Going across borders with....knowledge of a private key?

[spooderman]

Seriously, how does this work? (When people are limited to carrying goods or currency in amount not greater than $10,000?)

Is it about "working-to-rule" for us BTCers and wasting (ours) and lots of immigration people's time by telling them that our money is effectively with us all the time?

[Lethn]

As far as I'm aware they wouldn't be able to do anything in regards to Bitcoin, that said, if you walk up to them claiming you have $10,000 worth of Bitcoin you're probably asking for trouble, best just to go low key and declare anything you have that's physical. One thing I would point out there was acually a guy ages ago that tried crossing into America but they said he didn't have the amount required to stay there even though he had it in Bitcoins.

Because these people are largely dumbasses they likely won't be looking for Bitcoin at all, it's only if you're carrying precious metals etc. that you need to worry about this moment in time, but to be on the safe side, I would actually advise just for the duration of the trip either getting your own private VPS ( I'd consider this the safest option as you, for the most part have direct control ) or putting the coins on a secure online wallet while you travel. Then when you get to where you're going, get out your laptop and then transfer the coins, that may seem silly, but if you ever end up having your laptop or phone confiscated because of mentioning Bitcoin, you'll be glad you did it.

[NUFCrichard]

One thing I would point out there was acually a guy ages ago that tried crossing into America but they said he didn't have the amount required to stay there even though he had it in Bitcoins.

That's pretty funny, and fair enough really!  Couldn't he just have traded it for USD then gone in? Surely he couldn't have assumed that his bitcoin would count towards the amount required to stay in the US.
If you just keep your private key written somewhere, they will never know that you have it.  I also don't know if they would know how to find out how much you had in your account as you travel.

It makes bitcoin quite useful for the rich who want to be mobile with large amounts of money, though apparently they aren't buying in too much at the moment!

[countryfree]

It's just like a credit card! Some cards have a withdrawal limit upwards of $10,000. Only cash is regulated.

[spooderman]

^ gd point

[pattu1]

Some countries have capital controls.
You can't send more than __$ outside the country.
Let them try stopping bitcoins. 

[Lethn]

Some countries have capital controls.
You can't send more than __$ outside the country.
Let them try stopping bitcoins. 

Particularly as an Anarchist, I'm very interested in discovering what, if anything governments can do to prevent people from transferring Bitcoin overseas, it seems pretty foolproof so I want to know if they will come up with anything or just talk crap like they usually do about how we need to either ban or regulate cryptocurrencies.

[Wilikon]

Some countries have capital controls.
You can't send more than __$ outside the country.
Let them try stopping bitcoins. 

Particularly as an Anarchist, I'm very interested in discovering what, if anything governments can do to prevent people from transferring Bitcoin overseas, it seems pretty foolproof so I want to know if they will come up with anything or just talk crap like they usually do about how we need to either ban or regulate cryptocurrencies.

It is still hard to fathom the concept of bitcoin not being 'anywhere'. Bitcoin "crossing borders". Bitcoin "overseas", etc.

We are the alpha generation of bitcoin, so we are attached to a physical token we need to carry with us all the time. It is hard to remember it. Yet it is not hard to remember our multiple CC pins, online passwords, SS# and phone numbers, any day of the week.

Bitcoin needs to get to that same point one day... Until the powers that be give brain scanners to the TSA...


This is an important subject.

[H.W.Z]

It is the beauty of bitcoin, a portable, decentralized, access easy digital cryptocurrency! No matter where you are, the money is safely stored in the BlockChain, no ppl will be able to crack it without the private key! You can access through online wallets or bitcoin client on computer or cell phone!

[spooderman]

what an amazing, amazing technology

[pattu1]

Some countries have capital controls.
You can't send more than __$ outside the country.
Let them try stopping bitcoins. 

Particularly as an Anarchist, I'm very interested in discovering what, if anything governments can do to prevent people from transferring Bitcoin overseas, it seems pretty foolproof so I want to know if they will come up with anything or just talk crap like they usually do about how we need to either ban or regulate cryptocurrencies.

They can't prevent you from sending bitcoins overseas. They can restrict your access to it.

Something which happened in India a year back
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-first-time-in-the-country-ed-raids-a-bitcoin-seller-in-ahmedabad-1941187

On Thursday, ED raided the premises of Mahim Gupta in Bopal area of the city who provides trading platform through his website -‑ buysellbit.co.in. During the preliminary investigation, the ED found that it is in clear violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) rules of the country as central bank does not provide permission to indulge in such transactions.

[Lethn]

Some countries have capital controls.
You can't send more than __$ outside the country.
Let them try stopping bitcoins. 

Particularly as an Anarchist, I'm very interested in discovering what, if anything governments can do to prevent people from transferring Bitcoin overseas, it seems pretty foolproof so I want to know if they will come up with anything or just talk crap like they usually do about how we need to either ban or regulate cryptocurrencies.

They can't prevent you from sending bitcoins overseas. They can restrict your access to it.

Something which happened in India a year back
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-first-time-in-the-country-ed-raids-a-bitcoin-seller-in-ahmedabad-1941187

On Thursday, ED raided the premises of Mahim Gupta in Bopal area of the city who provides trading platform through his website -‑ buysellbit.co.in. During the preliminary investigation, the ED found that it is in clear violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) rules of the country as central bank does not provide permission to indulge in such transactions.

But that's buying and selling Bitcoins, what I'm talking about is sending them back and forth between countries just via wallets without going through an exchange, when you're dealing with fiat that's incredibly easy to regulate but because cryptocurrencies don't require a third party to monitor anything that's the sort of thing I'm thinking about.

[pattu1]

But that's buying and selling Bitcoins, what I'm talking about is sending them back and forth between countries just via wallets without going through an exchange, when you're dealing with fiat that's incredibly easy to regulate but because cryptocurrencies don't require a third party to monitor anything that's the sort of thing I'm thinking about.

The reason that there are restrictions on buying foreign currency is to prevent capital from exiting the country.
In countries where there is a trade deficit, they will welcome inflows but act strictly to prevent outflows.

[Lethn]

But that's buying and selling Bitcoins, what I'm talking about is sending them back and forth between countries just via wallets without going through an exchange, when you're dealing with fiat that's incredibly easy to regulate but because cryptocurrencies don't require a third party to monitor anything that's the sort of thing I'm thinking about.

The reason that there are restrictions on buying foreign currency is to prevent capital from exiting the country.
In countries where there is a trade deficit, they will welcome inflows but act strictly to prevent outflows.

You're missing my point entirely, in cryptocurrencies it's all wallet to wallet, transferring Bitcoins is no big deal and already it's being used for remittance because you can avoid the banking system, I know all about capital flight and that's why I'm saying I want to see what they're going to do about people transferring money between computers as opposed to anything to do with the banking system or exchanges.

[Spendulus]

....
But that's buying and selling Bitcoins, what I'm talking about is sending them back and forth between countries just via wallets without going through an exchange, when you're dealing with fiat that's incredibly easy to regulate but because cryptocurrencies don't require a third party to monitor anything that's the sort of thing I'm thinking about.

That's not even correct, though.

The wallets aren't "in countries" are they?

You could send 0.1BTC to a guy in China and his wallet is on a server in Australia.

And not even that - his wallet is out on the distributed cloud somewhere, and there isn't even a server on which it's code resides.

I guess maybe if the wallet is Bitcoin-QT, then yes, you have sent to the location of that machine with that node.

[Lethn]

You know what I meant lol the point is, as far as I can work out there's nothing that governments can do to restrict the flow of cryptocurrencies beyond actually finding out who the senders and receivers are and arresting them, but that would take a huge amount of resources and effort to do like with filesharing and it wouldn't really be worth the cost to them.

[spooderman]

And that's what I love about BTC and other 'disruptive technologies.'

Shitty laws exist, and rather than voting for different politicians (lol) you can just route around them

i.e torrenting, bitcoining, silkroading etc

[Wilikon]

And that's what I love about BTC and other 'disruptive technologies.'

Shitty laws exist, and rather than voting for different politicians (lol) you can just route around them

i.e torrenting, bitcoining, silkroading etc

Booyaah!

[rokkyroad]

Seriously. The less said to border agents the better. Why would anyone bring up their btc worth is beyond me? Probably get flagged as a "person of interest" and hassled every time you cross the border. It would really be dumb to have a wallet on board showing a large amount of btc when you know they can search your devices and ask for passwords.

[jbrnt]

You don't need to have a key at all. You just need to remember a few passwords. You can transfer bitcoin before you leave your home country and login to your email account and have information to your other exchanges and online wallets details.