthinking the issue. Depending on the country, I'd be more concerned about unlawful searches. I've been to countries where anything of value (up to cup noodles) gets "confiscated". You don't want those people to suspect you own Bitcoin.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: satscraper on August 21, 2024, 07:12:27 AM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way? I'm travelling more than often and most recently have develop a habit to proceed through customs with Tails on SD card the persistent volume of which holds all sensitive information that I need. The content of persistent volume may be unlocked only with my hardware security key (accessed via PIN) - small dongle on my keying with the bundle of keys from home. Customs pay no attention on this stuff. I think this is feasible and secure way thus reap its benefits after reading this topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5494771). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: pooya87 on August 21, 2024, 12:16:15 PM I doubt that most customs officials are looking for evidence of bitcoin these days. That may change in the future, but for now I think Poker Player might be overthinking the issue. Depending on the country, I'd be more concerned about unlawful searches. I've been to countries where anything of value (up to cup noodles) gets "confiscated". You don't want those people to suspect you own Bitcoin.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 21, 2024, 12:23:37 PM Are you talking about the Jewelry Law Europeans have that allows them to confiscate your belongings? No.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DireWolfM14 on August 21, 2024, 12:54:04 PM I doubt that most customs officials are looking for evidence of bitcoin these days. That may change in the future, but for now I think Poker Player might be overthinking the issue. Depending on the country, I'd be more concerned about unlawful searches. I've been to countries where anything of value (up to cup noodles) gets "confiscated". You don't want those people to suspect you own Bitcoin.I didn't think of that, but very true. As for confiscating cups of noodles, that doesn't surprise me at all; they're a notorious way of hiding C4 (plastic) explosive in a seemingly innocent looking package. If you value your cups of sodium as much as I do, eat them before you arrive at your destination. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 21, 2024, 12:56:22 PM As for confiscating cups of noodles, that doesn't surprise me at all; they're a notorious way of hiding C4 (plastic) explosive in a seemingly innocent looking package. This was upon arrival, so the C4 argument doesn't matter. Someone just wanted a free meal.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DireWolfM14 on August 21, 2024, 02:34:52 PM As for confiscating cups of noodles, that doesn't surprise me at all; they're a notorious way of hiding C4 (plastic) explosive in a seemingly innocent looking package. This was upon arrival, so the C4 argument doesn't matter. Someone just wanted a free meal.At the risk of further derailing this conversion, your argument assumes that militants only target the method of transportation and not some building or person at the destination. The specific circumstance that you witnessed might be as you described it, merely someone looking for a free meal. Many years ago during one trip into the West Bank with my kids, crossing in from Jordan, we were detained by Israeli customs because we had packed my son's intubator into his bag. It's an implement for administering albuterol treatments incase of an asthma attack. We had reached our destination, but there was still a risk the machine would be confiscated by customs. Luckily one of the customs officials recognized it for what it was, and even better we didn't need it on that trip. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotATether on August 21, 2024, 03:03:07 PM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? They can search your electronics if you go through hard secondary (i.e. if you lie to them about the contents of your bag, where and why you're going and such). There is also "soft secondary" where you might be selected at random to go through, see below. Regular customs just a few seconds to get through, no more than a couple of minutes in case they send you to secondary and ask you questions about your bags and your destination. Just tell them you have a hardware wallet in there, you don't have to tell them how much unless they ask. Many years ago during one trip into the West Bank with my kids, crossing in from Jordan, we were detained by Israeli customs because we had packed my son's intubator into his bag. It's an implement for administering albuterol treatments incase of an asthma attack. We had reached our destination, but there was still a risk the machine would be confiscated by customs. Luckily one of the customs officials recognized it for what it was, and even better we didn't need it on that trip. Israeli customs is the worst (i.e. one of the most sophisticated in the world), they are notorious for having all kinds of tools for detecting anything. So definitely don't try to mislead them. Oh and before I forget - most countries do confiscate a lot of different foods because they can inadvertently carry deadly viruses. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on August 21, 2024, 07:07:13 PM There are unimaginable ways to travel with Bitcoin without being detected by customs authorities or in any case that you consider it harmful to safeguard your coins.
The first of them, as has been said a lot here, is the additional passphrase to the recovery phrase, you can choose whether or not to load the passphrase written somewhere that doesn't attract attention, such as on a page of a book or memorize it temporarily, at least less for the duration of the trip while the copy of the passphrase remains safe in your country of origin. You can load a pen drive or micro-sd card with bootable Linux live or even with taisOS installed, enable persistent storage to encrypt it or use a simpler option such as a simple keepass .kdbx file with its encrypted passphrase (protected by master password) or you can just save your recovery phrase in it, choose whether or not to configure a passphrase. For desktop, a very good option is to use veracrypt, where you must create two encrypted volumes, one being a hidden storage where your wallet backup files will be saved (wallet.dat, electrum file etc.) and a decoy container where you will use it if you are required to provide your password. If you want to load your wallet on your cell phone, on bluewallet you can create hidden encrypted storages (similar to veracrypt containers), where you configure a password for each storage and can use one of them as a decoy if you are forced to hand over the password (plausible deniability) to configure wallets with funds so as not to attract attention, while the second storage only you will know the password and there is no way for anyone to know if there is a hidden storage where your wallet that you want to protect is configured. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ranochigo on August 22, 2024, 03:10:52 AM Not bad :) So "1476. reveal" would become 5C4, the color would be #5C45C4 (https://www.color-hex.com/color/5c45c4). I wouldn't feel safe with a seed stored in "plain color" on a computer though, and printing it means you can't find back the exact color. Yeah, but you can probably define a certain offset to make it harder. If you're storing your seeds on the computer, the environment should be secure and your only concern should ideally only be whoever is trying to search your computer.Agreed on the printing part though, don't think it steganography works particularly well if you're transferring between different mediums. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on August 23, 2024, 07:37:45 PM As for confiscating cups of noodles, that doesn't surprise me at all; ... This was upon arrival, ... Someone just wanted a free meal.On the other hand, yes, could've been the simplest explanation: someone was hungry and abused the situation to their advantage. Back to topic: I probably wouldn't try too fancy hiding like color coding or such. Using a pocket translation dictionary and unsuspiciously marking the recovery words shouldn't be much noticable. Take redundancy into account! Your luggage can get lost, so have redundant copies in your hand luggage, briefcase or trouser pockets, too. When you use a strong optional mnemonic passphrase to protect your real wallet, you don't need to worry too much about having your mnemonic recovery words in more or less plain sight. Just make an assessment of the worst possible issues or loss situations at border crossing or during your journey that can arise and think about proper mitigation. You can also have thirty or more microSD cards, all of decent size and with encrypted files on them (decent sizes to make a copy attempt noticable due to time consumption needed). Only two or so (redundantly!) have encrypted volumes with what's valuable for you. The decryption key may be only strong enough for the period of your journey. You have it well and unsuspiciously hidden in multiple places in your various luggages, you have it also in your brain. Don't overcomplicate things or you shoot yourself in the foot. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DireWolfM14 on August 23, 2024, 09:35:23 PM Forsyth Jones brings up a decent strategy, but to differ a bit from his suggestion you could just use GnuPG to encrypt a text file with the seed phrase in it, and store the encrypted file on a cloud server until you reach your destination. You could also encrypt a passphrase the same way and store it in a different way, such as send it to yourself in a email that's operated by company other than the cloud service, or yet another cloud provider.
That way all you have to remember is the password for your PGP key, and you have nothing on your person or in your luggage that suggests you own bitcoin. I would rather trust an open source solution such as GPG/PGP than a third party software or an entire OS on a USB stick, and again you wouldn't have anything with you that could prompt questions. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 24, 2024, 06:57:02 AM You can also have thirty or more microSD cards, all of decent size and with encrypted files on them (decent sizes to make a copy attempt noticable due to time consumption needed). Only two or so (redundantly!) have encrypted volumes with what's valuable for you. The decryption key may be only strong enough for the period of your journey. You have it well and unsuspiciously hidden in multiple places in your various luggages, you have it also in your brain. I'd say bringing 30 encrypted SD cards is overcomplicating things ;)Don't overcomplicate things or you shoot yourself in the foot. That way all you have to remember is the password for your PGP key It reminds me of this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1014202.0): $1000 was not enough to brute-force just 6 simple characters for years while the encrypted key was posted. I wouldn't dare do this in reality though, but I'm pretty sure it would be secure.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: garlonicon on August 24, 2024, 07:16:41 AM Quote I wouldn't dare do this in reality though, but I'm pretty sure it would be secure. Well, 0.01 BTC is still sitting on a brainwallet with "pi" number: https://mempool.space/address/bc1qt2mdkehmphggajer3ur3g8l754scj4fdrmw3rnTitle: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 24, 2024, 07:26:08 AM Quote I wouldn't dare do this in reality though, but I'm pretty sure it would be secure. Well, 0.01 BTC is still sitting on a brainwallet with "pi" number: https://mempool.space/address/bc1qt2mdkehmphggajer3ur3g8l754scj4fdrmw3rnAnyway, that's not BIP38 :) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on August 24, 2024, 08:53:15 AM I'd say bringing 30 encrypted SD cards is overcomplicating things ;) Apparently I wasn't specific enough. I didn't mean to have 30 encrypted microSD cards, only very few have actually encrypted stuff on them, the others you could fill with music files or whatever you like.When you travel e.g. with a digital camera, having a lot of storage cards doesn't raise eyebrows and suspicion. Carrying a lot of cards should make it a pain for the border customs folks to inspect or even copy them all. People might be lazy... Anyway, it was just an idea. There are much simpler, non-digital ways to transport wallet recovery data safely and likely unsuspiciously through border customs. My point is: make a list of how your valuable data could be found or inspected and try to find reasonable mitigation which isn't easy to spot and involves unsuspicious items almost every voyager carries or uses. Books, personal diaries, small phone number notebook, yadda, yadda, ... Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 24, 2024, 09:20:41 AM My point is: make a list of how your valuable data could be found or inspected and try to find reasonable mitigation How many people here have actually had their electronic devices searched by customs? I don't know anyone who's had that experience.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: hd49728 on August 24, 2024, 09:41:03 AM How many people here have actually had their electronic devices searched by customs? I don't know anyone who's had that experience. They have rights to do this but they super rarely do it.Except if you are recognized by them as a threat like a terrorist and the like by true or mistaken, they will not touch you and search your electronic devices. Risk exists but not too big. I like the idea (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5506510.msg64439182#msg64439182) to uninstall wallet applications on my electronic devices and have my seed phrase in a book and in brain. If it is only for traveling, I have little reasons to bring my big wallet, all my bitcoin around and across borders, airports. By bringing a small hot wallet through traveling, I reduce risk of losing all my bitcoin. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on August 24, 2024, 10:17:06 AM They have rights to do this but they super rarely do it. That's how I see and perceive it, too. I never had real issues when crossing borders, though my sample space isn't that large.Except if you are recognized by them as a threat like a terrorist and the like by true or mistaken, they will not touch you and search your electronic devices. Risk exists but not too big. When I had a laptop in my hand luggage, it got x-rayed and I had to "prove" it's not a bomb by showing the security it turns on and "behaves" like a normal laptop. My mobile phone was never touched nor inspected nor did I have to show anything on it. People supporting Edward Snowden or Julian Assange are likely treated differently, especially when crossing USA or other very USA devoted countries' borders. We discuss here a topic with premisses set by OP. My assumption here is, you need to cross borders with all your coins you possess. Yes, I know, we don't carry the coins, we have to carry all details necessary to recover all our private keys that control all our coins. Whatever you do upfront to minimize those needed recovery details, is up to you. If I'm paranoid and don't want to give any hint that I have Bitcoin, I wouldn't carry a hardware wallet with me, even when it's factory reset. I can't assume, any security or border personal doesn't know how the most common hardware wallets look like. If I want to minimize risk, I don't stretch my luck. And this here isn't only about digital devices. Anything is valid, be it digital or analog or carved into your wet brain memory. The latter is risky, human memory is a fragile thing, keep this in mind (pun intended). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: shield132 on August 24, 2024, 10:20:59 AM From what I see from several answers, I may not have explained myself well. Going on vacation and carrying less than the legal minimum is not a problem. I was thinking more of moving to another country, and taking the holdings you normally manage with your Hardware Wallet on your laptop or PC. If I were you, this is what I would do. If I were changing living, I would probably risk moving with a Hardware wallet but since this can be an issue, I would go this way - Your t-shirt has a label tag inside. Create a wallet with 12 seed phrases, transfer coins to this wallet, then write down 12 seed phrases on your t-shirt's label tags (mine has multiple) and when you move in another country, buy a brand new hardware wallet, restore the wallet and destroy the t-shirt.I mean, carrying 0.01 BTC on your mobile is not a problem but if we are talking about 0.5 BTC that you manage with the HW.... Although I see that this is pretty hypothetical, according to the answers. I had also thought of taking the seeds written in a book or notebook on several pages, but with invisible ink, so that no way that it will occur to customs agents to search through a book of 300 pages. Be frank, isn't it very creative? And safe? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. You can also not declare. Who is going to know that you hold Bitcoins that are worth more than 10K euros? No one will know. That law also applies exclusively to cash as far as I know.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 24, 2024, 10:34:02 AM write down 12 seed phrases on your t-shirt's label tags Good luck explaining to the armed guy at customs why you wrote "armed assault monkey" on your t-shirts ;) You see what I'm going at ;)Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: shield132 on August 24, 2024, 10:42:01 AM write down 12 seed phrases on your t-shirt's label tags Good luck explaining to the armed guy at customs why you wrote "armed assault monkey" on your t-shirts ;) You see what I'm going at ;)Who is going to read this in the airport? https://talkimg.com/images/2024/08/24/7WDMw.png Keep in mind that many t-shirts have it inside in the middle part of the the body. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on August 25, 2024, 04:20:43 PM I kinda like the creative idea as long as there's enough space to write 12x 4-char-abbreviations of the mnemonic recovery words. They should be unique with four first characters. To be on the safe side, I'd protect the wallet with an additional mnemonic passphrase, just in case things go really south at the security check or whereever at customs border crossing.
Be sure to use a permanent cloth pen and recover the wallet before you wash your t-shirt again. Or check multiple washing cycles before you rely on durability of this type of backup medium. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DaveF on August 25, 2024, 05:28:14 PM I'd say bringing 30 encrypted SD cards is overcomplicating things ;) Apparently I wasn't specific enough. I didn't mean to have 30 encrypted microSD cards, only very few have actually encrypted stuff on them, the others you could fill with music files or whatever you like.When you travel e.g. with a digital camera, having a lot of storage cards doesn't raise eyebrows and suspicion. Carrying a lot of cards should make it a pain for the border customs folks to inspect or even copy them all. People might be lazy... Anyway, it was just an idea. There are much simpler, non-digital ways to transport wallet recovery data safely and likely unsuspiciously through border customs. My point is: make a list of how your valuable data could be found or inspected and try to find reasonable mitigation which isn't easy to spot and involves unsuspicious items almost every voyager carries or uses. Books, personal diaries, small phone number notebook, yadda, yadda, ... If you are going to do it that way just embed the info in a legitimate image using something like this: https://pypi.org/project/cryptosteganography/ Many other options available to do it. Even if someone looks through every image it still will not matter unless they try to decode / decrypt every image. I really don't think anyone is going to bother going that deep unless you are on some list. And if you are it probably does not matter anyway they already know what you have. -Dave Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Stalker22 on August 25, 2024, 07:03:12 PM write down 12 seed phrases on your t-shirt's label tags Good luck explaining to the armed guy at customs why you wrote "armed assault monkey" on your t-shirts ;) You see what I'm going at ;)Who is going to read this in the airport? https://talkimg.com/images/2024/08/24/7WDMw.png Keep in mind that many t-shirts have it inside in the middle part of the the body. It still carries a certain amount of risk. What if your luggage gets lost or stolen in the process? You could lose access to your wallet and funds. Hopefully, you should have backups in safe locations, but then youre back to square one. Its a creative idea, though. ;) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on August 25, 2024, 08:36:04 PM There is a video series on YouTube which is fantastic! I watched it just for fun, but I would to like to hear someone else's opinion on that, perhaps after actually trying it.
"Escape with your Bitcoin": 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWGXdn3sdp8 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMQupuGpSsw 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1urPLr83Ojg Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Free Market Capitalist on August 27, 2024, 04:57:55 AM Be frank, isn't it very creative? And safe? Not bad but for that I prefer the option I mentioned before, write the seeds in invisible ink in a book and then make it visible upon arrival at the destination to restore the wallet. There is a video series on YouTube which is fantastic! I watched it just for fun, but I would to like to hear someone else's opinion on that, perhaps after actually trying it. "Escape with your Bitcoin": 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWGXdn3sdp8 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMQupuGpSsw 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1urPLr83Ojg I think that's almost a couple of hours in total but thanks, I'll watch them. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ABCbits on August 27, 2024, 08:29:23 AM There is a video series on YouTube which is fantastic! I watched it just for fun, but I would to like to hear someone else's opinion on that, perhaps after actually trying it. "Escape with your Bitcoin": 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWGXdn3sdp8 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMQupuGpSsw 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1urPLr83Ojg I only briefly see the 1st part ("Personal Server"). But since it involve using PGP and setting server where you access it with .onion rather than plain IP address, average people would find it challenging. You're expected to ensure the server remains on and connected to internet, before you move elsewhere and access it remotely. While you could rent VPS for that task, some trust is required even though you store the encrypted data (seed, pass, etc.). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Catenaccio on August 27, 2024, 10:27:42 AM I only briefly see the 1st part ("Personal Server"). But since it involve using PGP and setting server where you access it with .onion rather than plain IP address, average people would find it challenging. It's truly challenging for normal users.I watched some videos of Andreas Antonopoulos in which he advised that people should never complicate their back up methods too much because it can result in more complex recovery procedure. In worst case, if recovery procedure is broken in the middle by broken piece of initial back ups, the wallet will be lost forever. Brute force a Bitcoin private key or wallet is almost impossible and the bottom line is keep your back up simple. Some people choose seed splitting which is risky and not recommended. Seed splitting is a bad idea (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5nSibpfHYE). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 27, 2024, 10:34:06 AM I watched some videos of Andreas Antonopoulos in which he advised that people should never complicate their back up methods too much because it can result in more complex recovery procedure. You mean like this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5497667.0)?Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: m2017 on August 27, 2024, 04:51:40 PM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way? I think the safest way to go through airport customs with bitcoin is when you have NOTHING with you that can be linked to bitcoin (no seed phrase, no hardware wallets, no pre-installed wallets on laptops and phones).I'll explain how I imagine it (but this will only work if you've already visited the point of arrival and departure, i.e. the point of arrival is not new). Point "A" (point of departure): as usual, you create a BTC-wallet with a secure storage of the seed phrase. Point "B" (point of arrival): a BTC-wallet with a secure storage of the seed phrase has been created in advance. Before the flight from point "A" to point "B" you make a transaction from the 1st wallet to the 2nd and by the time of arrival, your bitcoin will already be in the wallet, and at customs you will not have anything incriminating related to the bitcoin (in case of a detailed inspection). But this option is not suitable for emergency (unscheduled) flights. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 27, 2024, 05:06:00 PM by the time of arrival, your bitcoin will already be in the wallet It's going into semantics, but there is no Bitcoin in a wallet. Bitcoin is on the blockchain. I don't see the point of creating a wallet on your destination before funding it. Even worse: that creates new points of failure: the wallet can be compromised while you're not there.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ABCbits on August 28, 2024, 11:16:09 AM I only briefly see the 1st part ("Personal Server"). But since it involve using PGP and setting server where you access it with .onion rather than plain IP address, average people would find it challenging. It's truly challenging for normal users.I watched some videos of Andreas Antonopoulos in which he advised that people should never complicate their back up methods too much because it can result in more complex recovery procedure. In worst case, if recovery procedure is broken in the middle by broken piece of initial back ups, the wallet will be lost forever. Generally, i agree with Andreas. Although each people would choose different security/ease-of-use trade-off. Video shared by @apogio is still suitable for those who're familiar with setup and maintaining server. Point "B" (point of arrival): a BTC-wallet with a secure storage of the seed phrase has been created in advance. I think you forget to mention that you need to store the device or other medium which used store the private key/seed securely. Unless you have property on point "B", you probably have to place the device/other medium on someone's else building. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on August 28, 2024, 02:23:46 PM If you are going to do it that way just embed the info in a legitimate image using something like this: As DaveF mentioned, steganography techniques can be more interesting than other complicated methods, but before hiding a message as a seed in an image, you won't do it with a bare seed without protection, you can add a passphrase, but I wouldn't do that in this case.https://pypi.org/project/cryptosteganography/ Many other options available to do it. Even if someone looks through every image it still will not matter unless they try to decode / decrypt every image. I really don't think anyone is going to bother going that deep unless you are on some list. And if you are it probably does not matter anyway they already know what you have. -Dave One of the techniques I've been studying is seed-otp (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5495690.0), which consists of creating a multifactor authentication key, this key combined with your mnemonic phrase creates a new list of words indistinguishable from your original mnemonic phrase, which is nothing more than your encrypted seed, but instead of the encrypted output in cyphertext with a sequence of unreadable random bytes, this method uses words similar to the BIP39 wordlist to encode your original mnemonic phrase. You could stop here, but you would still have to explain to the customs guard why you still carry a list with 12/24 words (if this ever really happens, the chances of it happening I believe are very low). With the mnemonic phrase encrypted by seed-otp, you can load this information into an image by embedding it and optionally inserting a password. There are several applications that fulfill this function, one of them is OpenStego (https://www.openstego.com/) (I haven't used any others). This way, you can save the image that carries the secret of your encrypted wallet on your smartphone, pen drive or any other media device that carries images. This way, there is no way to suspect a simple image, even if you inspect your device (I've never seen this happen). You must remember your OTP key responsible for restoring the mnemonic phrase to its original state. To do this, you can save this key in a keepass file or another password manager of your choice or write it down on a piece of paper, since it won't draw attention in the same way as a list of words known to be a bitcoin wallet mnemonic. Here is an example step-by-step: 1st let's say you create a new mnemonic phrase or use an existing one, download the html file from the seed tools page (https://bitcoiner.guide/seed/) (the process is similar to iancoleman), after everything is ready, create or insert your recovery seed: https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/08/28/9G0af.png 2nd Go to "Select a Bitcoin Tool" and select the "One Time Pad" option, below there will be a "One Time pad key" field containing an otp key, if you prefer, you can generate a new otp key by clicking on "New Key". https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/08/28/9GltZ.md.png (https://www.talkimg.com/image/9GltZ) 3rd After creating the otp-key, click on "encrypt" and a new list of words similar to a mnemonic will be created, it is nothing more than your encrypted mnemonic. https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/08/28/9GxL8.png (https://www.talkimg.com/image/9GxL8) Ex: My original mnemonic: Code: auto pelican midnight initial barrel kitten aisle rate proof leader point private My otp-key: Code: AAwFIAN4AwUCxQaTBhcEsgHmBe8EagHsAVdVUxlP My encrypted one time pad seed: Code: receive bacon unfair smart topple dilemma orbit upon health armed tooth stock It is essential that you know the original mnemonic, have it written down or memorized (regardless of the method, memorize your mnemonic in addition to having it written down), save the otp-key and the one-time-pad encrypted seed so that we can test it and verify that it returns to the original state of your seed upon arrival at the airport and at your final destination. To do this, reload the page, select "one time Pad" again, paste your otp-key in the "One Time Pad Key" field, paste/type your mnemonic phrase encrypted by One Time Pad and click "DECRYPT". The final result is your original mnemonic phrase ;) https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/08/28/9MAso.png (https://www.talkimg.com/image/9MAso) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: pawel7777 on August 28, 2024, 04:56:17 PM Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. You could argue you're not bringing anything physical. Otherwise hiding it from customs would be illegal.Bitcoin isn't in your wallet, Bitcoin is on the blockchain. You may have access to it, but that's kinda like having access to your bank account when you're abroad. You're probably right, although it could be argued that e.g. a physical coin with a prepaid balance and a seed phrase (or qr code) hidden inside of it would potentially fall under declarable goods, as whoever owns it would have access to those bitcoins. It wouldn't be quite the same as having internet bank account. So potentially the method of storing bitcoins could matter for crossing a border. I suspect in some countries that could still be a grey area and subject to customs officers' interpretation. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 28, 2024, 05:05:53 PM I suspect in some countries that could still be a grey area and subject to customs officers' interpretation. Agreed, it's probably a gray area. What if for instance the private key is encrypted and I don't have the key with me?Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on August 28, 2024, 11:47:31 PM How many people here have actually had their electronic devices searched by customs? I don't know anyone who's had that experience. it has happened. just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it doesn't happen to other people.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on August 29, 2024, 06:36:35 AM How many people here have actually had their electronic devices searched by customs? I don't know anyone who's had that experience. it has happened. just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it doesn't happen to other people.Loyce meant that it's statistically rarer to be searched at the customs. Personally, I have never been searched and, none of my friends have ever been searched. But! Of course it happens. The question is, in what depth does the search go to? I mean, do they scrutinize your objects (& devices) or do they just do an ordinary check? Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on August 29, 2024, 07:06:23 AM Loyce meant that it's statistically rarer to be searched at the customs. it's statistically rare to get hacked on your computer but does that mean we should just store our private keys on the hard drive? probably not right? Quote The question is, in what depth does the search go to? I mean, do they scrutinize your objects (& devices) or do they just do an ordinary check? it all depends. if they find you suspicious and get a search warrant then they can seize your phone for forensic analysis. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 29, 2024, 08:14:31 AM Loyce meant that it's statistically rarer to be searched at the customs. Don't feed the troll ;)Quote The question is, in what depth does the search go to? I mean, do they scrutinize your objects (& devices) or do they just do an ordinary check? If you carry (give or take) 1 TB of data with you, a seed phrase is about 0.000000001% of that. I can think of so many ways to just hide a few bytes in that mountain of data, that it would take a very long time to find if you don't know where to look.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on August 29, 2024, 09:18:11 AM If you carry (give or take) 1 TB of data with you, a seed phrase is about 0.000000001% of that. I can think of so many ways to just hide a few bytes in that mountain of data, that it would take a very long time to find if you don't know where to look. I guess they have some sort of software that scans for specific types of files. I believe any .gpg, .txt, .asc, .exe file would be more suspicious than a .jpg or .png. I mean, obviously, you can find places to hide your data. Nobody would ever try to manually check 1TB of data. At the same time, automatically scanning using software is faster (good for them) but has security holes (good for the people who want to hide sensitive information) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 29, 2024, 09:40:25 AM I guess they have some sort of software that scans for specific types of files. I believe any .gpg, .txt, .asc, .exe file would be more suspicious than a .jpg or .png. I mean, obviously, you can find places to hide your data. Nobody would ever try to manually check 1TB of data. At the same time, automatically scanning using software is faster (good for them) but has security holes (good for the people who want to hide sensitive information) Let's do this, my seed phrase is surprise peace famous office settle romance fatigue wood snack episode occur atom.I write a letter about a 1. surprise I bought for my wife, but forgot at my 4. office. Then I take a picture of a 3. famous 2. peace advocate. I add a small subtle 6. romance text to an old picture of my wife, remembering when we 5. settled down. Just in case, I'll just remember words 7 and 8, and create a similar system for the remaining words. Of course, I restore the original file date on all edited files. Now that I think about it, just memorizing the words is probably easier :D Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotATether on August 29, 2024, 01:08:20 PM The question is, in what depth does the search go to? I mean, do they scrutinize your objects (& devices) or do they just do an ordinary check? In hard secondary (i.e. if you are evasive during the interrogation) they do a full forensic search of the hard drives of your computers and the storage mediums of your other devices. So if they find anything related to private keys on there then you are probably cooked. What I would do, is write the seed phrase inside a notebook on a random page, preferably one that has some other manuscript on it, and then it would arouse less suspicion from customs and border protection or another agency. I don't like the idea of using stenography or GPG on the seed phrase because it is far more likely that you forget how to recover it or it gets damaged/lost in the process. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on August 29, 2024, 11:03:45 PM Quote The question is, in what depth does the search go to? I mean, do they scrutinize your objects (& devices) or do they just do an ordinary check? If you carry (give or take) 1 TB of data with you, a seed phrase is about 0.000000001% of that. I can think of so many ways to just hide a few bytes in that mountain of data, that it would take a very long time to find if you don't know where to look.The problem with "hiding" something is you might forget how to find it. Quote Let's do this, my seed phrase is surprise peace famous office settle romance fatigue wood snack episode occur atom. I write a letter about a 1. surprise I bought for my wife, but forgot at my 4. office. Then I take a picture of a 3. famous 2. peace advocate. I add a small subtle 6. romance text to an old picture of my wife, remembering when we 5. settled down. Just in case, I'll just remember words 7 and 8, and create a similar system for the remaining words. Of course, I restore the original file date on all edited files. My head is spinning just listening to that description, Loyce. :o Quote Now that I think about it, just memorizing the words is probably easier Cheesy yeah it probably is but I don't even think you could memorize reliably a 24 word seed phrase, Loyce. I know I couldn't. People over-estimate what they can remember not only in the short term but definitely in the longterm. A 24 word seed phrase is impossible for the average person. Let's just leave it at that. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: shield132 on August 30, 2024, 11:46:47 AM My point is: make a list of how your valuable data could be found or inspected and try to find reasonable mitigation How many people here have actually had their electronic devices searched by customs? I don't know anyone who's had that experience.It still carries a certain amount of risk. What if your luggage gets lost or stolen in the process? You could lose access to your wallet and funds. Hopefully, you should have backups in safe locations, but then youre back to square one. Who cares about the luggage in this case? You have to wear this t-shirt. I bet no one will ask you to take off your t-shirt and no one will start looking for what's written inside the label that t-shirts have to warn you about how to wash it. Many of my t-shirts have label inside, in the middle part, it's invisible for everyone unless someone inspects my t-shirt which I hugely doubt. I also don't wear Calvin Klein or Armani Exchange T-shirt, so no one is gonna steal it from me :DIts a creative idea, though. ;) Not bad but for that I prefer the option I mentioned before, write the seeds in invisible ink in a book and then make it visible upon arrival at the destination to restore the wallet. I think that invisible ink is riskier than my method. At the moment I can't find disadvantage in my method :DTitle: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: adrov on August 30, 2024, 12:38:14 PM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. I would say that in general it is not legal for them to go though your apps but I have seen border control programs where it does seem mandatory, or at least they can make it more difficult for you to enter the country or hold you if you don't cooperate. I was thinking hypothetically. I have been into security checks on a lot of countries and I don't think they never searched anything inside the phone, so I guess it's safe to carry the seeds in digital format like in a separate mobile that's never connected to internet. Or you can create new wallet and fund the amount you needed then upload the seed in a cloud by this they will not have a clue of it. We only responsible to disclose we're bringing physical items like gold or cash and no need to disclose about our digital assets. Same, never heard of anyone having their phone searched at airport. Even then, you should have your shit under password, 2FA, encryption, don't have your shit saved in a NOTE, and then a shortcut on your home screen. What if you lose your phone, or it gets stolen, it's relatively easy to unlock it, so don't put your shit out in the open. Thief most likely won't find something you've put in some XY folder, but will most definitely check your pictures, google drive/keep, other popular apps he can access, also will probably go after list of everything in your Authy :/ Making me think of it, does anyone have general suggestions for phone security? Maybe a kill switch? This way if your phone get seized by customs authorities or any other thief, you can just destroy it's contect instead... Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 30, 2024, 01:27:25 PM does anyone have general suggestions for phone security? That's easy: don't trust them, don't add any data you don't want compromised. That includes a dedicated email address for the phone, no banking, only enough crypto for daily spending, no forum accounts, nothing.Disable location, disable cloud backups, disable internet when you're not using it. Even better if you keep it far enough away from you so it can't listen in all the time. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: goldkingcoiner on August 30, 2024, 01:32:14 PM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way? Lol. Why do you think that they will detect your Bitcoin? Unless you are dumb enough to leave your coins on a third party wallet, like a crypto exchange or a casino platform, they will not know about it. Sure you could have trouble with your hardware wallet, if they find it and start trying to find a way to take your coins... But memorizing your seeds is really not that bad. You just need to work on memorizing it until you can confidently say you remember. Don't you memorize your passwords, also? So seeds should not be any different. But to be honest you are being very paranoid. I doubt anyone will try to search your phone/laptop/whatever just to find your Bitcoin. And even if they do, unless you give them access to the wallet, they are not getting in. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on August 30, 2024, 09:05:48 PM So the list below is your reference.
electrum allows 12 word seed from it add a thirteenth word form the list.as electrum allows this. And you simply need to be able to send 4x13=52 numbers. from country a to country b. Write a post here and do 0001 plus 1234 which would be abandon olive or list gear on eBay. this is my listing https://www.ebay.com/itm/166875352250 2024 0901 I will do a sale I just added this on my listing it would mean 2024 woman 0901 identify So we have 4 words of the seed 8+1 left Code: 0001. abandon [mod note: reduced size of word list] Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on August 31, 2024, 12:37:53 AM So the list below is your reference. electrum allows 12 word seed from it add a thirteenth word form the list.as electrum allows this. And you simply need to be able to send 4x13=52 numbers. from country a to country b. Write a post here and do 0001 plus 1234 which would be abandon olive or list gear on eBay. this is my listing https://www.ebay.com/itm/166875352250 2024 0901 I will do a sale I just added this on my listing it would mean 2024 woman 0901 identify So we have 4 words of the seed 8+1 left i highly recommend against that type of thing. example: ebay cancels your listing, you lost 2 seed words. plus now everyone can monitor all your ebay listings to see if you are storing seed words. if so that can help them hack your wallet since they now know 2 of the 12 :o if they know your forum account on other websites, then they can get more seed words! :o Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 31, 2024, 07:25:27 AM or list gear on eBay. This is a lot more difficult to do with random numbers, and I think remembering your obfuscation system is more difficult than just remembering the words.this is my listing https://www.ebay.com/itm/166875352250 2024 0901 I will do a sale I just added this on my listing Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ovcijisir on August 31, 2024, 09:06:12 AM The most answers here are too over the top.
First I would simply avoid ANY connection to BTC, no stickers with BTC logo on your laptop, no keychains, t-shirts, baseball hats etc. It will help you to avoid getting on guards radar. This is especially important if you are visiting countries known for corruption or countries that are in the middle war conflict. If you are not high profile person that already has unwanted attention of government bodies the risk of confiscating your seed is minimal. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on August 31, 2024, 10:59:17 AM no stickers with BTC logo on your laptop Not a bad idea. With this sticker, you can mislead anyone:https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSopXkoUZF0w98gJnkyAF4RN_i8h4p3r_Tilw&s Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ovcijisir on August 31, 2024, 09:43:27 PM I wonder how no one suggested using body cavities as a hiding place.
There is no better place for seed words then in single pill container inserted safely in ones rectum. Luckily I don't try to smuggle my BTC over my countrys border. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on August 31, 2024, 11:03:15 PM But memorizing your seeds is really not that bad. You just need to work on memorizing it until you can confidently say you remember. Don't you memorize your passwords, also? So seeds should not be any different. But to be honest you are being very paranoid. I doubt anyone will try to search your phone/laptop/whatever just to find your Bitcoin. And even if they do, unless you give them access to the wallet, they are not getting in. And if you prefer, you can delete the wallet app and memorize the seed (with or without a passphrase). You can keep a copy in your home country so that you do not rely exclusively on your memory. Memorizing a 12-word mnemonic is not that difficult. Remember that if you encrypt your wallet, shouldn't you remember your encryption password to access the wallet? In this case, it's better to memorize the mnemonic directly, and anyone can do it. I myself have memorized one of 24 that I no longer use, and I have more than 1 memorized. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on August 31, 2024, 11:24:22 PM no stickers with BTC logo on your laptop Not a bad idea. With this sticker, you can mislead anyone:https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSopXkoUZF0w98gJnkyAF4RN_i8h4p3r_Tilw&s even a sticker like that leaks alot of information including the fact that you are knowledgeable about crypto. you know about bitcoin and maybe you prefer to use an an alternate cryptocurrency such as ethereum. then they start asking you why you don't use bitcoin and you're in a discussion about cryptocurrencies and how you handle your finances... Quote from: ovcijisir I wonder how no one suggested using body cavities as a hiding place. There is no better place for seed words then in single pill container inserted safely in ones rectum. that would be the dumbest thing you could ever do. as soon as they see that on an x-ray they are going to immediately assume you are smuggling DRUGS. Quote Luckily I don't try to smuggle my BTC over my countrys border. it doesn't sound like you would be too good at it... :oTitle: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: goldkingcoiner on August 31, 2024, 11:34:06 PM I wonder how no one suggested using body cavities as a hiding place. There is no better place for seed words then in single pill container inserted safely in ones rectum. Luckily I don't try to smuggle my BTC over my countrys border. Will you also be wearing a "I volunteer for a cavity search" shirt when performing this stunt of human ingenuity? Or are you just going to hope that the security does not notice the guy who has an uncomfortable face when sitting down? ::) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on September 01, 2024, 04:50:42 AM Will you also be wearing a "I volunteer for a cavity search" shirt when performing this stunt of human ingenuity? Lol. Hiding your Bitcoin by acting like a drug smuggler.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ovcijisir on September 01, 2024, 05:34:47 AM Quote from: ovcijisir I wonder how no one suggested using body cavities as a hiding place. There is no better place for seed words then in single pill container inserted safely in ones rectum. that would be the dumbest thing you could ever do. as soon as they see that on an x-ray they are going to immediately assume you are smuggling DRUGS. Quote Luckily I don't try to smuggle my BTC over my countrys border. it doesn't sound like you would be too good at it... :oYou seem challenged in understanding sarcasm. I wonder how no one suggested using body cavities as a hiding place. There is no better place for seed words then in single pill container inserted safely in ones rectum. Luckily I don't try to smuggle my BTC over my countrys border. Will you also be wearing a "I volunteer for a cavity search" shirt when performing this stunt of human ingenuity? Or are you just going to hope that the security does not notice the guy who has an uncomfortable face when sitting down? ::) I will let you do that, it was your idea first after all. Please provide detailed report to us how it went. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Free Market Capitalist on September 01, 2024, 05:54:33 AM I think that invisible ink is riskier than my method. At the moment I can't find disadvantage in my method :D Why? I saw that you were going to write the reason but you must have gotten paralysis in your hands or something because I don't see that you wrote it down. The most answers here are too over the top. I think so too. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ABCbits on September 01, 2024, 08:58:08 AM --snip-- even a sticker like that leaks alot of information including the fact that you are knowledgeable about crypto. you know about bitcoin and maybe you prefer to use an an alternate cryptocurrency such as ethereum. then they start asking you why you don't use bitcoin and you're in a discussion about cryptocurrencies and how you handle your finances...I would say "have heard about Bitcoin" is more accurate than "knowledge about Bitcoin". People could hate Bitcoin by keep hearing news Bitcoin price crashing or misused by criminal. But otherwise, i agree it would make people stand out. --snip-- You seem challenged in understanding sarcasm. These days, it's harder to tell whether people being sarcastic or actually mean what they said. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: FatFork on September 01, 2024, 08:59:47 AM You seem challenged in understanding sarcasm. Understandable, since you forgot to put <sarcasm> tags. ;) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: mindrust on September 01, 2024, 09:16:42 AM Just don't tell them? BTC isn't something physical so if you are not stupid enough to write it on your forehead that you have bitcoins, nobody will notice anything. You could carry a million bitcoins in a usb disk. Nobody will know it. Your wallet is literally a text file which carries your public keys or seed words. If you don't even want to carry a usb stick, then memorize your words and it will be even better. With bitcoin&crypto, unless you make stupid moves, you can't fail. In fact, you need to try very hard.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: shield132 on September 01, 2024, 09:20:21 AM I think that invisible ink is riskier than my method. At the moment I can't find disadvantage in my method :D Why? I saw that you were going to write the reason but you must have gotten paralysis in your hands or something because I don't see that you wrote it down. No one is going to steal your t-shirt as you wear it. Btw don't wear Armani Exchange or Calvin Klein, that's a little riskier :D What pros and cons do you see in both ideas? I would love to hear that from you too. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on September 01, 2024, 09:49:24 AM Based on my personal experience so far crossing country borders, customs or security at airports, it would be perfectly safe to write recovery words on my underwear with some cloth marker. Enough space there and I never had to expose it, nor was anyone interested to inspect my underwear.
The most intrusive experience I had were those by-hand inspections at airport security when the metal or whatever detector decided to flag me for manual inspection. The touching security officer never cared of any small piece of paper I had in my trouser pockets or any pieces of clothes below the visible outer layer. I'm aware that my own experience can't be generalized and isn't a foolproof plan. Simply avoid anything that hints to crypto currencies or that you might know or do something with Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatnot other shitcoins. And I try to avoid crossing borders of countries with vastly unpredictable and arbitrary "methods" at customs, security or police. If you're paranoid, you need some elaborate scheme. If you're, I'd like to say, rational, it's no big deal, see above or other less complicated methods of transport mentioned earlier in this thread. My little extra paranoia tells me to always use an additional mnemonic passphrase when you transport your mnemonic recovery words "in the more or less open". Should your mnemonic recovery words get exposed by whatever unlikely event during transport, your wallet would still be safe and hidden by your additional mnemonic passphrase (the 13th or 25th added secret). It should be easy to memorize the additional mnemonic passphrase and carry it also written and well hidden with you as failsafe backup should your brain memory fail you for whatever reason. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ovcijisir on September 01, 2024, 12:48:09 PM --snip-- You seem challenged in understanding sarcasm. These days, it's harder to tell whether people being sarcastic or actually mean what they said. I guess that lockdowns and isolation took toll on people's social skills. You seem challenged in understanding sarcasm. Understandable, since you forgot to put <sarcasm> tags. ;) <Sarcasm> We shouldn't forget closing tags too, so the joke syntax is correct. It could produce error message if used in incorrect format. </Sarcasm> Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on September 01, 2024, 12:53:00 PM <Sarcasm> How did a tech topic turn into a social topic? Sarcasm is best when you don't point it out, and even better if people aren't sure whether you're being sarcastic or really mean it :DWe shouldn't forget closing tags too, so the joke syntax is correct. It could produce error message if used in incorrect format. </Sarcasm> Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: ovcijisir on September 01, 2024, 07:32:51 PM How did a tech topic turn into a social topic? Sarcasm is best when you don't point it out, and even better if people aren't sure whether you're being sarcastic or really mean it :D It spiraled a little out of control due to misunderstanding. Back on topic about hiding private keys. I remembered how I kept some notes hidden when I was little. I disassembled pen and made little scroll out of pittle piece of paper. Then I would put it in pen's tube and assembled pen back together. If the pen has opaque tube it will be pretty hard to discover the note. If I would be really paranoid I would use lemon juice to make invisible ink and write seed words with it. After arrival to destination I would recreate the wallet. By applying heat from the lighter seed words would appear and it would be possible to write them in wallet app. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on September 01, 2024, 10:14:32 PM After following this topic and seeing some answers, I have come to the following conclusion:
If you want to cross a country's border and are afraid that customs will take your piece of paper, use: Encryption: encrypt the mnemonic phrase using AES, GPG, use a hidden drive encrypted with veracrypt, transport the encrypted file on a pen drive, transfer it to the cloud (it's highly unlikely that you will access, for example, your Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. account). Make sure to use a strong password, but you will have another job to do, which is to remember this password or write it down offline in a safe place. But the advantage is that a password will not attract as much attention as a sequence of 12/24 words. Seed division using shamir backup (slip-39) is something that I would not recommend at this time, despite the advantages offered, I've not yet tested this feature, in addition to having more work to store and carry a bunch of recovery papers of 3-5 for example, it would not be useful when traveling internationally. Another strategy would be to keep copies of the mnemonic phrase (encrypted or not) with a relative or friend in the destination country. In this case, it's essential to add a BIP-39 Passphrase so that you don't run the risk of having it stored by the custodian for the time being. Using a passphrase has already been discussed extensively here, so it would be the most obvious solution and I'll not go into much detail about it. Back on topic about hiding private keys. I remembered how I kept some notes hidden when I was little. I disassembled pen and made little scroll out of pittle piece of paper. Then I would put it in pen's tube and assembled pen back together. If the pen has opaque tube it will be pretty hard to discover the note. I found this strategy very interesting, but don't doubt too much about the possibility of being discovered if you are (very, very) unlucky enough to have a customs guard on a bad day and want to search all your things.I still think the strategy of using seed-otp (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081017) for encryption is the best of all, because in addition to creating plausible deniability even if they discover that you carry a seed with you, it is a totally random seed of your original seed that can only return to the original state using the source otp key, you can still use steganography to hide this phrase. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on September 02, 2024, 03:13:10 AM Will you also be wearing a "I volunteer for a cavity search" shirt when performing this stunt of human ingenuity? Lol. Hiding your Bitcoin by acting like a drug smuggler.that's like asking for double the trouble. turning a small crime into a huge one. transporting bitcoin accross the border might be seen as a small crime but doing it in a way that makes it look like you're smuggling drugs? extra dumb. don't pass go, go directly to prison. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DaveF on September 02, 2024, 02:51:54 PM Will you also be wearing a "I volunteer for a cavity search" shirt when performing this stunt of human ingenuity? Or are you just going to hope that the security does not notice the guy who has an uncomfortable face when sitting down? ::) https://talkimg.com/images/2024/09/02/9o2lg.jpeg But beyond that, I think we have covered a lot of ways to do what the OP was looking to do. Pushing the tech side a bit more, how about running your own node at home with funds and then just using a remote access program to log into it and then sending the funds to your wallet on your phone (or wherever) once you get where you are going. In theory you never went though customs with BTC. Not really secure since you now have a PC that is online with BTC stored on it with some form of remote access but if you are more concerned with passing through security then about security it's not that bad a concept. Pushing past that there you can setup a wallet on your phone / device and use a time-lock transaction to send to it. If someone looks at your phone they would see a wallet with nothing in it and then at some time in the future funds would be sent. -Dave Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: goldkingcoiner on September 02, 2024, 09:24:51 PM Will you also be wearing a "I volunteer for a cavity search" shirt when performing this stunt of human ingenuity? Lol. Hiding your Bitcoin by acting like a drug smuggler.that's like asking for double the trouble. turning a small crime into a huge one. transporting bitcoin accross the border might be seen as a small crime but doing it in a way that makes it look like you're smuggling drugs? extra dumb. don't pass go, go directly to prison. I actually had to create a meme in honor of ovcijisir 's amazing post: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GWgDx3bXUAAlgpb?format=jpg&name=small Twitter link (https://x.com/BTC_GKC/status/1830717409436848372) Will you also be wearing a "I volunteer for a cavity search" shirt when performing this stunt of human ingenuity? Or are you just going to hope that the security does not notice the guy who has an uncomfortable face when sitting down? ::) https://talkimg.com/images/2024/09/02/9o2lg.jpeg amazing shirt :D Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on September 03, 2024, 06:40:07 PM Head cinema: priceless! ;D
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DireWolfM14 on September 04, 2024, 03:29:44 AM no stickers with BTC logo on your laptop Not a bad idea. With this sticker, you can mislead anyone:https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSopXkoUZF0w98gJnkyAF4RN_i8h4p3r_Tilw&s Hmm, that might work. You could also march right up the the customs official and immediately proclaim "there's no bitcoin here, officer. Nope, not a single satoshi." I wonder how no one suggested using body cavities as a hiding place. Top of page 2: Certainly safer and more comfortable than using your prison wallet. :o if you are not stupid enough to write it on your forehead that you have bitcoins This gets me thinking, tattoo your seed on the inside of your eyelids! Damn, I'm brilliant sometimes. No one is going to steal your t-shirt Are you sure about that? https://media.them.us/photos/5f80df1cc4db99573a206d4e/1:1/w_1080,h_1080,c_limit/ncod_sam.jpg After reading all the responses, if it were me I would just encrypt my seed with PGP and store it on my own cloud server (using nextcloud for example.) My funds would be in a wallet with a passphrase that I remember and wouldn't need to store digitally. That way I only have to remember my PGP password and my passphrase. Once I reach the destination I would move my funds to a seed that never saw the light of digitization. For the duration of time it takes you to travel to your destination and preform the logistical steps to recover your funds, it's highly unlikely that some one would have the time to hack your server, crack your PGP, and and crack your passphrase. You wouldn't even have to use your own server, that's overkill. Google drive would suffice for that short of a period. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on September 04, 2024, 04:12:55 AM why not just declare your bitcoin that you are travelling with. if you own more than $10,000 worth it is probably a prudent thing to do since they have that type of rule with cash. i think where people go wrong is not declaring their money and then it gets confiscated from them they lose it. just because you declare your money if it's more than $10,000 doesn't mean you are going to lose it. but one sure way to lose it is to not declare it.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotATether on September 05, 2024, 07:33:32 AM why not just declare your bitcoin that you are travelling with. if you own more than $10,000 worth it is probably a prudent thing to do since they have that type of rule with cash. i think where people go wrong is not declaring their money and then it gets confiscated from them they lose it. just because you declare your money if it's more than $10,000 doesn't mean you are going to lose it. but one sure way to lose it is to not declare it. The hardware wallet might get confiscated, if there isn't a hardware wallet but it's on any of your devices then they might seize all of those too. Sure, unless you were dim-witted enough to not password-protect your wallet and write down your seed when you were creating your wallet, you probably have an offline copy somewhere, but even if you do manage to transfer the coins out later, they are going to place your destination address on a list for sure. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on September 05, 2024, 07:46:56 AM Sure, unless you were dim-witted enough to not password-protect your wallet and write down your seed when you were creating your wallet, you probably have an offline copy somewhere, but even if you do manage to transfer the coins out later, they are going to place your destination address on a list for sure. They'll only know your addresses if they have (watch-only) access to your wallet. If you're trying to hide the fact that you own Bitcoin, you've failed at this point :PTitle: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotATether on September 05, 2024, 07:54:33 AM They'll only know your addresses if they have (watch-only) access to your wallet. That would depend on the wallet software itself and whether it leaves around master public keys and addresses encrypted or if they encrypt everything. I think Bitcoin Core for example encrypts just the private keys (but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), and leaves the public keys (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4448.0) alone. I don't exactly remember the columns its using but I do know there are a lot of key-related fields. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on September 05, 2024, 08:20:50 AM I think Bitcoin Core for example encrypts just the private keys (but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), and leaves the public keys (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4448.0) alone. I don't exactly remember the columns its using but I do know there are a lot of key-related fields. We're talking about the scenario of hiding the fact that you own Bitcoin. Disk encryption will prevent your wallet from being found. You could even use a hidden encrypted partition. There are countless ways of doing this.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Lucius on September 05, 2024, 02:57:28 PM I think that regardless of the fact that there are a lot of fancy methods that could work at customs, it might be best to temporarily store the seed in your memory, especially if we will do a wallet recovery relatively soon after leaving the airport. If someone has a problem remembering 12 words, maybe he could try to remember only 6 of them, and save the other half on a piece of paper that can look like a list of things to buy or something similar.
What I would never do is carry a hardware wallet with you, or have wallets installed on your smartphone or computer, especially if you are traveling to countries like the US, Canada or Australia that have very aggressive security in their airports when it comes to customs, especially if you come from countries that are on their suspicious lists. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: shield132 on September 05, 2024, 03:14:42 PM I think that regardless of the fact that there are a lot of fancy methods that could work at customs, it might be best to temporarily store the seed in your memory, especially if we will do a wallet recovery relatively soon after leaving the airport. If someone has a problem remembering 12 words, maybe he could try to remember only 6 of them, and save the other half on a piece of paper that can look like a list of things to buy or something similar. It's very individual. For those who have ADHD or are inattentive, it won't be a reliable solution but those who believe in their mental abilities, they can do it. Btw I have read many times on Bitcointalk that it's not recommended to make yourself dependent on your memory in this case.What I would never do is carry a hardware wallet with you, or have wallets installed on your smartphone or computer, especially if you are traveling to countries like the US, Canada or Australia that have very aggressive security in their airports when it comes to customs, especially if you come from countries that are on their suspicious lists. I think that OP will be safe if he travels with his computer. If I remember correctly, he wants to move in Europe. I've traveled in EU a couple of times but their customs were always great in my case. I can't imagine any custom asking you to open your PC, then force you to type password and then do a deep scan of your computer files. As far as I know, their priority are guns and drugs, besides that they don't careA friend of mine has migraines and when I visit him in Europe, he asks me to bring one particular NSAID to him. This NSAID I'm talking about is legal and without prescription in my country but illegal in his country (it's an NSAID that's very harsh on the liver) but I never ever had a problem with customs about moving with this medicine. Btw Australia is the harshest place to travel regarding customs checks, but if you don't tell anyone about your Bitcoin holdings, no one will know about it. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Lucius on September 06, 2024, 10:08:47 AM It's very individual. For those who have ADHD or are inattentive, it won't be a reliable solution but those who believe in their mental abilities, they can do it. Btw I have read many times on Bitcointalk that it's not recommended to make yourself dependent on your memory in this case. ~snip~ Of course, you should never trust your own memory when it comes to such sensitive information, but if it is something that should be remembered only in the short term, I don't see that it should be a problem for most. However, it is the decision of each individual and everyone should take the risk on themselves when it comes to their digital assets. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on September 07, 2024, 09:50:31 AM From what I see from several answers, I may not have explained myself well. Going on vacation and carrying less than the legal minimum is not a problem. I was thinking more of moving to another country, and taking the holdings you normally manage with your Hardware Wallet on your laptop or PC. If you live in EU and move within EU, then you won't have problem with customs because the only thing they care about are guns, drugs come the next thing.I mean, carrying 0.01 BTC on your mobile is not a problem but if we are talking about 0.5 BTC that you manage with the HW.... Although I see that this is pretty hypothetical, according to the answers. I had also thought of taking the seeds written in a book or notebook on several pages, but with invisible ink, so that no way that it will occur to customs agents to search through a book of 300 pages. By the way, I like the idea of writing down seed phrases on paper with invisible ink but I wouldn't carry invisible ink with me, I'd only carry a notebook. You can also write things down on supermarket bill and carry that with you in the bag or in the pocket. T-shirt method also doesn't sound bad. I think you have to try many safe methods. If I were you, I would do both, invisible ink and t-shirt method but on top of that, I would also try to memorize 12 words seed phrase. Now you have 3 backups, that would give me a piece of mind in this case. Memorizing isn't hard, especially of 12 words seed phrase but don't do it the day before you fly, do it weeks before your flight. Exercise every day, repeat those 12 words every day for multiple times, for hours and it will be sealed in your mind. Read this 12 seed phrase like it's a song and it will be like a muscle-memory. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on September 07, 2024, 11:52:01 AM ~~~ Using at least two different methods isn't a bad idea and usually easily possible. Having piece of mind and staying relaxed gives confidence and makes you less suspicious when crossing "potentially problematic" customs borders.I agree that memorizing isn't actually difficult, even for a 24 mnemonic recovery words backup. You just need more time to properly learn it and find a technique of learning that suits you personally best. If you want to memorize it as an additional fallback backup, do it indeed weeks or even months ahead. No time pressure! Once you learned it, it's important to constantly and regularly check you remember it correctly. Do not omit this step, it's what keeps it engraved in your wet brain. Whatever fancy methods you choose, verify that each method yields a successful recovery BEFORE you actually relocate and cross borders! Needless to say, do this only in safe environments and understand what you're doing! Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: larry_vw_1955 on September 08, 2024, 04:51:59 AM Memorizing isn't hard, especially of 12 words seed phrase but don't do it the day before you fly, do it weeks before your flight. Exercise every day, repeat those 12 words every day for multiple times, for hours and it will be sealed in your mind. Read this 12 seed phrase like it's a song and it will be like a muscle-memory. memorizing is out of the question. it's harder than memorizing a brainwallet. no amount of practice is going to allow to remember it for longer than a few hours if that. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Lucius on September 08, 2024, 10:52:16 AM Memorizing isn't hard, especially of 12 words seed phrase but don't do it the day before you fly, do it weeks before your flight. Exercise every day, repeat those 12 words every day for multiple times, for hours and it will be sealed in your mind. Read this 12 seed phrase like it's a song and it will be like a muscle-memory. memorizing is out of the question. it's harder than memorizing a brainwallet. no amount of practice is going to allow to remember it for longer than a few hours if that.If you have problems remembering 12 words for more than a few hours, it does not mean that this is the case with others. People remember whole pages of text, although they may be talented individuals, but it is far from impossible to remember only 12 words if someone wants to. The thing is that you don't learn all the words at once, you learn them in sequences of, say, 3 words that you then connect into wholes after each sequence you remember. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on September 08, 2024, 12:08:50 PM Memorizing isn't hard, especially of 12 words seed phrase but don't do it the day before you fly, do it weeks before your flight. Exercise every day, repeat those 12 words every day for multiple times, for hours and it will be sealed in your mind. Read this 12 seed phrase like it's a song and it will be like a muscle-memory. memorizing is out of the question. it's harder than memorizing a brainwallet. no amount of practice is going to allow to remember it for longer than a few hours if that.If you have problems remembering 12 words for more than a few hours, it does not mean that this is the case with others. People remember whole pages of text, although they may be talented individuals, but it is far from impossible to remember only 12 words if someone wants to. The thing is that you don't learn all the words at once, you learn them in sequences of, say, 3 words that you then connect into wholes after each sequence you remember. yeah and know that if you forget them you lose over 10,000 Euros in btc. frankly I like my ebbed ebay idea better or look at the list I made a few pages ago. Code: 0001. abandon Send emails to other emails. You fucking clown don't kid me about this year. 0353 = clown 0979 = kid 1799 = this 2040 = year Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on September 08, 2024, 12:18:09 PM Memorizing isn't hard, especially of 12 words seed phrase but don't do it the day before you fly, do it weeks before your flight. Exercise every day, repeat those 12 words every day for multiple times, for hours and it will be sealed in your mind. Read this 12 seed phrase like it's a song and it will be like a muscle-memory. memorizing is out of the question. it's harder than memorizing a brainwallet. no amount of practice is going to allow to remember it for longer than a few hours if that. Seriously, there is nothing hard in memorizing. If you have never been in touch with educational materials, never learnt anything at school and do only repetitive tasks your whole life with the guidance of other people, you might fail but otherwise there shouldn't be a problem. yeah and know that if you forget them you lose over 10,000 Euros in btc. If you loss paper or anything where you wrote your seed phrases, you are also losing over 10,000 Euros in BTC. The difference?Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on September 08, 2024, 12:20:40 PM Memorizing isn't hard, especially of 12 words seed phrase but don't do it the day before you fly, do it weeks before your flight. Exercise every day, repeat those 12 words every day for multiple times, for hours and it will be sealed in your mind. Read this 12 seed phrase like it's a song and it will be like a muscle-memory. memorizing is out of the question. it's harder than memorizing a brainwallet. no amount of practice is going to allow to remember it for longer than a few hours if that. Seriously, there is nothing hard in memorizing. If you have never been in touch with educational materials, never learnt anything at school and do only repetitive tasks your whole life with the guidance of other people, you might fail but otherwise there shouldn't be a problem. yeah and know that if you forget them you lose over 10,000 Euros in btc. If you loss paper or anything where you wrote your seed phrases, you are also losing over 10,000 Euros in BTC. The difference?as I said use the list and write 4 emails with proper words encoding. It is basically only for 12-24 hours time I have a dozen email accounts it is easy to send emails on them embedding 3 words per email. It is more secure than your brain is. now the flaw with my idea is you may not realize that a word is on the list I first said You fucking clown don't kid me about this year. when I checked I missed. You fucking clown don't kid me about this year worse yet checking again I see I missed You fucking clown don't kid me about this year Still if you check the 3 or 4 emails with the key word sentence ten times over. you should be good. more likely you can do that then remember 12 words with a ton of coins on the line. BTW you could do both. Send 1 email with a sentence with 5 words and only have to memorize 7 words. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on September 08, 2024, 12:30:49 PM as I said use the list and write 4 emails with proper words encoding. For example, take these randomly picked words: acoustic bulb coconut door feed gold man naive pencil repair they wifeIt is basically only for 12-24 hours time I have a dozen email accounts it is easy to send emails on them embedding 3 words per email. It is more secure than your brain is. Remember four of them: Acoustic bulb coconut door. Repeat these words for hours every day, for a week. Now remember these five (five because I find it personally easy to remember pencil with naive): feed gold man naive pencil Now these three: repair they wife Once you remember them, then repeat these 12 words for hours every day for a few weeks. By repeating so many times, it will be sealed in your brain so hard that you'll find it impossible to forget it. I still remember lyrics that I learnt decades ago when I first started English. By the way, another creative idea for bilinguals is to convert these words in their native language. This idea is especially good if your language isn't widely spoken. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on September 08, 2024, 12:34:39 PM a blend of memorization and email may be best of both worlds
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on September 08, 2024, 12:36:19 PM yeah and know that if you forget them you lose over 10,000 Euros in btc. That's why you have a backup somewhere in a safe location ;)Quote Send emails to other emails. 0004 = aboutYou fucking clown don't kid me about this year. 0353 = clown 0979 = kid 1799 = this 2040 = year as I said use the list and write 4 emails with proper words encoding. Someone can figure it out, or you can forget it. This is not how you handle seed phrases securely.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: aliveNFT on September 08, 2024, 01:10:42 PM Funny question, I haven't read all the previous posts, just some.
take your favorite phrase and compose a short poem and remember it)) Done. Just a set of random words will fly out of your head at any given time, but if it's some kind of meaningful verse or mini-prose, then I think it can be remembered for the rest of your life without any problems. But if in fact, then there are a ton of options, they can be invented on the go and there will be no wrong answer anywhere, it is most likely individual, someone is good in literature, someone in mathematics, let him remember how convenient it is for him. If you have a family, make them learn it too)) In case one of you forgets. Or even better, just write it on paper. You can even show it to other people, no one will even understand that there is something more than just meaning in this poem. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: FatFork on September 08, 2024, 01:58:23 PM take your favorite phrase and compose a short poem and remember it)) Done. We talked about this already. Human memory isn't the most reliable for preserving key information. Even if it's a really awesome poem that sticks in your head at first, eventually you'll probably forget pieces of it. It's much better to write it down and keep it safe. You should always have a backup plan. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on September 09, 2024, 07:06:11 PM Even if it's a really awesome poem that sticks in your head at first, eventually you'll probably forget pieces of it. It's much better to write it down and keep it safe. You should always have a backup plan. I totally agree. If you have something inside your brain there are literally numerous ways to lose it. 1. Just forget it 2. Die 3. Severe brain damage 4. Dementia 5. Getting hit on the head 6. Car accident Neve rely on memory! Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Agbe on September 13, 2024, 10:11:41 AM Using encrypted disk and other mobile storage device would have been better but if an traveling airport agent can check your mobile phone apps then they can equally check those devices in their computers to know the kind of softwares and files in your disk or memory cards. Therefore the best way from my opinion, it better you save the seed phrase in a zipfolder and save it in your googledrive or in your Gmail and when you have reached your destination then you extract it write it down and use it to open the Bitcoin wallet and delete it from the GDrive.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on September 13, 2024, 11:14:35 AM I totally agree. Are you sure that if you get a serious brain damage, develop rapid dementia, will get hit on the head like Prichard Colon or will be in car accident, then it doesn't matter whether you have wrote down your seed phrases or have remembered it, you'll forget it anyways.If you have something inside your brain there are literally numerous ways to lose it. 1. Just forget it 2. Die 3. Severe brain damage 4. Dementia 5. Getting hit on the head 6. Car accident Neve rely on memory! If you got such a traumatic event in your life, then you'll forget that you have coins and in the best case, you'll forget where you have stored your seed phrases. So, that's a very weak argument against remembering of seed phrases and doesn't make writing down method superior. Your coins are lost in both way! Using encrypted disk and other mobile storage device would have been better but if an traveling airport agent can check your mobile phone apps then they can equally check those devices in their computers to know the kind of softwares and files in your disk or memory cards. Therefore the best way from my opinion, it better you save the seed phrase in a zipfolder and save it in your googledrive or in your Gmail and when you have reached your destination then you extract it write it down and use it to open the Bitcoin wallet and delete it from the GDrive. First of all, I think that it's very unlikely from customs to inspect your computer and even if they decide to inspect, then how is encrypted disk space going to protect you? They'll force you to decrypt it or will seize your hardware.Saving something on Google Drive is never a good idea. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on September 13, 2024, 01:03:50 PM If you got such a traumatic event in your life, then you'll forget that you have coins and in the best case, you'll forget where you have stored your seed phrases. So, that's a very weak argument against remembering of seed phrases and doesn't make writing down method superior. Your coins are lost in both way! Memory is like RAM, whereas any storage medium is like an HDD. If you have it stored in memory, you have no chance of recovering it if the memory fails. If you have it stored in some physical medium, then there are some chances to restore it: 1. You may find it somewhere by luck. 2. A very close relative who knows that you own bitcoin can remind you this fact and help you relocate the backup. So yeah, in all of the cases mentioned above, you are in a very bad situation. But in the first scenario, chances are 0%. So, anything higher than 0%, sorry but I will take it! You can of course keep it in your memory if you feel safe with it! Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on September 14, 2024, 03:47:49 PM Memory is like RAM, whereas any storage medium is like an HDD. Exactly! Memory is like a RAM but in real life, how do you store information from RAM to SSD (You get downgraded to HDD when you become old :D )? You repeat the information over and over again and then it gets imprinted in your memory.If you have it stored in memory, you have no chance of recovering it if the memory fails. I think we agree that you should save seed phrase in a very safe place, right? So if memory fails, then you won't find it and even if you find it, you'll most likely ignore it because your failed memory thinks it's some shit written on paper.If you have it stored in some physical medium, then there are some chances to restore it: 1. You may find it somewhere by luck. 2. A very close relative who knows that you own bitcoin can remind you this fact and help you relocate the backup. So yeah, in all of the cases mentioned above, you are in a very bad situation. But in the first scenario, chances are 0%. So, anything higher than 0%, sorry but I will take it! You can of course keep it in your memory if you feel safe with it! 2. Should we tell our close relatives that we own Bitcoin? I think, that's not a good idea. By the way, in this case we talk about one day. OP wants to move in another country without losing access to his coins. He can train for weeks to remember his 12 word seed phrases and once he goes in another country and settles down, he can recover his wallet and then keeps seed phrases written down and saved somewhere safer. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Ambatman on September 21, 2024, 12:42:45 PM He can train for weeks to remember his 12 word seed phrases and once he goes in another country and settles down, he can recover his wallet and then keeps seed phrases written down and saved somewhere safer. I learnt it the hard way Never fully trust your Brain. There are various ways and many has been stated here the easy the complex To add to the list, you can write it on different part of your body. They ain't going to tell you to off your underwear right? Write it on a book of songs(hand written) and input it in their lyrics. Is possible to write a kids story with your seedphrase. At part from kids haters, who doesnt love kids. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on September 21, 2024, 09:18:53 PM - We don't need to rely 100% on memory, just follow the normal security checkups like storing the seed phrase in safe places (preferably, I prefer to encrypt them either with BIP-85 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5505458.msg64401888#msg64401888) or Seed-Otp (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5495690.0)) and memorizing the seed phrase as an extra way, you don't need to delete the physical backups you have made.I can memorize a 12-word seed phrase in less than a day using spaced repetition: first I memorize the first 6 words and then the last 6 words and then I try to repeat them (not out loud, but mentally, without emitting voices when I am near electronic devices with radio or Wifi signal) all 12. If one day I forget, I can retrieve them from my physical backups that I have spread them out. But for an international trip that can last at most 1 or 2 weeks I never forget, ever! Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on September 22, 2024, 04:29:24 AM I think I wrote this already. If you memorize something important, you need to recall it on a regular basis and check if you still remember it correctly. For this check you will always need a reliable backup for verification.
Once you have learned 12 or 24 recovery words, you can't stop recalling them. At first you may recall them once or multiple times a day, later maybe only once a day and then prolong the recall period to maybe once in a few days. Simply don't stop recalling and verifying. This should work for everybody who is mentally stable and has no brain health issues. Avoid getting heavily drunk, though! Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: JohanM on September 23, 2024, 06:53:53 AM Quote First of all, I think that it's very unlikely from customs to inspect your computer and even if they decide to inspect, then how is encrypted disk space going to protect you? They'll force you to decrypt it or will seize your hardware. Saving something on Google Drive is never a good idea. That's why you use encrypted disk/files with hidden partitions (like VeraCrypt can do). If forced to decrypt you just give the standard password which decrypts to some wallet with only minimal value in it. The hidden partition is impossible to detect/prove and only accessible with the correct second password. When they seize your hardware you still have dozens of backups at home, online, whatever in the same encrypted container. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Reatim on September 25, 2024, 12:31:39 PM Are you sure that if you get a serious brain damage, develop rapid dementia, will get hit on the head like Prichard Colon or will be in car accident, then it doesn't matter whether you have wrote down your seed phrases or have remembered it, you'll forget it anyways. Maybe you should have a safe person where you have said to check a specific place where you can show them that you indeed have bitcoin and ways to access it. It should be someone you trust of course which would be difficult to find for sure but legality needs to come in here so that you can make sure that that trusted person will only access the funds when you have been injured.Quote Saving something on Google Drive is never a good idea. Definitely not. I have seen way too many google accounts being compromised for me to trust them enough to store anything sensitive. Not to mention that google is way too centralized for my liking. They use our information for algorithm so I won’t be too surprised about what else they can share and use. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on September 25, 2024, 02:55:24 PM That's why you use encrypted disk/files with hidden partitions (like VeraCrypt can do). If forced to decrypt you just give the standard password which decrypts to some wallet with only minimal value in it. The hidden partition is impossible to detect/prove and only accessible with the correct second password. When they seize your hardware you still have dozens of backups at home, online, whatever in the same encrypted container. The "correct" second password mustn't be brute-forced, correct? Which means it must be a complex one. Which also means it must be stored somewhere, because otherwise you risk forgetting it. So you must take the password with you, along with your encrypted disk. There are significant chances that they will manage to retrieve the password from you and then, they have their ways to make you admit that you have a secret partition. I 've read all the answers and there are some very fancy ideas, like the t-shirt one. But! I strongly believe that the best idea is to bring 2-3 books with you and write the 12 words in random pages in these books. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on September 26, 2024, 03:43:32 PM Maybe you should have a safe person where you have said to check a specific place where you can show them that you indeed have bitcoin and ways to access it. It should be someone you trust of course which would be difficult to find for sure but legality needs to come in here so that you can make sure that that trusted person will only access the funds when you have been injured. Seriously, we are talking about cold wallet. If you tell a safe person about your secret keys, then you are doing by far the worst job for your asset's safety. The whole purpose of cold wallet is that it's a wallet that only you can access. If someone knows keys or the place where you hide keys, then doesn't matter, it's not a safe wallet anymore because no one knows what another person will do with it. Yes, you might trust your friend but it's far riskier than depending on your own memory.Quote Saving something on Google Drive is never a good idea. Definitely not. I have seen way too many google accounts being compromised for me to trust them enough to store anything sensitive. Not to mention that google is way too centralized for my liking. They use our information for algorithm so I won’t be too surprised about what else they can share and use. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: HajiBagi on September 29, 2024, 01:13:08 PM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. I would say that in general it is not legal for them to go though your apps but I have seen border control programs where it does seem mandatory, or at least they can make it more difficult for you to enter the country or hold you if you don't cooperate. I was thinking hypothetically. You are right about that they will make it difficult for you to enter the country if you don't cooperate because they must make sure everything is safe both what is coming to the country and what is going out of the country but if we take look at it very well, checking on someone app is not their duty, I don't hold something valuable of BTC in your app is illegal unless the agent wants to collect a bribe with you and start doing some unnecessary searching, nothing can be hidden in the wallet if not a coin, any agent who asks for your phone and wants to check your wallet is not an agent, he is a criminal or he is a thief because I don't know what they looking for in someone private saved, but it depends on the country you are living or the kind of agents the rules guide your country. The best way to be safe with the agent even when they enter your phone and would not find anything is to save your seed phrase somewhere else, if you have someone you trust like your dad or mom you can write it and send it to them as a message and also send your coin to someone who you trust after you have passed the agent checkpoints or getting to another country the person can send you your coin and you can also go through the message you send to who you trust and get your seed phrase to be able to have access to your wallet without any stress. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: JayJuanGee on September 29, 2024, 07:29:04 PM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. I would say that in general it is not legal for them to go though your apps but I have seen border control programs where it does seem mandatory, or at least they can make it more difficult for you to enter the country or hold you if you don't cooperate. I was thinking hypothetically. The best way to be safe with the agent even when they enter your phone and would not find anything is to save your seed phrase somewhere else, if you have someone you trust like your dad or mom you can write it and send it to them as a message and also send your coin to someone who you trust after you have passed the agent checkpoints or getting to another country the person can send you your coin and you can also go through the message you send to who you trust and get your seed phrase to be able to have access to your wallet without any stress. I am having trouble seeing what advantage you have in regards to sending your seed to someone else, including your seeming presumption that there would be any secure way to send such message to someone else, just like phillipma's encoded message that he was describing from earlier? There could be complicated ways to send seedphrases or passwords, and perhaps you are able to get access to funds, but then if anyone ever figures out or sees such system in the future (maybe past messages that you sent that are figured out in the future), then if you had already moved your coins to new addresses, then that might not be a problem to have some temporary vulnerabilities that are not very likely to get exploited, as long as you don't overly complicated your system too much that you cannot recall how to put all the pieces back together. I do like the idea of keeping some form of back up recovery at country A while traveling to country B in the event that somehow your system fails in regards to getting to country B, and even I am not assuming traveling just on a trip but wanting to take your whole life savings with you, yet if you have your back up recovery in Country A, and once you make it to your country B destination, you might have to figure out how to destroy your back up recovery in country A so that no one comes in contact with it.. unless again you are transferring to a new wallet.. .which sometimes may be prudent to create new wallets and transfer, even though frequently I have considered both vulnerabilities in creating new wallets and then transferring coins, which could be a bit cumbersome to carry out. One of the issues that I had considered with the hidden passphrase is that if your device gets confiscated and security is able to get your seed off of it, yet if there is a bit of time, you can move the coins prior to their breaking into it, if you are not detained, yet if you are detained then they have more time to break into your device... various forms of encryption and/or secure elements might be helpful in those regards to the extent that some of us are sufficiently comfortable with the employment of such systems.. or even needing to learn about such encryption systems. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on September 30, 2024, 05:46:39 AM I do like the idea of keeping some form of back up recovery at country A while traveling to country B in the event that somehow your system fails in regards to getting to country B, and even I am not assuming traveling just on a trip but wanting to take your whole life savings with you, yet if you have your back up recovery in Country A, and once you make it to your country B destination, you might have to figure out how to destroy your back up recovery in country A I'd say you need to have an encrypted backup at a safe (and trusted) location anyway. If your house burns down followed by a flood, you don't want to lose your Bitcoin. So when traveling to another country, you shouldn't carry your only copy.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on October 13, 2024, 09:10:17 AM no stickers with BTC logo on your laptop Not a bad idea. With this sticker, you can mislead anyone:https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSopXkoUZF0w98gJnkyAF4RN_i8h4p3r_Tilw&s https://www.vice.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/definitely-not-a-bag-full-of-drugs.jpg (image source (https://www.vice.com/en/article/definitely-not-a-bag-full-of-drugs-bust-portland/)) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on October 13, 2024, 09:24:20 AM I was wrong. It turns out this doesn't work: https://www.vice.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/definitely-not-a-bag-full-of-drugs.jpg (image source (https://www.vice.com/en/article/definitely-not-a-bag-full-of-drugs-bust-portland/)) Haha. What if it did actually work? What if the guy also had a laptop with bitcoin and they did the whole drug stuff to mislead the authorities from the real satan (aka bitcoin) ? Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: theunionjack on October 19, 2024, 06:07:39 AM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way? I'd put on a rubbish USB with a "vault" program & password. Load documents of random stuff maybe resume & whatever else you've got maybe some photos. Straight in a laptop bag in the side pocket with chargers, another small hardive & pen. Could possibly hide the vault on the drive if you wanted to. Put it through as carry on. No one is going to blink an eye. Could also put USB inside a deodorant stick then in your toiletries bag but that's getting extreme. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: satscraper on October 19, 2024, 06:43:03 AM I have already shared the way (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5506510.msg64447945#msg64447945)I use more than often at my flying . Alternative to this may be Ironkey vault privacy dongle (FIPS 197, XTS-AES 256-bit encrypted)which encrypts your secret. Last time I used mine and may say that customs pay no attention to this stuff (should they focus on it they would not get access to its internals).
Quote from: satscraper Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on October 19, 2024, 07:52:50 AM (should they focus on it they would not get access to its internals) If they have the device and you, you may be forced to share it depending on the law of the country. Some countries have gone mad already:Quote from: REEDS Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 contains the relevant power. Good luck proving you forgot the key.If your phone has been seized, or in circumstances where they have the power to inspect it, the police can give you notice that they require you to provide the PIN or “encryption key” to allow them access. The same applies to other devices such as computers. ~ If you do not comply with a properly given notice, you can be prosecuted. If you know the information required and refuse to provide it, you can be sentenced to a maximum of 2 years imprisonment or 5 years imprisonment for an offence involving national security or child indecency. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotFuzzyWarm on October 23, 2024, 11:14:04 PM What freakin' country even cares about you crossing their borders and having access to BTC? Just how would it be different than you having credit cards? Either way gives you the ability to access or use currency without carrying physical currency.
Most if not all countries only care about how much fiat you are carrying, not how much money you have access to. eg, in the US you are only required to declare it if you are carrying over $10k in cash. If you are stopped by CBP and are asked about how much money you are carrying, yes you should give them an accurate number and if it is a substantial amount they may ask to verify it but if under $10k you are NOT required to declare it before entry. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on October 24, 2024, 07:19:23 AM Just how would it be different than you having credit cards? Customs would argue you can't use a credit card anonymously.Quote Most if not all countries only care about how much fiat you are carrying, not how much money you have access to. eg, in the US you are only required to declare it if you are carrying over $10k in cash. It's not only cash, if the value is for instance in gold you'll still need to declare it.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotATether on October 24, 2024, 08:39:48 AM (should they focus on it they would not get access to its internals) If they have the device and you, you may be forced to share it depending on the law of the country. Some countries have gone mad already:Quote from: REEDS Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 contains the relevant power. Good luck proving you forgot the key.If your phone has been seized, or in circumstances where they have the power to inspect it, the police can give you notice that they require you to provide the PIN or “encryption key” to allow them access. The same applies to other devices such as computers. ~ If you do not comply with a properly given notice, you can be prosecuted. If you know the information required and refuse to provide it, you can be sentenced to a maximum of 2 years imprisonment or 5 years imprisonment for an offence involving national security or child indecency. They're only going to inspect your devices and USB drives if you act suspicious towards them or your travel plans and bookings are quite unusual. Customs have to process normal travelers very quickly to avoid long queues. Personally, I like satscraper's option the best. Get an encrypted USB key, but only put a file that has the seed phrase on it. Remember the password - don't write it down - and make sure you have paper backups in another location, not with you, if you ever forget the password. For added security, encrypt the file again with GPG using an ECDSA public key and the same password, guarding against disk cloning or dd attacks. Only use the resulting USB on an OS such as Linux or Tails where you can be sure there are no keyloggers. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotFuzzyWarm on October 25, 2024, 01:40:53 AM Customs would argue you can't use a credit card anonymously. In the US at least, anonymity has nothing to do with it. For physical currencies CBP (Customs & Border Patrol) only cares about value. btw: the $10k threshold does also apply to preloaded credit cards and gift cards though I'm unaware of CBP actually asking about them. Probably because no folks/smugglers would directly pay >10k in cash to load the cards - though they could of course pay a 3rd party in cash to have them load the cards... Oh, and in the US the $10k threshold for currencies (and gold, gems, etc.) is set by the IRS, CBP is only enforcing the IRS rule.It's not only cash, if the value is for instance in gold you'll still need to declare it. Duh.Same applies to any goods, food, other items of value though they of course may be subject to other specific restrictions or import duties based on value. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on October 29, 2024, 08:04:18 PM (should they focus on it they would not get access to its internals) If they have the device and you, you may be forced to share it depending on the law of the country. Some countries have gone mad already:|snip| Good luck proving you forgot the key. It's not only cash, if the value is for instance in gold you'll still need to declare it. If you are not a public figure and don't publicly claim that you have bitcoins, then customs will not mess with you. I have crossed borders with Electrum installed on my smartphone and PC but no one has ever asked me anything.If no one knows, that means that it didn't happen, which means no need to declare anything. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on October 29, 2024, 09:25:32 PM I really wonder, what do they do if you pretend that you forgot keys? I think that they might give up on a very average person but if there is a guy with 10k and higher number of bitcoins in front of them, what do they do? That's what the 5 years in prison is for.Quote I have crossed borders with Electrum installed on my smartphone and PC but no one has ever asked me anything. That's the wrong approach. I always declare everything I have to, up to an apple in some countries. If it's not allowed, I'll throw it away. But at least I won't get into any kind of trouble.If no one knows, that means that it didn't happen, which means no need to declare anything. For Bitcoin, this is my reasoning: You could argue you're not bringing anything physical. Otherwise hiding it from customs would be illegal. You should probably not bring a copy of the blockchain holding 19,774,912 BTC (https://coinmarketcap.com/) if you use this argument :PBitcoin isn't in your wallet, Bitcoin is on the blockchain. Seriously though, it's like bringing a key to a safe deposit box. You don't have to declare that key. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: dkbit98 on October 31, 2024, 07:42:24 PM Different countries have different rules with customs and airports, but encrypted Satochip card in for of regular payment card won't bring much attention.
I am not recommending anything but nobody is going to check and confiscate your good old (and now discontinued) G-shock G-2900 watch that has data memory and password protection. Just saying. ;) Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: bizeodal on November 01, 2024, 04:05:38 PM Do not scramble the seed words. Do not write the words on random pages in a book, Do not change the order of the words. Do not omit one or more words. Do not encrypt the words in a MS-Word file or Veracrypt or anything. Do not write only the first four characters. Do not write the index numbers of the words
All those things corrupt the fundamental purpose of the BIP39 recovery design - recovery The chances of losing your coins because your obfuscation method was too confusing (later, when you need to do a recovery) are about 1000 times higher than the chance of being questioned at an international border Do not store the seed words in the cloud, or anywhere electronically. This has two risks. The cloud is not a reliable storage method. The cloud is accessible to the entire Internet The BIP39 specification has a passphrase option Write the seed words on paper. Carry the paper. Keep other copies in safe places Make two wallets (or 2 accounts in a Trezor or other cold wallet). One account is the seed words and no passphrase, with a few thousand Satoshis. The other account is the same seed words and a strong pass phrase, for your Bitcoin Make a 6-word diceware passphrase. Add one random alphabetical character. This is easy to remember, and 81-bits secure https://theworld.com/~reinhold/diceware.html Memorize the passphrase At the border: if you're questioned about your cold wallet (if you're carrying it), tell them what it is. If you're questioned about your seed phrase, tell them what it is. If they want to see the Bitcoin wallet, use the seed phrase to recover the no-passphrase wallet. Show them your few thousand Satoshis. That should be further than any border guard could possibly understand, today. In the future they may be better trained. Or you could be a special person (read about the constant border harassment of Glenn Greenwald and his partner for years after Greenwald reported on Snowden). If they ask whether there's a second account, you don't understand how that's possible. Your device has only one wallet Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on March 22, 2025, 07:40:35 PM A news was published on a famous brazilian portal, Livecoins, where agents from the brazilian dederal revenue were invited for an interview on a podcast. There, they discussed various topics about traveling with physical or digital money exceeding $10,000, until someone brought up the subject of Bitcoin:
Quote from: https://livecoins.com.br/agentes-da-receita-federal-fiscalizacao-de-carteiras-de-bitcoin-aeroportos/ "That’s because money is in the cloud now, right?" "Pen drives (referring to wallets in the form of pen drives like Ledger, etc), do you inspect pen drives? Those Bitcoin wallets? Do you analyze those Bitcoin wallets?” The auditor, besides stating that the legislation only covers physical cash and that it’s not the RFB’s (brazilian dederal revenue) role to handle this type of work, mentioned that a suspect can only be investigated if they are already under investigation for a crime. In a "playful tone," the podcast host (I’m not entirely sure) explained to one of the agents that a device like that (referring to hardware wallets) can hold values reaching up to 1 million (not necessarily in dollars, but referring to the local brazilian currency, the real). Quote "This 'badass' here, the Ledger wallet", said Carioca, pointing to his notebook. "This one here — look, I f*** a lot of people over, look how cool, it’s called a Ledger wallet, here the guy carries the Bitcoin, got it? And here you can carry up to more than 1 million reais. If you find this thing, you say: "open it for me, please", and then you’ll get your 1 million." From the language used, it’s clear that the participants don’t understand much about how Bitcoin works, and besides, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a hardware wallet to carry amounts like these, because any self-respecting Bitcoin wallet has no limits or borders. When I read this news, I remembered this thread. It’s interesting to hear the opinion of those who already work in the area. News link: https://livecoins.com.br/agentes-da-receita-federal-fiscalizacao-de-carteiras-de-bitcoin-aeroportos Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: JayJuanGee on March 23, 2025, 02:58:20 AM A news was published on a famous brazilian portal, Livecoins, where agents from the brazilian dederal revenue were invited for an interview on a podcast. There, they discussed various topics about traveling with physical or digital money exceeding $10,000, until someone brought up the subject of Bitcoin: Quote from: https://livecoins.com.br/agentes-da-receita-federal-fiscalizacao-de-carteiras-de-bitcoin-aeroportos/ "That’s because money is in the cloud now, right?" The auditor, besides stating that the legislation only covers physical cash and that it’s not the RFB’s (brazilian dederal revenue) role to handle this type of work, mentioned that a suspect can only be investigated if they are already under investigation for a crime."Pen drives (referring to wallets in the form of pen drives like Ledger, etc), do you inspect pen drives? Those Bitcoin wallets? Do you analyze those Bitcoin wallets?” In a "playful tone," the podcast host (I’m not entirely sure) explained to one of the agents that a device like that (referring to hardware wallets) can hold values reaching up to 1 million (not necessarily in dollars, but referring to the local brazilian currency, the real). Quote "This 'badass' here, the Ledger wallet", said Carioca, pointing to his notebook. "This one here — look, I f*** a lot of people over, look how cool, it’s called a Ledger wallet, here the guy carries the Bitcoin, got it? And here you can carry up to more than 1 million reais. If you find this thing, you say: "open it for me, please", and then you’ll get your 1 million." From the language used, it’s clear that the participants don’t understand much about how Bitcoin works, and besides, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a hardware wallet to carry amounts like these, because any self-respecting Bitcoin wallet has no limits or borders. When I read this news, I remembered this thread. It’s interesting to hear the opinion of those who already work in the area. News link: https://livecoins.com.br/agentes-da-receita-federal-fiscalizacao-de-carteiras-de-bitcoin-aeroportos It seems a bit crazy also for guys to be describing bitcoin as being on the device, even though the private keys are on the device. There are surely a lot of digital forms of information flowing over the borders and various kinds of devices that look like other kinds of devices, so yeah, the border agents might not really know how to focus on any particular kinds of devices, yet surely if like one of the border agents said they may well be more interested in what someone is carrying if they are already a suspected and/or targeted person... versus looking through the devices of everyone going through security and figuring out specific kinds of devices to try to target for the mere sake that the devices secure valuables.. information that happens to have value attached to it at the same time.. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Dump3er on March 23, 2025, 05:17:43 AM - It seems a bit crazy also for guys to be describing bitcoin as being on the device, even though the private keys are on the device. There are surely a lot of digital forms of information flowing over the borders and various kinds of devices that look like other kinds of devices, so yeah, the border agents might not really know how to focus on any particular kinds of devices, yet surely if like one of the border agents said they may well be more interested in what someone is carrying if they are already a suspected and/or targeted person... versus looking through the devices of everyone going through security and figuring out specific kinds of devices to try to target for the mere sake that the devices secure valuables.. information that happens to have value attached to it at the same time.. This question has been around for a while and while I don't know what the rules are for most countries, this is what the usa.gov website says (https://www.usa.gov/travel-money#:~:text=How%20much%20money%20do%20you,money%20you%20can%20travel%20with.): Quote How much money do you have to declare when you travel to or from the U.S.? If you are traveling with an excess of $10,000, you must report it to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer when you enter or exit the U.S. But there is no limit to the amount of money you can travel with. Currency and monetary instruments that are subject to this rule include U.S. and foreign: Paper money and coins Travelers’ checks Cashier’s checks Promissory notes Money orders Below this a link leads to further definitions, but there is nothing mentioning anything about bitcoin or digital currencies in general. One of the interesting parts on that explanatory website is: "Securities or stocks in bearer form" and bitcoin has been declared by the SEC to not be a security. Somewhere else it talks about money that is declared legal tender in a country, but it specifies it as "coin and paper money", neither of which applies to bitcoin. This will remain complicated, but frankly this can't be resolved anyway as bitcoin owners could transport keys in countless ways and how would they ever be able to fully monitor that. Scanners help with cash, but they can't help with anything not being physical. Perhaps if someone uses a hardware wallet, but then they would have to have the right to force someone to open it. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: JayJuanGee on March 23, 2025, 03:17:20 PM - It seems a bit crazy also for guys to be describing bitcoin as being on the device, even though the private keys are on the device. There are surely a lot of digital forms of information flowing over the borders and various kinds of devices that look like other kinds of devices, so yeah, the border agents might not really know how to focus on any particular kinds of devices, yet surely if like one of the border agents said they may well be more interested in what someone is carrying if they are already a suspected and/or targeted person... versus looking through the devices of everyone going through security and figuring out specific kinds of devices to try to target for the mere sake that the devices secure valuables.. information that happens to have value attached to it at the same time..Quote How much money do you have to declare when you travel to or from the U.S.? Below this a link leads to further definitions, but there is nothing mentioning anything about bitcoin or digital currencies in general. If you are traveling with an excess of $10,000, you must report it to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer when you enter or exit the U.S. But there is no limit to the amount of money you can travel with. Currency and monetary instruments that are subject to this rule include U.S. and foreign: Paper money and coins Travelers’ checks Cashier’s checks Promissory notes Money orders One of the interesting parts on that explanatory website is: "Securities or stocks in bearer form" and bitcoin has been declared by the SEC to not be a security. Somewhere else it talks about money that is declared legal tender in a country, but it specifies it as "coin and paper money", neither of which applies to bitcoin. This will remain complicated, but frankly this can't be resolved anyway as bitcoin owners could transport keys in countless ways and how would they ever be able to fully monitor that. Scanners help with cash, but they can't help with anything not being physical. Perhaps if someone uses a hardware wallet, but then they would have to have the right to force someone to open it. A lot of slippery slopes if governments start to go down the road of trying to suggest that digital bearer instruments also need to be declared, even though they are not physical. Surely, if we have our digital contents (or access) on electronic devices, then there are blurring of the lines, and digital devices are becoming so prolific that they surely would be creating impossible tasks to start to search and/or confiscate digital devices of individuals and trying to figure out where to draw the line. More draconian attempts at restricting digital information and the movement of digital information, even if there might be attempts to differentiate between bearer instruments (that do not require a third party) versus non-bearer instruments, these are not easy categorizations, and surely attempts to crack down will inspire more and more ways to obscure the information and/or to encrypt the information.. so then there surely can be attempts to require the giving up of passwords and perhaps even the creation of decoy passwords, which surely if the data and/or device is centrally controlled, then they could have back doors to the information, so I suppose we have to continue to promote various open source and decentralized efforts to develop tools that the non-technical folks are also able to use without losing their data (or their bitcoin.. hopefully not shitcoins.. but sure, evne shitcoins might have some value, too.. or serve as a way to obscure data/value in temporary ways).. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DYING_S0UL on March 23, 2025, 05:58:47 PM Personally I would use steganography to hide the seeds as I believe this is a great way to conceal informations. In plain eyes, everything would look normal, but in reality things would be a little different. Anyway, I once used steganography to hide an app inside a video. Though I failed miserable to make it look normal because the file size became too big but for a simple seed, it should be a piece of cake. Frankly speaking, it should still fulfill the original plan to hide the seed without being detected. No one would suspect a thing. And it's not like customs checks everything from neck to toe, or set up a forensic lab at the airport, go through every message, photos, videos or documents.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on March 23, 2025, 08:09:30 PM A lot of slippery slopes if governments start to go down the road of trying to suggest that digital bearer instruments also need to be declared, even though they are not physical. Surely, if we have our digital contents (or access) on electronic devices, then there are blurring of the lines, and digital devices are becoming so prolific that they surely would be creating impossible tasks to start to search and/or confiscate digital devices of individuals and trying to figure out where to draw the line. More draconian attempts at restricting digital information and the movement of digital information, even if there might be attempts to differentiate between bearer instruments (that do not require a third party) versus non-bearer instruments, these are not easy categorizations, and surely attempts to crack down will inspire more and more ways to obscure the information and/or to encrypt the information.. so then there surely can be attempts to require the giving up of passwords and perhaps even the creation of decoy passwords, which surely if the data and/or device is centrally controlled, then they could have back doors to the information, so I suppose we have to continue to promote various open source and decentralized efforts to develop tools that the non-technical folks are also able to use without losing their data (or their bitcoin.. hopefully not shitcoins.. but sure, evne shitcoins might have some value, too.. or serve as a way to obscure data/value in temporary ways).. I'll tell you something, I suspect that both the federal police (similar to the FBI in the EUA) and the IRS agents are receiving training to investigate targets who have crypto suspected of cybercrimes or tax crimes. This is true here in brazil as well as in any other country in the world, and if the target has hardware wallets, they can request the packaging box of the device, because since the packaging box comes with recovery sheets to write down seedphrases, the chances of them finding the wallet backup there are high, since most users write down the seedphrases on these standard recovery sheets. Of course, this is not yet an official practice and I highly doubt it would be applied in airports. However, in cases of criminal investigations or even involving individuals who haven’t necessarily committed crimes, as you can see in the link I shared, they are already indicting people who are in debt with the country’s tax authority. Personally I would use steganography to hide the seeds as I believe this is a great way to conceal informations. In plain eyes, everything would look normal, but in reality things would be a little different. Anyway, I once used steganography to hide an app inside a video. Though I failed miserable to make it look normal because the file size became too big but for a simple seed, it should be a piece of cake. Frankly speaking, it should still fulfill the original plan to hide the seed without being detected. No one would suspect a thing. And it's not like customs checks everything from neck to toe, or set up a forensic lab at the airport, go through every message, photos, videos or documents. There’s Seed XOR, it’s perfect for this kind of situation. However, you would still be carrying a seed, even if it isn't your real seedphrase, in which case you can try steganography using an image.For Windows, I’ve only tested one software, OpenStego. In it, you can add an optional AES encryption password. Of course, there are many other forms of steganography. Which one would you use? Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Dump3er on March 23, 2025, 11:17:09 PM - A lot of slippery slopes if governments start to go down the road of trying to suggest that digital bearer instruments also need to be declared, even though they are not physical. Surely, if we have our digital contents (or access) on electronic devices, then there are blurring of the lines, and digital devices are becoming so prolific that they surely would be creating impossible tasks to start to search and/or confiscate digital devices of individuals and trying to figure out where to draw the line. More draconian attempts at restricting digital information and the movement of digital information, even if there might be attempts to differentiate between bearer instruments (that do not require a third party) versus non-bearer instruments, these are not easy categorizations, and surely attempts to crack down will inspire more and more ways to obscure the information and/or to encrypt the information.. so then there surely can be attempts to require the giving up of passwords and perhaps even the creation of decoy passwords, which surely if the data and/or device is centrally controlled, then they could have back doors to the information, so I suppose we have to continue to promote various open source and decentralized efforts to develop tools that the non-technical folks are also able to use without losing their data (or their bitcoin.. hopefully not shitcoins.. but sure, evne shitcoins might have some value, too.. or serve as a way to obscure data/value in temporary ways).. A ton of slippery slopes and this reminds me of some issues about using file sharing services or websites to stream copyrighted content. There were different discussions in different countries and one of the main questions was whether someone saved a copyrighted file locally on their device or not. It had some impact on how it was treated at court. Now if we apply the same logic, what happens if (I hope nobody does that ;) ) someone saves their wallet.dat on their email account hosted by an external provider. The slippery slope problem is gigantic and incalculable. What if I send the private key containing in excess of 10,000 USD to someone I know abroad and I get asked at the border whether I am carrying value in excess of 10,000 USD with me? It feels to me like there can't be drawn a comprehensible line that treats all subjects equally in front of the law. Personally I would use steganography to hide the seeds as I believe this is a great way to conceal informations. In plain eyes, everything would look normal, but in reality things would be a little different. Anyway, I once used steganography to hide an app inside a video. Though I failed miserable to make it look normal because the file size became too big but for a simple seed, it should be a piece of cake. Frankly speaking, it should still fulfill the original plan to hide the seed without being detected. No one would suspect a thing. And it's not like customs checks everything from neck to toe, or set up a forensic lab at the airport, go through every message, photos, videos or documents. That's exactly what will be done. Even individuals who are not technically as literate could use instructions they obtain online to apply steganography and as you mentioned, file size won't be a problem when it's about hiding a simple seed. You can hide it in an image, in an mp3 file. You can hide it literally anywhere. If you assume that authorities would equip border controls with the technology to screen devices, fine, but the time required to do more than find one needle in the haystack per year, it's impossible to do. One individual could easily have three devices, a laptop, a mobile phone and an iPad or whatever else people carry around these days. - I'll tell you something, I suspect that both the federal police (similar to the FBI in the EUA) and the IRS agents are receiving training to investigate targets who have crypto suspected of cybercrimes or tax crimes. This is true here in brazil as well as in any other country in the world, and if the target has hardware wallets, they can request the packaging box of the device, because since the packaging box comes with recovery sheets to write down seedphrases, the chances of them finding the wallet backup there are high, since most users write down the seedphrases on these standard recovery sheets. Of course, this is not yet an official practice and I highly doubt it would be applied in airports. However, in cases of criminal investigations or even involving individuals who haven’t necessarily committed crimes, as you can see in the link I shared, they are already indicting people who are in debt with the country’s tax authority. If there is a target owning crypto suspected of cybercrimes, how likely is it that those targets will carry around hardware wallets when they have to pass border controls? Some will do that, but if they are able to pull off cybercrimes, I doubt there first choice would be a hardware wallet to carry with them with the aim to pass border controls at an airport. Wouldn't they probably be the first to come up with far more sophisticated approaches? If they use a device with a huge hard drive, storing 10,000,000 files, it would take an eternity for border control at an airport to scan through it an find suspicious files. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: JayJuanGee on March 24, 2025, 03:26:03 AM A lot of slippery slopes if governments start to go down the road of trying to suggest that digital bearer instruments also need to be declared, even though they are not physical. Surely, if we have our digital contents (or access) on electronic devices, then there are blurring of the lines, and digital devices are becoming so prolific that they surely would be creating impossible tasks to start to search and/or confiscate digital devices of individuals and trying to figure out where to draw the line. I'll tell you something, I suspect that both the federal police (similar to the FBI in the EUA) and the IRS agents are receiving training to investigate targets who have crypto suspected of cybercrimes or tax crimes. This is true here in brazil as well as in any other country in the world, and if the target has hardware wallets, they can request the packaging box of the device, because since the packaging box comes with recovery sheets to write down seedphrases, the chances of them finding the wallet backup there are high, since most users write down the seedphrases on these standard recovery sheets.More draconian attempts at restricting digital information and the movement of digital information, even if there might be attempts to differentiate between bearer instruments (that do not require a third party) versus non-bearer instruments, these are not easy categorizations, and surely attempts to crack down will inspire more and more ways to obscure the information and/or to encrypt the information.. so then there surely can be attempts to require the giving up of passwords and perhaps even the creation of decoy passwords, which surely if the data and/or device is centrally controlled, then they could have back doors to the information, so I suppose we have to continue to promote various open source and decentralized efforts to develop tools that the non-technical folks are also able to use without losing their data (or their bitcoin.. hopefully not shitcoins.. but sure, evne shitcoins might have some value, too.. or serve as a way to obscure data/value in temporary ways).. Whether right or wrong, many of us realize that our privacy rights tend to be lower when we are crossing borders, so I have difficulties imagining situations in which most people would be traveling with their back up seeds or their recovery seeds. It could be true that regular folks are writing recovery phrases on the cards that come with the packaging, yet I have my doubts that large numbers of them are holding their packaging and recovery phrases together. Sure it could be true that people take the most lazy way out. .but it seems a bad practice to perhaps only have one back up too, in the event that their house burns down, then only one copy? No doubt that agents are going to receive more and more training, and also the population in general are going to become more and more familiar with the various ways that seed phrases might be generated or how they might look or even to recognize that something looks like a seedphrase since they are random words on a list. Of course, this is not yet an official practice and I highly doubt it would be applied in airports. However, in cases of criminal investigations or even involving individuals who haven’t necessarily committed crimes, as you can see in the link I shared, they are already indicting people who are in debt with the country’s tax authority. I have no doubts that governments are going to be engaging in more creative ways to separate folks from their bitcoin or to try to get folks to reveal their various wallets, including to ask them to confirm various transactions or the location of bitcoin that they are declaring in their taxes, and yeah, they also may well be claiming that people are in possession of bitcoin yet not claiming bitcoin transactions in their taxes. I have no doubt that there are going to be a variety of scenarios playing out in the future, which likely should inspire several of us to figure out our own ways of accounting, reporting and even how we might manage and/or maintain our bitcoin.. and sure some folks will get scared out of holding bitcoin or wanting to stay in bitcoin based on their fears about accounting and/or potential auditing attempts by government authorities. Even jurisdictions that are supposedly friendly to bitcoin may well be speaking out of both sides of their mouths (asses) in regards to proclaiming friendliness while maintaining various kinds of draconian accounting and/or auditing practices. - A lot of slippery slopes if governments start to go down the road of trying to suggest that digital bearer instruments also need to be declared, even though they are not physical. Surely, if we have our digital contents (or access) on electronic devices, then there are blurring of the lines, and digital devices are becoming so prolific that they surely would be creating impossible tasks to start to search and/or confiscate digital devices of individuals and trying to figure out where to draw the line. More draconian attempts at restricting digital information and the movement of digital information, even if there might be attempts to differentiate between bearer instruments (that do not require a third party) versus non-bearer instruments, these are not easy categorizations, and surely attempts to crack down will inspire more and more ways to obscure the information and/or to encrypt the information.. so then there surely can be attempts to require the giving up of passwords and perhaps even the creation of decoy passwords, which surely if the data and/or device is centrally controlled, then they could have back doors to the information, so I suppose we have to continue to promote various open source and decentralized efforts to develop tools that the non-technical folks are also able to use without losing their data (or their bitcoin.. hopefully not shitcoins.. but sure, evne shitcoins might have some value, too.. or serve as a way to obscure data/value in temporary ways).. Now if we apply the same logic, what happens if (I hope nobody does that ;) ) someone saves their wallet.dat on their email account hosted by an external provider. The slippery slope problem is gigantic and incalculable. What if I send the private key containing in excess of 10,000 USD to someone I know abroad and I get asked at the border whether I am carrying value in excess of 10,000 USD with me? It feels to me like there can't be drawn a comprehensible line that treats all subjects equally in front of the law. Laws are frequently disparately applied, but yeah frequently we can argue our case in regards to desires to be treated fairly and/or similarly to others. I doubt that any of us need to be declaring our bitcoin at the borders, yet sure we have to use our judgement if it looks like we might get taken into custody or charged with some offense or beaten (tortured). If we hear that the levels of searches of private electronic devices is increasing or if we believe that we might be within a category of someone who might be harassed (or show up on some suspected person list), then surely we would like to take additional cautionary measures. We already know that it is possible to cross with thousands millions or even your whole life savings in bitcoin which could be in your head or could be in some cryptographic form or could be in some stenographic form or otherwise obscured, and if you chose to declare it, then that would be up to you.. To me, it does not seem necessary, yet maybe the choice to declare would depend on the level of negative consequences that I perceive, especially if I were to be getting waterboarded, then maybe at some point, I would with to be able to not be tortured... to the extent that I then would still be able to reveal information that was sought... Surely there could also be situations in which some of us might end up on a target list, and there could be a mistake or maybe there had been some kind of a rule change, and we did not know about such rule, in which we end up being a target. There surely can be inconsistencies at borders too, and I have crossed some borders in recent times in which I was hardly even noticed and then other times where it seems I get asked questions and even have some extra searches done on me. So many folks are traveling with so many electronics that it might end up being that the threshold becomes higher before some of us might become a target in regards to how many electronics we have and how we are carrying them, whether in our checked luggage or in our carry on. Personally I would use steganography to hide the seeds as I believe this is a great way to conceal informations. In plain eyes, everything would look normal, but in reality things would be a little different. Anyway, I once used steganography to hide an app inside a video. Though I failed miserable to make it look normal because the file size became too big but for a simple seed, it should be a piece of cake. Frankly speaking, it should still fulfill the original plan to hide the seed without being detected. No one would suspect a thing. And it's not like customs checks everything from neck to toe, or set up a forensic lab at the airport, go through every message, photos, videos or documents. That's exactly what will be done. Even individuals who are not technically as literate could use instructions they obtain online to apply steganography and as you mentioned, file size won't be a problem when it's about hiding a simple seed. You can hide it in an image, in an mp3 file. You can hide it literally anywhere. If you assume that authorities would equip border controls with the technology to screen devices, fine, but the time required to do more than find one needle in the haystack per year, it's impossible to do. One individual could easily have three devices, a laptop, a mobile phone and an iPad or whatever else people carry around these days.There are reading devices like kindles, and there are speakers and headphones, and there are USB drives and external hard drives, and other signing devices like yubikeys. Many kids toys have various kinds of chips and batteries too... they are likely looking for bombs and weapons more than they are looking for money and valuables, even though surely it is different when you are leaving versus when you are arriving and it is different depending upon which country you are coming from and going to and the reason(s) why. - I'll tell you something, I suspect that both the federal police (similar to the FBI in the EUA) and the IRS agents are receiving training to investigate targets who have crypto suspected of cybercrimes or tax crimes. This is true here in brazil as well as in any other country in the world, and if the target has hardware wallets, they can request the packaging box of the device, because since the packaging box comes with recovery sheets to write down seedphrases, the chances of them finding the wallet backup there are high, since most users write down the seedphrases on these standard recovery sheets.Of course, this is not yet an official practice and I highly doubt it would be applied in airports. However, in cases of criminal investigations or even involving individuals who haven’t necessarily committed crimes, as you can see in the link I shared, they are already indicting people who are in debt with the country’s tax authority. They might not know that they are a target or on some kind of a "wanted" list. Some will do that, but if they are able to pull off cybercrimes, I doubt there first choice would be a hardware wallet to carry with them with the aim to pass border controls at an airport. Wouldn't they probably be the first to come up with far more sophisticated approaches? You can carry empty hardware wallets, and then load them after you cross the border.. and yeah, worse case scenario they get confiscated and you have to buy new ones at your destination. .to the extent that your destination has places where you can find such devices that you had been carrying. If they use a device with a huge hard drive, storing 10,000,000 files, it would take an eternity for border control at an airport to scan through it an find suspicious files. Do they have backdoors into my encrypted drives? I will carry back up drives and sometimes more than one computer and more than one phone, and I see others engaged in similar practices.. and yeah if there is a whole family, then it can seem normal to have even more devices with chips and drives. I have had trips in which I have had more than 5 back up drives, and yeah, it is likely that I would know that they were scanning my drives since those tend to be in my carryons, but historically, i had left some encrypted drives in my checked luggage too. that might not be a good practice, even if the drives were encrypted. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DYING_S0UL on March 24, 2025, 06:34:14 AM - That's exactly what will be done. Even individuals who are not technically as literate could use instructions they obtain online to apply steganography and as you mentioned, file size won't be a problem when it's about hiding a simple seed. You can hide it in an image, in an mp3 file. You can hide it literally anywhere. If you assume that authorities would equip border controls with the technology to screen devices, fine, but the time required to do more than find one needle in the haystack per year, it's impossible to do. One individual could easily have three devices, a laptop, a mobile phone and an iPad or whatever else people carry around these days.As for other offline methods for hiding the seed, I was thinking about postcards, letters etc. The seeds can be hidden inside the subject, the body in a form of normal texts with multiple recipient. But there are possibilities of physical damages. So I'm not so sure of that. Someone above said about using a book/notebook. Why not just use the dictionary then ::)? It basically contains all the words, if I'm not wrong. Imo, that would be the best idea, if anyone wanna hide it offline. There’s Seed XOR, it’s perfect for this kind of situation. However, you would still be carrying a seed, even if it isn't your real seedphrase, in which case you can try steganography using an image. For Windows, I’ve only tested one software, OpenStego. In it, you can add an optional AES encryption password. Of course, there are many other forms of steganography. Which one would you use? What's a seed XOR anyway? This is the first time I am hearing this crypto term. So before I commented, I googled a bit, but couldn't find enough information on this. All I could understand is that, it splits your seeds into multiple parts and then the rest of the concept is still unclear to me (I guess, I was a bit lazy, didn't read the article properly). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on March 24, 2025, 08:01:35 AM As for other offline methods for hiding the seed, I was thinking about postcards, letters etc. The seeds can be hidden inside the subject, the body in a form of normal texts with multiple recipient. I wouldn't destroy my other backups when doing this ;) If you need to remember which 24 words to find back in a pile of letters, chances are you forget some of them. And that's even ignoring the fact that you'll need to know the correct order.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on March 24, 2025, 08:07:03 AM What's a seed XOR anyway? This is the first time I am hearing this crypto term. So before I commented, I googled a bit, but couldn't find enough information on this. All I could understand is that, it splits your seeds into multiple parts and then the rest of the concept is still unclear to me (I guess, I was a bit lazy, didn't read the article properly). I suppose these could be helpful: Website: https://seedxor.com/ Video by BTCSessions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvquutZwNAg&t=178s Article at Bitcoin Magazine: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/how-to-use-coldcard-and-seed-xor Question here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5433064.0 * * I have the OP on my ignore list, but you can get some answers from reputable bitcoiners Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Dump3er on March 27, 2025, 03:52:28 AM - Laws are frequently disparately applied, but yeah frequently we can argue our case in regards to desires to be treated fairly and/or similarly to others. I doubt that any of us need to be declaring our bitcoin at the borders, yet sure we have to use our judgement if it looks like we might get taken into custody or charged with some offense or beaten (tortured). If we hear that the levels of searches of private electronic devices is increasing or if we believe that we might be within a category of someone who might be harassed (or show up on some suspected person list), then surely we would like to take additional cautionary measures. We already know that it is possible to cross with thousands millions or even your whole life savings in bitcoin which could be in your head or could be in some cryptographic form or could be in some stenographic form or otherwise obscured, and if you chose to declare it, then that would be up to you.. To me, it does not seem necessary, yet maybe the choice to declare would depend on the level of negative consequences that I perceive, especially if I were to be getting waterboarded, then maybe at some point, I would with to be able to not be tortured... to the extent that I then would still be able to reveal information that was sought... Surely there could also be situations in which some of us might end up on a target list, and there could be a mistake or maybe there had been some kind of a rule change, and we did not know about such rule, in which we end up being a target. There surely can be inconsistencies at borders too, and I have crossed some borders in recent times in which I was hardly even noticed and then other times where it seems I get asked questions and even have some extra searches done on me. So many folks are traveling with so many electronics that it might end up being that the threshold becomes higher before some of us might become a target in regards to how many electronics we have and how we are carrying them, whether in our checked luggage or in our carry on. There are numerous important things explicitly or implicitly mentioned in your post. It is unlikely that there will be laws stating explicitly you have to declare digital assets at the border if you intent to access those assets outside your native country. But laws that might force you to declare it in some fashion are already in place or otherwise it could end in a lifetime hunt with the IRS if you are a US citizen. As soon as you access larger amounts of value outside your own country, it is possible that doesn't go unnoticed for very long depending on the county you are in. The "tax"-spiderwebs that some countries have spun around the world are close-meshed. You could end up on a target list that way and once you return authorities are waiting for you. Inconsistencies at the borders can be insane. Whether that has to do with social profiling or is purely coincidence most times, don't know. The target threshold could change, but what will be more important are the reports people make about their experiences and then travelers or people leaving their countries altogether will adjust their means of transportation of digital assets accordingly. I think the authorities' best call is to establish a strongly liberal framework that gives incentives to report or otherwise cost will become prohibitively high to identify, surveil and catch targets. Personally I would use steganography to hide the seeds as I believe this is a great way to conceal informations. In plain eyes, everything would look normal, but in reality things would be a little different. Anyway, I once used steganography to hide an app inside a video. Though I failed miserable to make it look normal because the file size became too big but for a simple seed, it should be a piece of cake. Frankly speaking, it should still fulfill the original plan to hide the seed without being detected. No one would suspect a thing. And it's not like customs checks everything from neck to toe, or set up a forensic lab at the airport, go through every message, photos, videos or documents. That's exactly what will be done. Even individuals who are not technically as literate could use instructions they obtain online to apply steganography and as you mentioned, file size won't be a problem when it's about hiding a simple seed. You can hide it in an image, in an mp3 file. You can hide it literally anywhere. If you assume that authorities would equip border controls with the technology to screen devices, fine, but the time required to do more than find one needle in the haystack per year, it's impossible to do. One individual could easily have three devices, a laptop, a mobile phone and an iPad or whatever else people carry around these days.There are reading devices like kindles, and there are speakers and headphones, and there are USB drives and external hard drives, and other signing devices like yubikeys. Many kids toys have various kinds of chips and batteries too... they are likely looking for bombs and weapons more than they are looking for money and valuables, even though surely it is different when you are leaving versus when you are arriving and it is different depending upon which country you are coming from and going to and the reason(s) why. - I'll tell you something, I suspect that both the federal police (similar to the FBI in the EUA) and the IRS agents are receiving training to investigate targets who have crypto suspected of cybercrimes or tax crimes. This is true here in brazil as well as in any other country in the world, and if the target has hardware wallets, they can request the packaging box of the device, because since the packaging box comes with recovery sheets to write down seedphrases, the chances of them finding the wallet backup there are high, since most users write down the seedphrases on these standard recovery sheets.Of course, this is not yet an official practice and I highly doubt it would be applied in airports. However, in cases of criminal investigations or even involving individuals who haven’t necessarily committed crimes, as you can see in the link I shared, they are already indicting people who are in debt with the country’s tax authority. They might not know that they are a target or on some kind of a "wanted" list. Yes but as mentioned above, it is a question of time until the information spreads about social profiles that make it onto that target list. Some will do that, but if they are able to pull off cybercrimes, I doubt there first choice would be a hardware wallet to carry with them with the aim to pass border controls at an airport. Wouldn't they probably be the first to come up with far more sophisticated approaches? You can carry empty hardware wallets, and then load them after you cross the border.. and yeah, worse case scenario they get confiscated and you have to buy new ones at your destination. .to the extent that your destination has places where you can find such devices that you had been carrying. If they use a device with a huge hard drive, storing 10,000,000 files, it would take an eternity for border control at an airport to scan through it an find suspicious files. Do they have backdoors into my encrypted drives? I will carry back up drives and sometimes more than one computer and more than one phone, and I see others engaged in similar practices.. and yeah if there is a whole family, then it can seem normal to have even more devices with chips and drives. I have had trips in which I have had more than 5 back up drives, and yeah, it is likely that I would know that they were scanning my drives since those tend to be in my carryons, but historically, i had left some encrypted drives in my checked luggage too. that might not be a good practice, even if the drives were encrypted. And this is something where my technical knowledge is significantly limited. The whole topic about backdoors. I only know that most of what big corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook and so on and so forth have long been claiming about their privacy policies and that they would not cooperate with intelligence agencies, has all been refuted. Telegram claimed that their service is fully encrypted and no cooperation is ongoing with intelligence agencies, but there was proof not too long ago that it is a lie. As long as centralized services or products like hard drives are used, what is the chance that all these things are coming with backdoors? Yet, assuming they have a backdoor and can read your hard drive and find private keys while you think they can't because it is encrypted, it would not be smart to let you know that they know as backdoors only work when nobody knows that they do. That is why earlier I said they would probably go after you in other ways via the tax law and not because you didn't declare digital value at the border. It will mostly be about target identification, subsequent surveillance and then whatever the law allows them to do. The one issue I still see is how are they going to design the law in the future that a guy at the border who carries in excess of $10,000 in cash is treated the same as the guy who carries in excess of $10,000 in bitcoin? Bitcoin is beyond supranational, and this is a bloody important feature of the network. No global legal framework will ever be able to dissolve the problems that nation states have with a currency they can't control. But there are still many, many, many people who haven't understood or don't want to understand that this is what strongly contributes to bitcoin's network value. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotFuzzyWarm on March 27, 2025, 04:07:17 AM In the US at least, when crossing the borders there is NO requirement to declare any digital assets and CBP has no broad authority to even ask about them -- only physical currency in excess of $10,000 be it cash, checks, money orders, bearer bonds, etc is required to be declared.
At the US borders crypto assets are treated the same as your credit cards or ATM/Debit cards - no reporting required, period. The only time asking about credit/ATM/Debit cards is allowed is if you are stopped and questioned about how long you are staying and what you will be doing - then they might ask how you are paying for things and if you have too little cash only then will they ask if you have cards to pay for your expenses but they cannot and will not ask what their limits are. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on March 27, 2025, 11:06:14 AM As soon as you access larger amounts of value outside your own country, it is possible that doesn't go unnoticed for very long How many people are spending more than $10k abroad, without wanting a paper trail? If it's legal, like buying a car, I'd want a paper trail. If it's illegal what you're doing, it's no surprise they'll come after you.Quote I only know that most of what big corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook and so on and so forth have long been claiming about their privacy policies and that they would not cooperate with intelligence agencies, has all been refuted. Now compare Protonmail or Mullvad: they can't share what they don't have or can't decrypt. Any good privacy service shouldn't keep records they can access.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: JayJuanGee on March 27, 2025, 03:21:56 PM [edited out] And this is something where my technical knowledge is significantly limited. The whole topic about backdoors. I only know that most of what big corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook and so on and so forth have long been claiming about their privacy policies and that they would not cooperate with intelligence agencies, has all been refuted. Telegram claimed that their service is fully encrypted and no cooperation is ongoing with intelligence agencies, but there was proof not too long ago that it is a lie. As long as centralized services or products like hard drives are used, what is the chance that all these things are coming with backdoors? Yet, assuming they have a backdoor and can read your hard drive and find private keys while you think they can't because it is encrypted, it would not be smart to let you know that they know as backdoors only work when nobody knows that they do. That is why earlier I said they would probably go after you in other ways via the tax law and not because you didn't declare digital value at the border. It will mostly be about target identification, subsequent surveillance and then whatever the law allows them to do. The issue of backdoors into various hardware (or even into decrypting software) is beyond my own capabilities. I have been considering if the method of encrypting is open source and solid, then it should not matter where such encrypted files are stored, they cannot be decrypted absent some kind of luck.. like trying to guess the location of one atom on the planet or perhaps one atom within the galaxy. The one issue I still see is how are they going to design the law in the future that a guy at the border who carries in excess of $10,000 in cash is treated the same as the guy who carries in excess of $10,000 in bitcoin? Bitcoin is beyond supranational, and this is a bloody important feature of the network. No global legal framework will ever be able to dissolve the problems that nation states have with a currency they can't control. But there are still many, many, many people who haven't understood or don't want to understand that this is what strongly contributes to bitcoin's network value. We all know that physical versus digital remains quite different so it is quite difficult to have parallels in the way that they are treated. We already know that any single one of us can transport all of our wealth, or even the wealth of many others through one private key that can be carried in a variety of ways, and we can carry it anywhere around the world without anyone knowing or being able to figure it out, once they know, beyond perhaps beating us or charming us into revealing it. It makes little sense to even conceptualize treating the digital versus physical the same... but yeah there still can be some interest in regards to how there might be any attempts to place controls on something like bitcoin at border crossings, and yeah of course, there are already a lot of tracking attempts and even increasing attempts at being able to monitor (and likely control) on and off ramps.. .which ultimate results in also trying to control individual ability to transact directly. which hopefully there will develop increasing resistance towards those direct transaction controls. Sure, there are going to continue to be casualties along the way and pretexts in regards to why it is for our own good to have third parties trying to intervene in direct transactions. As soon as you access larger amounts of value outside your own country, it is possible that doesn't go unnoticed for very long How many people are spending more than $10k abroad, without wanting a paper trail? If it's legal, like buying a car, I'd want a paper trail. If it's illegal what you're doing, it's no surprise they'll come after you.Many of us are aware that the $10k limitations had origins that were in the ballpark of 50 years ago, so these kinds of limitations have been increasingly eroding at our rights to privacy and our abilities to transact... so I have troubles presuming that someone who is wanting to transact without paper trails in foreign jurisdictions with more than $10k is presumed to be "trying to get away with something." $10k does not go very far these days... Even normal people could easily spend $10k a month on somewhat normal traveling expenses..and surely in the early $70s, $10k would have had taken normal people more than a year to spend on somewhat "normal traveling expenses". So yeah, $10k these days is likely 1/12th the amount when those various $10k transaction (reporting) limitation rules were put into place. I only know that most of what big corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook and so on and so forth have long been claiming about their privacy policies and that they would not cooperate with intelligence agencies, has all been refuted. Now compare Protonmail or Mullvad: they can't share what they don't have or can't decrypt. Any good privacy service shouldn't keep records they can access.I suppose that "we" (proclaiming to be non-technical folks) are somewhat reliant upon the claims of certain services (as the ones you mentioned) not actually having and/or logging data that pass through their services. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on March 27, 2025, 03:33:01 PM Even normal people could easily spend $10k a month on somewhat normal traveling expenses. But "normal people" nowadays aren't paying cash for those amounts. Who brings a thick pile of 200+ $50 bills on their holiday?Quote I suppose that "we" (proclaiming to be non-technical folks) are somewhat reliant upon the claims of certain services (as the ones you mentioned) not actually having and/or logging data that pass through their services. Yep. But they're quite open about it: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant. Customer data not compromised (https://mullvad.net/en/blog/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised). I remember a similar story about Protonmail: they have to comply, but they couldn't decrypt the emails.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: tinus42 on March 29, 2025, 03:15:02 PM I think in the best technical way to get through without the agents being able to detect that you have a single satoshi. The most logical would be to memorize the seeds but relying on memory would not leave me 100% at ease. Is there another feasible, safe way? Get a paper book (one you would read on a plane) and look for the words in the seed and underline them, one word per page, use a pencil so it's not so obvious. then write down the page numbers in a tiny notebook inconspicously in the order of the seed words. Walk through customs with the book in your hand luggage and put the notepad in your checked baggage. When you arrive at your destination you can put your seed back together. Even if your luggage gets seized or stolen you won't likely lose your bitcoins if you also have the seed backed up somewhere else. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on March 29, 2025, 03:46:08 PM then write down the page numbers in a tiny notebook inconspicously in the order of the seed words. why write the page numbers down? I don't think it would help, because you could just flip all the pages and find the words. It's only for convenience, but actually writting the page numbers on another notebook creates one more place where they could search. Besides, if you wrote down the page numbers (i.e 12 numbers), you could also write down the numbers of the words in the BIP-39 list (e.g. 291 for cattle, 103 for art etc). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on March 29, 2025, 10:13:01 PM then write down the page numbers in a tiny notebook inconspicously in the order of the seed words. why write the page numbers down? I don't think it would help, because you could just flip all the pages and find the words. It's only for convenience, but actually writting the page numbers on another notebook creates one more place where they could search. Besides, if you wrote down the page numbers (i.e 12 numbers), you could also write down the numbers of the words in the BIP-39 list (e.g. 291 for cattle, 103 for art etc). I don't see a better solution than steganography. It's very easy to hide information in a random PNG or JPEG image, but obviously you should encrypt the seedphrase first... the rest depends on your creativity. If you're carrying a hardware wallet, keep it in your carry-on luggage, don't check it in, and if you're questioned about it, at most they'll ask why you're carrying this device and what it does. But you shouldn't have your device seized for this, I haven't heard of any country that restricts Bitcoin use or requires BTC declarations at customs. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on March 30, 2025, 06:58:31 AM The book should contain all 2048 words from the BIP39 list. I don't think it's worth all that effort. Furthermore, even if the book contains almost all the words that make up your seedphrase, you'll still be missing 4 to 6 words. You'll need to find another way to make up for this gap. I also dislike this method, as I explained above, but why should the book contain all 2048 words? I believe it should only contain the 12 that you 're using in your seed phrase. It's also obvious that you should mark a number near the word to indicate which position the word is. Because for example the fourth word could be on a later page than the ninth word etc. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on March 30, 2025, 12:17:17 PM Well, if you cross borders of countries and this is what we're here speculating about, bring one or two language dictionaries. Those usually contain a lot of distinct words, don't they? OK, I see a potential "problem", it has to be a dictionary English<>other language / other language<>English to work for the likely most common use case of English BIP39 wordlist. I'd surely have an unsuspicious explanation for why English is part of one language side of such dictionaries carried with me.
Otherwise just take a thick English book with you written in not too simple language, i.e. something with rich language, not one for smartphone fried and diluted brains. If you can't find one of your specific recovery words, no problem. Simply mark required characters of other words with inconspicuous and discreet pencil specs. Important: check if you can successfully recreate your mnemonic recovery words before you travel! I would highly recommend to do the marking in at least two different books, in case you loose one. Don't choose books that might be considered offensive or inacceptable in the country you enter! You don't want them to be confiscated at customs for whatever reasons. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on March 30, 2025, 03:39:40 PM The book should contain all 2048 words from the BIP39 list. That's easy. Example: "abandon":Quote I don't think it's worth all that effort. Furthermore, even if the book contains almost all the words that make up your seedphrase, you'll still be missing 4 to 6 words. You'll need to find another way to make up for this gap. It's a cumbersome task to write down and find back.I believe it should only contain the 12 that you 're using in your seed phrase. I wouldn't know if any of the books in my posession have the word "abandon" written in it. It's going to take quite a while to find those 12 words, without any guarantee of success. An eBook would make it easy, but you shouldn't just enter your seed words in the Search field on an online system either.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: DYING_S0UL on April 03, 2025, 05:49:46 AM The book should contain all 2048 words from the BIP39 list. I don't think it's worth all that effort. Furthermore, even if the book contains almost all the words that make up your seedphrase, you'll still be missing 4 to 6 words. You'll need to find another way to make up for this gap. I also dislike this method, as I explained above, but why should the book contain all 2048 words? I believe it should only contain the 12 that you 're using in your seed phrase. It's also obvious that you should mark a number near the word to indicate which position the word is. Because for example the fourth word could be on a later page than the ninth word etc. In this case, using a dictionary would be a great choice if you are looking for all 2048 words. But that seems like too much, imo. That's why I agree with apogio here, what we need is a book that contains my seed words! There's no need to carry around a thick book, just a novel would be enough. The challenge lies in finding a book that has these 12/24 seed words. Unless you’re a writer yourself, it could be quite difficult task finding it. Figuring out the order number would be up to the user who chooses this method. You could write down the page and paragraph number or use other methods to indicate it! One could also use color combinations, the possibilities are endless here! Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 03, 2025, 06:50:18 AM I wouldn't know if any of the books in my posession have the word "abandon" written in it. It's going to take quite a while to find those 12 words, without any guarantee of success. An eBook would make it easy, but you shouldn't just enter your seed words in the Search field on an online system either. In this case, using a dictionary would be a great choice if you are looking for all 2048 words. But that seems like too much, imo. That's why I agree with apogio here, what we need is a book that contains my seed words! There's no need to carry around a thick book, just a novel would be enough. The challenge lies in finding a book that has these 12/24 seed words. Unless you’re a writer yourself, it could be quite difficult task finding it. I guess we 're always reaching the same argument, that in fact, carrying a book with our seed phrase marked in it isn't a good option. I am still struggling with finding the optimal method, but in the meantime, there's a great video by 402 Payment Required (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWGXdn3sdp8) which is split in 3 parts. I don't think I will follow it, but it's a great nerdy thing, which is exactly what I like to watch. :P Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: takuma sato on April 06, 2025, 08:07:16 PM I really don't see any problem with paper wallets, hot/cold wallet on a phone, a seedphrase on a USD stick. I'm not sure where you're from, and I never seen this happening, so I really can't imagine them going through your phone apps. Is that even legal? Also, is this even something you have to do? I mean declaring your bitcoin holdings regardless of the amount? Well, in the EU you must declare everything over 10.000€. I would say that in general it is not legal for them to go though your apps but I have seen border control programs where it does seem mandatory, or at least they can make it more difficult for you to enter the country or hold you if you don't cooperate. I was thinking hypothetically. There are reports now of people getting stopped on US customs and being forced to decrypt their phones. Some journalists and researchers got apparently stopped and were told to handle customs their phones in search of any critisicms of Trump. That is some North Korea stuff. But laptops and phones being forced to be decrypted at airports are nothing new. There has been reports of this happening. For this, I wouldn't never cross any borders with anything encrypted. You simply cannot afford the risk that you need to decrypt your stuff and have your coins there. So simply upload your wallet somewhere in the cloud encrypted, then cross whatever borders and recover your backup and once you are safe to go then you could get rid of the cloud backup if you are not comfortable having your wallet online, but if it's fully encrypted then it's the same as trusting that SHA256 is not cracked so basically it's the same as trusting BTC addresses not being cracked. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotFuzzyWarm on April 07, 2025, 02:49:46 AM Quote There are reports now of people getting stopped on US customs and being forced to decrypt their phones. Some journalists and researchers got apparently stopped and were told to handle customs their phones in search of any critisicms of Trump. That is completely 'Fake News'.The ONLY time US CBP is allowed to request access to your electronic devices is if there is prior evidence pointing them to suspicion of illegal activity such as money laundering, narcotics activity, espionage, illegal pornography, human trafficking, etc. They are NOT allowed to do that as part of a random inspection without other evidence giving a need to access your devices so you can explain away their concerns - PERIOD. For all of those idiotic 'Sovereign Citizens' who feel laws do not apply to them, even then you are NOT required to give access but of course CBP can and probably will deny you entry to the country. Doing it to look for criticisms of Trumpolini does NOT fall under access rules and is in fact highly illegal. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: tinus42 on April 07, 2025, 09:55:20 AM Given that there are lots of people who don't like Trump having pro-Trump/MAGA stuff on your phone might also be grounds for getting harassed by customs/TSA on an individual basis. There are lots of scare stories around, until someone shows evidence of Trump or someone in his entourage having ordered critics to be stopped at entry I'd rank those as either overreach by an individual official or "fake news". I wonder if the US is on the path towards a civil war after having seen the movie of the same name. There seem to be such high levels of civic mistrust. I don't care much for Trump but neither for Harris. Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin if you ask me.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 07, 2025, 05:22:58 PM The ONLY time US CBP is allowed to request access to your electronic devices is if there is prior evidence pointing them to suspicion of illegal activity such as money laundering, narcotics activity, espionage, illegal pornography, human trafficking, etc. They are NOT allowed to do that as part of random inspection without other evidence giving a need to access your devices so you can explain away their concerns - PERIOD. That's the normal behaviour in my opinion and, fortunately, it's what happens in most countries that I 've visited. Disclaimer: most countries I 've been to are in the EU and north America. I suppose that even if they did that, to try and access your devices, it would be your right to ask for reasoning and even sue the authorities for abuse of power. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Synchronice on April 07, 2025, 06:16:44 PM Quote I have crossed borders with Electrum installed on my smartphone and PC but no one has ever asked me anything. That's the wrong approach. I always declare everything I have to, up to an apple in some countries. If it's not allowed, I'll throw it away. But at least I won't get into any kind of trouble.If no one knows, that means that it didn't happen, which means no need to declare anything. Why is this a wrong approach? We talk about Bitcoin, it's virtual. I travel multiple times throughout a year (inside the EU, mostly, sometimes in the UK and once was in the USA a few months ago to watch UFC fight). I have never ever said anything about my Electrum wallet and Bitcoins. Seriously, why should I declare, why is this a bad approach? It's on my laptop and smartphone, who will ever know? Will anyone ever ask me to turn on my laptop and unlock it? This hasn't happened ever in my case and I would have travelled at least 100 times in my life. By the way, I never carry something that requires prescription and if there is anything in the future that's not allowed in the country, of course, I'll declare that but I have never thought about declaring my cryptos in Electrum wallet. Maybe if I had to travel in certain countries like China, Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Sudan, I'd declare but I think I'm quite safe inside the EU, UK, USA and Canada, am I right? (I know that Australian customs are crazy). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on April 07, 2025, 07:21:41 PM Regardless of the method used, you should always make backups, whether physical or securely encrypted. Memorizing a 12 - 24-word seed can be an extra layer of security, saving you from headaches and making things easier like crossing borders (after all, who's going to guess what you're thinking?). Practice recalling your seed 1-2 times a week. Over time, it will become second nature (research spaced repetition).
However, memorizing your seed is not a substitute for physical backups. It's just a complement. If something compromises your physical integrity or memory (like an accident), you will lose access to your coins if you don't have backups. Nowadays, I don't need my physical backups, but they're there if I ever need them. There are methods like Border Wallets (https://www.borderwallets.com/), which propose solutions for transporting seeds discreetly if you're afraid of being caught in the act of power abuse at airports. However, I don't recommend it, I found it too complicated and there are gentler methods. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: SuperBitMan on April 08, 2025, 11:22:17 PM First what is there to fear about customs knowing about the number of Bitcoin in your wallet however if you want to keep it private for security reasons then all you have to do is to remove the app from your phone when you pass and get to your destination then you can install back the app however before you do this make sure you are with your seed phrase and you can remember your password, now you can bring a school note with you a note that has been written school work all over it then you can write your seed phrase one character on one page the other in another page and you are good to go.
But I don't think customs will be bothered check our wallet because they know if we have something that will implicate us we just simply delete the app but if they will check just do as I explained above. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on April 09, 2025, 05:50:02 AM Why is this a wrong approach? I was talking about this part:If no one knows, that means that it didn't happen, which means no need to declare anything. Although my statement was more in general than about Bitcoin. In some countries, I've declared a piece of fruit at customs. Not declaring it would have given them a reason to fine me.We talk about Bitcoin, it's virtual. In that case, I'd apply this:You could argue you're not bringing anything physical. Otherwise hiding it from customs would be illegal. Bitcoin isn't in your wallet, Bitcoin is on the blockchain. You may have access to it, but that's kinda like having access to your bank account when you're abroad. Seriously, why should I declare, why is this a bad approach? If you feel you should declare Bitcoin, it kinda makes you a smuggler if you don't declare it.Maybe if I had to travel in certain countries like China, Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Sudan, I'd declare That sounds like a great way to be forced to pay a bribe. I'm not going to any of those countries.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 09, 2025, 06:32:49 AM There are methods like Border Wallets (https://www.borderwallets.com/), which propose solutions for transporting seeds discreetly if you're afraid of being caught in the act of power abuse at airports. However, I don't recommend it, I found it too complicated and there are gentler methods. I checked this out and I 've noted that you don't recommend it, but just for discussion, my problems are: 1. what if you successfuly travel to country X and you realise you can't restore your wallet because you don't remember how to? The brain can work amazingly bizzare in some situations. 2. what if you need to go to another country permanently? In this case you can't have a backup at the origin country, because you 're leaving forever. You could, theoretically, and I think it's the only solution: (a) keep a backup at the origin country (b) travel to the destination, having memorized the wallet (c) restore the wallet and back it up at the destination and (d) then go back to the origin country and destroy the backup you had there Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on April 09, 2025, 07:25:04 AM (d) then go back to the origin country and destroy the backup you had there Or just move your coins to a new wallet ;)Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 09, 2025, 07:28:35 AM (d) then go back to the origin country and destroy the backup you had there Or just move your coins to a new wallet ;)But then you would have to transfer them to the destination country. So when being at the destination country you should create one wallet and transfer the coins there instead of backing up the old one. Yeap, I agree with this approach! Problem solved! Two less air tickets this way! Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on April 09, 2025, 04:03:51 PM I checked this out and I 've noted that you don't recommend it, but just for discussion, my problems are: Yes... I've been reading about border wallets for about a year now and never found the concept appealing, so I set it aside, I don't even remember how they work anymore.1. what if you successfuly travel to country X and you realise you can't restore your wallet because you don't remember how to? The brain can work amazingly bizzare in some situations. 2. what if you need to go to another country permanently? In this case you can't have a backup at the origin country, because you 're leaving forever. You could, theoretically, and I think it's the only solution: (a) keep a backup at the origin country (b) travel to the destination, having memorized the wallet (c) restore the wallet and back it up at the destination and (d) then go back to the origin country and destroy the backup you had there But if I were to move to another country, here's what I'd do: a) Yes, I'd maintain my backup in the origin country, as it's encrypted with a decoy seed (a valid BIP39 phrase). For those who follow my posts about cryptografy, know I'm referring to seed-XOR (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5522798.0)/BIP85 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5505458.0)/seed-otp (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5495690.msg64525917#msg64525917) protection. b) Absolutely, it wouldn't be a problem for me. c, d) I certainly wouldn't make a return trip just to destroy the origin country backup, return to (a). SuperBitMan As for the seeds, I'd leave them as they are, maybe I'd carry them written in a notepad(or just on a piece of paper) or encrypted with AES or GPG on USB drives and SD cards.I probably wouldn't uninstall anything. I think it's very unlikely I'd be stopped at customs over a piece of paper with 12 random words, which would probably be in the middle of mess of clothes and some electronics. I'd just make sure to keep a backup with me in my carry-on luggage, never in checked baggage. The same goes for my hardware wallets. edit: regardless of the method, always test the backup before traveling. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: takuma sato on April 09, 2025, 05:11:26 PM I checked this out and I 've noted that you don't recommend it, but just for discussion, my problems are: Yes... I've been reading about border wallets for about a year now and never found the concept appealing, so I set it aside, I don't even remember how they work anymore.1. what if you successfuly travel to country X and you realise you can't restore your wallet because you don't remember how to? The brain can work amazingly bizzare in some situations. 2. what if you need to go to another country permanently? In this case you can't have a backup at the origin country, because you 're leaving forever. You could, theoretically, and I think it's the only solution: (a) keep a backup at the origin country (b) travel to the destination, having memorized the wallet (c) restore the wallet and back it up at the destination and (d) then go back to the origin country and destroy the backup you had there But if I were to move to another country, here's what I'd do: a) Yes, I'd maintain my backup in the origin country, as it's encrypted with a decoy seed (a valid BIP39 phrase). For those who follow my posts about cryptografy, know I'm referring to seed-XOR (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5522798.0)/BIP85 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5505458.0)/seed-otp (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5495690.msg64525917#msg64525917) protection. b) Absolutely, it wouldn't be a problem for me. c, d) I certainly wouldn't make a return trip just to destroy the origin country backup, return to (a). SuperBitMan As for the seeds, I'd leave them as they are, maybe I'd carry them written in a notepad(or just on a piece of paper) or encrypted with AES or GPG on USB drives and SD cards.I probably wouldn't uninstall anything. I think it's very unlikely I'd be stopped at customs over a piece of paper with 12 random words, which would probably be in the middle of mess of clothes and some electronics. I'd just make sure to keep a backup with me in my carry-on luggage, never in checked baggage. The same goes for my hardware wallets. edit: regardless of the method, always test the backup before traveling. Context always matter. If you are fleeing away from China because they have just dropped a law that says owning any BTC is punished with jail or something like that, then you don't want to gamble your freedom, what you want is to get your wallet encrypted with dm-crypt or any other open source encryption software, put it online somewhere in an attachment, and then move to the next country, and then recover your backup now that you are safe. You must have destroyed your local copies before doing this so if the Chinese go house by house looking for wallets they find nothing. The big risk here is there is a brief period of time where you are trusting online copies to remain, if your online copies are lost, you would be wrecked. So you want to have backups in various places. The password must be impossible to crack, so now your problem is storing this password somewhere. Think of creative ways to travel with a password that does not identify as an obvious password for your wallet. This is the only way I can think off to do this. I think sooner or later some of these governments will become dystopic enough to knock door per door in search of BTC so you must plan ahead. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 09, 2025, 06:59:32 PM Context always matter. If you are fleeing away from China because they have just dropped a law that says owning any BTC is punished with jail or something like that, then you don't want to gamble your freedom, what you want is to get your wallet encrypted with dm-crypt or any other open source encryption software, put it online somewhere in an attachment, and then move to the next country, and then recover your backup now that you are safe. You must have destroyed your local copies before doing this so if the Chinese go house by house looking for wallets they find nothing. The big risk here is there is a brief period of time where you are trusting online copies to remain, if your online copies are lost, you would be wrecked. So you want to have backups in various places. The password must be impossible to crack, so now your problem is storing this password somewhere. Think of creative ways to travel with a password that does not identify as an obvious password for your wallet. This is the only way I can think off to do this. I think sooner or later some of these governments will become dystopic enough to knock door per door in search of BTC so you must plan ahead. As a sidenote, since everything that is backed up in the cloud never gets actually erased, when you reach your destination you should create a new wallet and move the funds there. Otherwise you will have a strange feeling that your backup is somewhere available on the internet, even if it seems (and may be) infeasible to crack the encryption. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotFuzzyWarm on April 09, 2025, 07:20:26 PM For the truly paranoid out there, do remember that all inputs & outputs from any address are indelibly embedded into a blockchain. It's what they do. If "They" have sufficient interest in you and your crypto to dig deeper, moving it from one wallet to a different new one still keeps you linked to the old address and if "They" know your old address, well...
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 09, 2025, 07:26:56 PM For the truly paranoid out there, do remember that all inputs & outputs from any address are indelibly embedded into a blockchain. It's what they do. If "They" have sufficient interest in you and your crypto moving it from one wallet to another still keeps you linked to the old address... Luckily, you can do some coinjoins, some exchanges for XMR or any other more private crypto, some LN swaps or some Liquid peg-in and peg-out. But yes I think we 're getting paranoid now. The resume is that you need to make sure not to lose your coins :P Making them private is an extra milestone. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on April 09, 2025, 07:33:41 PM For the truly paranoid out there, do remember that all inputs & outputs from any address are indelibly embedded into a blockchain. It's what they do. If "They" have sufficient interest in you and your crypto moving it from one wallet to a different new one still keeps you linked to the old address and if "They" know your old address, well... this ^ and I still am not a fan of this thread in particular. I would still go with multiple emails with pieces of the seed. And even a bit of the seed on a piece of paper in your wallet. I just did a seed https://getcoinplate.com/bip39-seed-phrase-mnemonics-generator-offline-online-tool/?srsltid=AfmBOorPwBoSpBEP97ygSq1doNLx5sWBZMLY7YxX0I7NfE8pYahg7je7&v=0b3b97fa6688 broken email 1)email member produce green sister write in your notes in your phone Get a green dress for sister. 2 email assume swift oyster little 3 email know assault junior april 4 email reject pole state shrug 5 email alpha thought pudding strike 6 email exchange caught grow excess Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotFuzzyWarm on April 09, 2025, 07:52:57 PM ... Ditto but popped in here to keep some needed perspective to the subject. Still don't get the concern folks have about it ::)and I still am not a fan of this thread in particular. ... Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: takuma sato on April 09, 2025, 08:49:46 PM Context always matter. If you are fleeing away from China because they have just dropped a law that says owning any BTC is punished with jail or something like that, then you don't want to gamble your freedom, what you want is to get your wallet encrypted with dm-crypt or any other open source encryption software, put it online somewhere in an attachment, and then move to the next country, and then recover your backup now that you are safe. You must have destroyed your local copies before doing this so if the Chinese go house by house looking for wallets they find nothing. The big risk here is there is a brief period of time where you are trusting online copies to remain, if your online copies are lost, you would be wrecked. So you want to have backups in various places. The password must be impossible to crack, so now your problem is storing this password somewhere. Think of creative ways to travel with a password that does not identify as an obvious password for your wallet. This is the only way I can think off to do this. I think sooner or later some of these governments will become dystopic enough to knock door per door in search of BTC so you must plan ahead. As a sidenote, since everything that is backed up in the cloud never gets actually erased, when you reach your destination you should create a new wallet and move the funds there. Otherwise you will have a strange feeling that your backup is somewhere available on the internet, even if it seems (and may be) infeasible to crack the encryption. Good point, for extra measure you could indeed just move your funds. However, if you've got like 100 utxos, it will be hell moving the funds. How do you do it without ruining your privacy? You should at some point, move the funds, but the logistics involved sucks. Everytime you move countries, you would need to transact the entire wallet into other addresses. If you want to keep your privacy you would need to do 100 transactions into other different 100 addresses, or at least, have 10 transactions, but someone that bothered to check would see you own these 10 if they knew at least one of them. The problem with "consolidating btc addresses" is that it ruins your privacy. If you have been accepting payments for years in different addresses and you send it all to a few, then your privacy has been decreased. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on April 09, 2025, 09:44:54 PM ... Ditto but popped in here to keep some needed perspective to the subject. Still don't get the concern folks have about it ::)and I still am not a fan of this thread in particular. ... Well to me where am I going with my coin in a wallet on my body. The answer is nowhere. Also if I leave America with all my corn they can do a clawback if they chose so why worry. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Forsyth Jones on April 09, 2025, 11:30:45 PM Ditto but popped in here to keep some needed perspective to the subject. Still don't get the concern folks have about it ::) This is great for testing folks' knowledge and creativity lol... even though we're revealing everything in a public forum like this...In case of a criminal investigation... Agent Smith... I'm just here for the technology and curiosity.. I don't even know what bitcoin is and I hate those who do ::) Context always matter. If you are fleeing away from China because they have just dropped a law that says owning any BTC is punished with jail or something like that, then you don't want to gamble your freedom, what you want is to get your wallet encrypted with dm-crypt or any other open source encryption software... Encryption and steganography are like helmets,they won't prevent 100% of deaths, but they'll minimize impact in case an accident. Depending on severity, you might walk away unscathed... I wouldn't enter North Korea with an Electrum on a USB drive, because encryption doesn't protect against a $5 wrench attack. It only guards against unauthorized access and brute force attacks.Another thing is if your country becomes a communist dystopia... the best thing to do is to flee that country with or without suitcases... Why risk your physical safety? You must have destroyed your local copies before doing this so if the Chinese go house by house looking for wallets they find nothing. ... Destroying a backup is nonsense, if you suspect something, just transfer the funds to another wallet and make a new backup.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 10, 2025, 04:49:03 AM However, if you've got like 100 utxos, it will be hell moving the funds. How do you do it without ruining your privacy? You should at some point, move the funds, but the logistics involved sucks. Everytime you move countries, you would need to transact the entire wallet into other addresses. If you want to keep your privacy you would need to do 100 transactions into other different 100 addresses, or at least, have 10 transactions, but someone that bothered to check would see you own these 10 if they knew at least one of them. The problem with "consolidating btc addresses" is that it ruins your privacy. If you have been accepting payments for years in different addresses and you send it all to a few, then your privacy has been decreased. Like you said, at some point you should move the funds. Out of curiousity, what would you do then? I guess you 'd send the utxos individually. So, the only thing I can think of, is the fact that moving to another country is a good reason to do this transfer. If you 're lucky, you may have a bunch of utxos that can be consolidated. If not, then you have to pay fees and spend time sending each one individually. And this is where I 'd start thinking if it's really worth it. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on April 10, 2025, 10:09:44 AM green This quickly increases the number of possibilities:sister write in your notes in your phone Get a green dress for sister. 819: green 534: dress 1613: sister if you've got like 100 utxos, it will be hell moving the funds. How do you do it without ruining your privacy? That would be a good moment to think about which inputs to consolidate, and which to keep separate. Especially now that fees are low, it can save you a lot on transaction fees later.Quote The problem with "consolidating btc addresses" is that it ruins your privacy. I'd say: "it depends". Most people won't have that many inputs that need to stay separated at all costs.Quote Everytime you move countries, you would need to transact the entire wallet into other addresses. Are those hypothetical problems, or are you really moving to different countries frequently enough to have to worry about moving all your inputs to different addresses that often?I wouldn't enter North Korea I made it a lot safer by wiping out most of your comment :PTitle: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 10, 2025, 10:15:48 AM That would be a good moment to think about which inputs to consolidate, and which to keep separate. Especially now that fees are low, it can save you a lot on transaction fees later. Exactly, I 've pointed it out above, but as an example that I forgot to mention, if you get paid from a signature campaign at the address X, then after Y weeks you 're gonna have Y UTXOs on the same address. I suppose it won't ruin your privacy if you consolidate them. In general, if you have UTXOs on the same address, you can consolidate them (even at the same address). Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: takuma sato on April 10, 2025, 08:26:43 PM That would be a good moment to think about which inputs to consolidate, and which to keep separate. Especially now that fees are low, it can save you a lot on transaction fees later. Exactly, I 've pointed it out above, but as an example that I forgot to mention, if you get paid from a signature campaign at the address X, then after Y weeks you 're gonna have Y UTXOs on the same address. I suppose it won't ruin your privacy if you consolidate them. In general, if you have UTXOs on the same address, you can consolidate them (even at the same address). If you switch your recieving address for each different signature campaing (for example) then after years you will have a lot of different addresses with payments. And on top of that, the recieving addresses are all public, so if you ever use money from your signature campaings to pay for anything, if they are curious and google your address, they would find your account, your political views, a lot of possible data about you, as well as a screener of how much money you have made over the years. Not a good luck for privacy. So you would need to find a way to be able to pay with your bitcoin in a way that does not tie you to to your public addresses that have you shared here or elsewhere. This makes bitcoin annoying to use since you are going to need to make additional transactions and think how you are going to make them to keep it private. And now with regulators hating on mixers, you cannot just simply mix the stuff and solve the problem, since if you want to cash out to buy a house when BTC is worth $1,000,000 or whatever, you will not be able to do so. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 11, 2025, 05:05:45 AM If you switch your recieving address for each different signature campaing (for example) then after years you will have a lot of different addresses with payments. I suppose yes, although I don't think a user will switch campaigns too often. They definitely will, but I think that most users stick to a campaign for some months. So you would need to find a way to be able to pay with your bitcoin in a way that does not tie you to to your public addresses that have you shared here or elsewhere. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but my suggestions are: (1) coinjoins (2) swap for XMR and then back to BTC (3) LN swaps (4) Liquid BTC peg-in and peg-out If I was worried that my funds from campaigns A (address X), B (address Y), C (address Z) were going to be linked and prove that they 're paid to the same person, I would simply do one of the above methods on each payment individually. But I am not worried because it's public data that apogio has received money from campaigns A,B,C on addresses X,Y,Z. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Free Market Capitalist on April 13, 2025, 06:40:20 PM I am glad that a thread of mine has given so much to discuss. I was originally thinking of a simple case, where you have a certain amount of bitcoin and you want to take with you to another country only a part of it, but that may exceed the limit of what could give you problems to be detected, more than 10.000€.
I keep reading you, although without commenting, and I see that the solutions proposed could be used to leave or escape your country in a hypothetical scenario with all the bitcoin you have. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5506510.msg65258571#msg65258571) However, the more I read I think the less clear I have it. For my first scenario I think the seeds written with invisible ink would be the best option, as I commented. And it is also clear to me that it is unlikely to find a problem in customs even if it carries a HW or mobile wallet. But even if something went wrong you would still have the rest of the bitcoin back home. If I had to take it all because I'm moving to another country I'm not sure what I would do, although it's so hypothetical that I'm not too worried about it. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Cricktor on April 15, 2025, 04:28:28 PM The topic moved around a bit, recently with a short excursion to Bitcoin privacy or it's lack of it. Coins are linked via transactions and those are public. If you can attribute coins or transactions to some person you can see a lot more than desired.
We can only obfuscate the links and make attribution a pain in the ass or a lot of guesswork. I see an advantage of Bitcoin, compared to physical goods like physical money or gold or valuable stuff, because all coins are only "on the Bitcoin blockchain". You don't need to carry them with you. To cross borders with your Bitcoins, you "only" need to transport a way to access or reconstruct your wallet, your private keys which enable you to move your coins on the blockchain. A lot of ways have been proposed how to hide and carry your wallet or key reconstruction details with you so that it's not obvious to spot. Whatever procedure you choose or prefer: keep it simple, keep it safe, don't shoot yourself in your feet. I can't recall if it has been discussed if you can keep cool and not acting suspicious knowing what you hide when you cross borders. I guess there's no recipe and I have none, either. Would it help to spin the mantra "Keep calm, you're not doing anything wrong"? Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: Smartprofit on April 21, 2025, 10:38:21 AM The topic moved around a bit, recently with a short excursion to Bitcoin privacy or it's lack of it. Coins are linked via transactions and those are public. If you can attribute coins or transactions to some person you can see a lot more than desired. We can only obfuscate the links and make attribution a pain in the ass or a lot of guesswork. I see an advantage of Bitcoin, compared to physical goods like physical money or gold or valuable stuff, because all coins are only "on the Bitcoin blockchain". You don't need to carry them with you. To cross borders with your Bitcoins, you "only" need to transport a way to access or reconstruct your wallet, your private keys which enable you to move your coins on the blockchain. A lot of ways have been proposed how to hide and carry your wallet or key reconstruction details with you so that it's not obvious to spot. Whatever procedure you choose or prefer: keep it simple, keep it safe, don't shoot yourself in your feet. I can't recall if it has been discussed if you can keep cool and not acting suspicious knowing what you hide when you cross borders. I guess there's no recipe and I have none, either. Would it help to spin the mantra "Keep calm, you're not doing anything wrong"? You are absolutely right, psychological preparation is also very important in this situation. Yes, in my opinion, such psychological exercises as meditation or reading special mantras (psychological litanies) can help you. At the same time, such training should be done systematically. You can also attend acting or improvisation courses. There are also board games, such as "Mafia". These games teach people to lie. People are given cards with certain game roles - civilians, mafia, police commissioner, maniac, etc. The game time is divided into two parts - day and night. During the day, players can discuss among themselves, determining which of the players is the mafioso. By voting, one of the players is chosen for this role and is "executed" (he leaves the game). At night, the mafia "wakes up" and destroys one of the inhabitants of the world. As a result, at the end of the game, either the mafia or the civilians win. To win this game, you need to be able to lie and not show your true emotions to strangers. Of course, such skills will help you pass customs at the airport without problems (if all other conditions are met). Despite all the technical difficulties, in my opinion, Bitcoin provides the best way to move capital across international borders, from one country to another. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: pushups44 on April 21, 2025, 04:57:27 PM It's worth mentioning that security agents have been busted stealing cash and valuables from passengers at airports and ports. Here is one example:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/19/travel/naples-florida-cbp-officer-stealing-cash-passengers/index.html I was led to this post and felt the need to warn people about it, because it's a fact that passengers get their valuables stolen at airports and ports in the U.S. all the time. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on April 21, 2025, 06:13:04 PM It's worth mentioning that security agents have been busted stealing cash and valuables from passengers at airports and ports. Anyone you don't know can be a thief. If you're at the point where your seed phrase is exposed as clear text, you should assume your funds get stolen. So don't expose your seed phrase :)Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: takuma sato on April 21, 2025, 08:37:40 PM If you switch your recieving address for each different signature campaing (for example) then after years you will have a lot of different addresses with payments. I suppose yes, although I don't think a user will switch campaigns too often. They definitely will, but I think that most users stick to a campaign for some months. So you would need to find a way to be able to pay with your bitcoin in a way that does not tie you to to your public addresses that have you shared here or elsewhere. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but my suggestions are: (1) coinjoins (2) swap for XMR and then back to BTC (3) LN swaps (4) Liquid BTC peg-in and peg-out If I was worried that my funds from campaigns A (address X), B (address Y), C (address Z) were going to be linked and prove that they 're paid to the same person, I would simply do one of the above methods on each payment individually. But I am not worried because it's public data that apogio has received money from campaigns A,B,C on addresses X,Y,Z. The problem with mixing coins (all of these are a form of mixing basically) is that you receive funds from random sources, so when you deposit these funds into a KYC place, or someone that you paid deposits these funds into a KYC place, then their chainalysis systems may get triggered by something you received during the funds and now you have a problem, since the person you paid to may point to you as the previous owner of these funds. So if you pay someone for a product or service that requires you doxed or you pay in person, that is a risk there. I have not found a solution for this, you have to assume some risk of this happening if you use your BTC to pay for things that require you are doxed, or pay in person for some product. As far as campaigns, im not sure but sometimes I think they barely last a month. So you may end up with a lot of different addresses with funds. The problem of privacy with BTC remains since if BTC was like XMR, it would be worth much less, since it's just a black box that you cannot audit. But since it's so transparent, it could lead to problems if you are receiving funds from someone non-doxed (like someone that pays you for a sig campaign, you don't know where the funds come from) or you paying someone with those funds and then triggering some problem due chainalysis systems, or trying to gain privacy by mixing the coins which is a very reasonable practice, ending up in a problem when you pay for something. Let's say you have 1 BTC from sig campaigns, and then 1 BTC is worth a million by 2030. "Cool, let's buy a house". But then you find out these funds trigger chainalysis when you try to liquidate them for fiat. You did nothing wrong but receive some funds, but now you have a problem that you have to solve if you want to use these funds for anything relevant. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: JayJuanGee on April 22, 2025, 12:16:26 AM If you switch your recieving address for each different signature campaing (for example) then after years you will have a lot of different addresses with payments. I suppose yes, although I don't think a user will switch campaigns too often. They definitely will, but I think that most users stick to a campaign for some months.So you would need to find a way to be able to pay with your bitcoin in a way that does not tie you to to your public addresses that have you shared here or elsewhere. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but my suggestions are:(1) coinjoins (2) swap for XMR and then back to BTC (3) LN swaps (4) Liquid BTC peg-in and peg-out If I was worried that my funds from campaigns A (address X), B (address Y), C (address Z) were going to be linked and prove that they 're paid to the same person, I would simply do one of the above methods on each payment individually. But I am not worried because it's public data that apogio has received money from campaigns A,B,C on addresses X,Y,Z. As far as campaigns, im not sure but sometimes I think they barely last a month. So you may end up with a lot of different addresses with funds. Seems problematic if many of us cannot feel that we are able to transact with others based on being worried about chain analysis or feeling that we need to do our own chain analysis in order to transact with others... so sure if we are sending we may have some ideas from where our coins came, but then we might also lose track in regards to some of our transactions. The problem of privacy with BTC remains since if BTC was like XMR, it would be worth much less, since it's just a black box that you cannot audit. But since it's so transparent, it could lead to problems if you are receiving funds from someone non-doxed (like someone that pays you for a sig campaign, you don't know where the funds come from) or you paying someone with those funds and then triggering some problem due chainalysis systems, or trying to gain privacy by mixing the coins which is a very reasonable practice, ending up in a problem when you pay for something. Let's say you have 1 BTC from sig campaigns, and then 1 BTC is worth a million by 2030. "Cool, let's buy a house". But then you find out these funds trigger chainalysis when you try to liquidate them for fiat. You did nothing wrong but receive some funds, but now you have a problem that you have to solve if you want to use these funds for anything relevant. There are some coins that you are receiving in small doses over years and years and years, and sure there could be some coins that you receive in larger transactions. Let's say that you sell your car or some higher ticket item, and even if you have some smaller transactions, they might come from questionable sources and then the questionable sources add up... maybe then you are having to answer for someone else's coins when you are told that you are a suspect in some crime or maybe that you are getting locked out of some exchange because the source of your coins, a few hops back, are of "questionable" origins. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 22, 2025, 06:50:21 AM Let's say you have 1 BTC from sig campaigns, and then 1 BTC is worth a million by 2030. "Cool, let's buy a house". But then you find out these funds trigger chainalysis when you try to liquidate them for fiat. You did nothing wrong but receive some funds, but now you have a problem that you have to solve if you want to use these funds for anything relevant. Well, as I 've told you multiple times, I realise the fear and I can comprehend it. It's like buying a house with a bag full of cash. By the way, this was the only way to transact some decades ago. You 'd go load your luggage with cash (+ gold) and you 'd find a contract officer to complete the deal between you and the house seller. If the cash was checked and was marked for fraudulent activities, then you 'd be in some trouble trying to justify how you got it. What's changed? The fact that now we have banks doing all the auditing between you and the seller. So, you know from the beginning that the money you have is theoretically (and practically) checked by the authorities. But, keep in mind that the reason why I (and many others) love Bitcoin is the fact that we don't like intermediaries (a.k.a banks, authorities etc) to intervene in our transactions. On their side though, they don't like us for the exact same reason. We pay taxes, we are worried about being lawful but when it comes to buying something with our honestly earned bitcoin, we must be afraid of them because they provoke fear. They can't control bitcoin otherwise, so they do what they know best. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: takuma sato on April 22, 2025, 08:42:20 PM Let's say you have 1 BTC from sig campaigns, and then 1 BTC is worth a million by 2030. "Cool, let's buy a house". But then you find out these funds trigger chainalysis when you try to liquidate them for fiat. You did nothing wrong but receive some funds, but now you have a problem that you have to solve if you want to use these funds for anything relevant. Well, as I 've told you multiple times, I realise the fear and I can comprehend it. It's like buying a house with a bag full of cash. By the way, this was the only way to transact some decades ago. You 'd go load your luggage with cash (+ gold) and you 'd find a contract officer to complete the deal between you and the house seller. If the cash was checked and was marked for fraudulent activities, then you 'd be in some trouble trying to justify how you got it. What's changed? The fact that now we have banks doing all the auditing between you and the seller. So, you know from the beginning that the money you have is theoretically (and practically) checked by the authorities. But, keep in mind that the reason why I (and many others) love Bitcoin is the fact that we don't like intermediaries (a.k.a banks, authorities etc) to intervene in our transactions. On their side though, they don't like us for the exact same reason. We pay taxes, we are worried about being lawful but when it comes to buying something with our honestly earned bitcoin, we must be afraid of them because they provoke fear. They can't control bitcoin otherwise, so they do what they know best. Yes, you can use Bitcoin peer to peer without intermediaries, but that would be very limited in what you can buy. You couldn't buy anything big obviously, so if you are a rich, or not even rich but having a couple millions or so (realistic when BTC goes to $300k+ in the next few years) then you are going to want to do something with that money. Are you just going to be buying stuff from local reseller? that's a joke. You want big money to do big things, and that requires an audit. And so here is the question: how do you audit coins that were paid to you by sig campaign managers? to follow with this context where you get paid for this task. That is what you should solve if you want to convert BTC into anything tangible of value. I think an audit may be possible, but you never know what coins you are holding, there is always a risk you go get an audit and end up in trouble because some of the coins you have are under investigation for some reason, so we should talk about how to solve these things. You don't want to have millions in BTC and only be limited to spending it on peanuts. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: apogio on April 23, 2025, 02:23:53 PM Yes, you can use Bitcoin peer to peer without intermediaries, but that would be very limited in what you can buy. You couldn't buy anything big obviously, so if you are a rich, or not even rich but having a couple millions or so (realistic when BTC goes to $300k+ in the next few years) then you are going to want to do something with that money. Are you just going to be buying stuff from local reseller? that's a joke. You want big money to do big things, and that requires an audit. And so here is the question: how do you audit coins that were paid to you by sig campaign managers? to follow with this context where you get paid for this task. That is what you should solve if you want to convert BTC into anything tangible of value. I think an audit may be possible, but you never know what coins you are holding, there is always a risk you go get an audit and end up in trouble because some of the coins you have are under investigation for some reason, so we should talk about how to solve these things. You don't want to have millions in BTC and only be limited to spending it on peanuts. But: 1. If we need a 3rd party auditing mechanism, we can use the traditional banking system. 2. You can't be certain which hands have touched the coins you have. It's really impossible. And if you knew it wouldn't be a currency. My question is (and it's not ironic at all): how have you dealt with the issues you are refering to with the current financial system? How are you able to use big money for big things? If the answer is that you 're using banks and therefore the money you have is audited, then this is exactly what bitcoin tries to solve. I mean, what if, after all, the points that you 've mentioned aren't really issues in general, but they are only issues if you think using the current financial system's mentality? What if I told you that Bitcoin is the best auditing mechanism that humanity has ever invented? Instead of using Visa and Bank of America (examples) to validate that you can buy a house, you can use some thousands of Bitcoins miners and nodes to validate that you honestly possess the amount of money you say you do. Bitcoin is made from the people, for the people. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: takuma sato on April 23, 2025, 05:21:03 PM Yes, you can use Bitcoin peer to peer without intermediaries, but that would be very limited in what you can buy. You couldn't buy anything big obviously, so if you are a rich, or not even rich but having a couple millions or so (realistic when BTC goes to $300k+ in the next few years) then you are going to want to do something with that money. Are you just going to be buying stuff from local reseller? that's a joke. You want big money to do big things, and that requires an audit. And so here is the question: how do you audit coins that were paid to you by sig campaign managers? to follow with this context where you get paid for this task. That is what you should solve if you want to convert BTC into anything tangible of value. I think an audit may be possible, but you never know what coins you are holding, there is always a risk you go get an audit and end up in trouble because some of the coins you have are under investigation for some reason, so we should talk about how to solve these things. You don't want to have millions in BTC and only be limited to spending it on peanuts. But: 1. If we need a 3rd party auditing mechanism, we can use the traditional banking system. 2. You can't be certain which hands have touched the coins you have. It's really impossible. And if you knew it wouldn't be a currency. My question is (and it's not ironic at all): how have you dealt with the issues you are refering to with the current financial system? How are you able to use big money for big things? If the answer is that you 're using banks and therefore the money you have is audited, then this is exactly what bitcoin tries to solve. I mean, what if, after all, the points that you 've mentioned aren't really issues in general, but they are only issues if you think using the current financial system's mentality? What if I told you that Bitcoin is the best auditing mechanism that humanity has ever invented? Instead of using Visa and Bank of America (examples) to validate that you can buy a house, you can use some thousands of Bitcoins miners and nodes to validate that you honestly possess the amount of money you say you do. Bitcoin is made from the people, for the people. That is great and all but if you want to buy a house, your funds will need to be audited by the assorted authorities and the bank will want that your bitcoins are not from selling drugs on the darknet or whatever. Bitcoin is perfect in terms of honesty of transaction transparency, nobody can print more of it or change the rules etc, which is great, but this does not solve the source of funds problem, that is, if the source of funds is from doing something legal or not. Obviously signature campaigns are legal, but we don't know who is paying us. Same goes for any activity done in exchange of BTC where the payeer is not identified with a Employer Identification Number (EIN) or a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) in US terms, or a VAT number in EU terms, etc. Again, this does not mean your funds are useless and ilegal, it just means that we will need to get it audited if we want to use these funds to buy a house once BTC is worth 1 million or whatever and you are sitting on all that money, unless you want to be rich and be limited to buying groceries or off radar stuff with gift coupons but what's the point. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: NotFuzzyWarm on April 23, 2025, 09:05:30 PM It's worth mentioning that security agents have been busted stealing cash and valuables from passengers at airports and ports. You make it sound like this is a common thing... At least in Western countries it is NOT.Frankly I am unaware of any incidents of it happening in the US involving the CBP. Mainly because all secondary basic or advanced inspections are done according to strict protocols one of which is the mandatory presence of at least 1 other officer. All secondary inspections are video recorded from several angles and results logged and held for YEARS. Stealing cash and valuables from travelers has always been more of an issue centered around the baggage handlers and even then in the US it is an exceedingly rare occurrence. For some facts: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/cbp-search-authority/border-search-electronic-devices https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2018-Jan/CBP-Directive-3340-049A-Border-Search-of-Electronic-Media-Compliant.pdf Section 5 of the pdf outlines all CBP procedures. Some hard stats on US CBP traveler screening from https://www.cbp.gov/travel/cbp-search-authority/border-search-electronic-devices emphasis is mine: Quote Of the 420 million travelers CBP processed at ports of entry in FY 2024, 12,660,784 (3%) travelers were referred for a secondary inspection. Given that - I for one have zero concerns crossing US borders. Of course regarding other countries could well be a different story... It all depends on their own laws.A border search of electronics is not a required action during a secondary inspection. In fact, CBP only conducted border searches of the electronic devices of 47,047 travelers in FY 2024, representing approximately 0.3% of secondary inspections and less than 0.01% of all arriving international travelers encountered at ports of entry. Of the 47,047 border searches of electronic devices encountered at port of entry, 42,725 (90%) were basic searches in which the devices were not connected to external equipment to review, copy and/or analyze its contents. As a Frequent Traveller with over 8 million air-miles to my record from when I worked as an industrial laser Field Engineer for over 48 years flying all over the US and the world, at least 1/2 of the miles were from international travel. In all those years only 2x did I have to go through any sort of secondary screening in ANY country and none involved searches of my computer or phone. One country was China and the other oddly enough was Canada - both were only interested in the contents of my service tools kit and details of my work VISA. Mod note: Consecutive posts merged Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on April 24, 2025, 04:56:22 PM It's worth mentioning that security agents have been busted stealing cash and valuables from passengers at airports and ports. You make it sound like this is a common thing... At least in Western countries it is NOT.Standard issue that I have my experience with when friends are asking friends to set up their wallet. Biggest mistake ever because if a real hack occurs, the friend who lens a helping hand can't prove they haven't stolen it. Easy solution: help them set it up, teach them how to do it, and make sure they don't show you their seed phrase or anything else you shouldn't know.Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: pushups44 on April 29, 2025, 07:54:51 AM It's worth mentioning that security agents have been busted stealing cash and valuables from passengers at airports and ports. You make it sound like this is a common thing... At least in Western countries it is NOT.Boy oh boy. Theft is very, very common at airports, and while the CBP may be relatively straight on such issues, there are cases of theft involving their agents that people should be aware of. There are many, many stories according to a Google search I did right now of TSA agents engaged in theft. In ports, private security officers have been implicated in theft. Is it likely that you will be a victim of theft at any particular point in time while going through an airport? No. Is it possible? YES. A basic Google search reveals CBP can search a person's phone. Again, this may not be the ordinary encounter, but it can happen. And how agents behave in different airports may depend on how they are trained or any supposed threat level perceived. Not far from where I live, a police officer was busted for stealing cash from innocent people during traffic stops. Is this the norm? No. Does it happen? Yes. Quote As a Frequent Traveller with over 8 million air-miles to my record from when I worked as an industrial laser Field Engineer for over 48 years flying all over the US and the world, at least 1/2 of the miles were from international travel. In all those years only 2x did I have to go through any sort of secondary screening in ANY country and none involved searches of my computer or phone. One country was China and the other oddly enough was Canada - both were only interested in the contents of my service tools kit and details of my work VISA. This can be countered very easily with personal examples from myself and others, but I will refrain from revealing personal information about myself. Let's stick to facts and not anecdotal experiences. Again, your personal experience can be countered by the person responding to you. Note: U.S. airlines lose two million pieces of luggage each year, according to NPR: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/27/1215336777/u-s-airlines-lose-2-million-suitcases-a-year-where-do-they-end-up The EFF has pointed out that devices can be seized during interrogations at the border: "If you are philosophically opposed to intrusive border searches, you may feel that the importance of asserting your rights may outweigh the risk of having your devices seized, being extensively questioned, missing a flight, or otherwise being detained." https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-privacy-us-border-2017 Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on April 29, 2025, 08:17:27 AM Note: U.S. airlines lose two million pieces of luggage each year, according to NPR: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/27/1215336777/u-s-airlines-lose-2-million-suitcases-a-year-where-do-they-end-up Exactly. I'd worry much more about theft by luggage handlers, than theft by security agents in Western countries. Which is why I never check in any valuables. So don't leave your seed phrase in your luggage :)Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: pushups44 on April 29, 2025, 08:26:54 AM Note: U.S. airlines lose two million pieces of luggage each year, according to NPR: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/27/1215336777/u-s-airlines-lose-2-million-suitcases-a-year-where-do-they-end-up Exactly. I'd worry much more about theft by luggage handlers, than theft by security agents in Western countries. Which is why I never check in any valuables. So don't leave your seed phrase in your luggage :)Please understand, contrary to what has been suggested in this thread (and I do not mean to be sarcastic to the dude with anecdotal experiences of his 48 years of flying - possibly largely before 9/11), electronic devices can easily go missing from luggage and wind up on Craigslist or eBay. There are also organized criminals that steal from baggage carousels. I can think of other scenarios in today's climate of migration control that devices or other property get seized. But the theft issue alone - including by security personnel - should not be understated. Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: LoyceV on April 29, 2025, 08:35:16 AM electronic devices can easily go missing from luggage and wind up on Craigslist or eBay. That's why I don't check them in. Depending on the country, I've heard stories of people who keep one left shoe in their carry on, just so the luggage thief can't use their shoes :PFor all my trips, I now have a "disposable laptop": I bring a disposable laptop (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5483708.msg64791739#msg64791739). To access anything, you'd need to get through several layers of encryption. It's old enough to be very unlikely to get stolen, it's secure enough for me not to worry about it, and it's cheap enough to not lose any sleep over it. But if it does get stolen, it's still inconvenient to not have access to a laptop.It's also sturdy enough to use as a cutting board while camping :P Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: mcdouglasx on April 29, 2025, 11:49:20 PM I would do it using steganography; I would employ a method to hide/encrypted data within an image, file, or audio. With so many variations and possibilities, I doubt anyone could discover them.
Title: Re: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? Post by: philipma1957 on May 07, 2025, 10:40:53 PM I think you list the seed to a trezor in multiple emails
I use live.com yahoo.com I have access to my bitcointalk pms i have private note i have ebay accounts look at this ebay add. https://www.ebay.com/itm/167426372173 note the title has the word black in it that would be first world of my seed. box would be the second foot would be the third word green would be the fourth word https://bitcoinnews.com/learn/bitcoin-seed-word-list/ |
