Sending Bitcoin safely through snail mail?

[Abiky]

Does anyone know of a way where I can safely send a cold storage wallet through regular mail (snail mail)? I know that it's not safe to send money this way, but crypto's portability (it can even fit in a microSD card) allows you to hide your utmost sensitive funds without getting noticed by the naked eye. Which is why, I'd want to know how do I transport a cold storage wallet (in this case, a wallet card) with Bitcoin on it through snail mail "under the radar"?

The reason for this, is because I want to send funds to a friend in an offline manner for privacy/anonymity. It can also help me move the cold storage wallet card to another secure place (if the need arises).

Do you think it's possible to send Bitcoin safely through snail mail or not? Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[gentlemand]

Does it have to remain on the wallet card? Or you could photograph the card and put the pic on a Micro SD card in an encrypted 7zip file.

All they'd need is a password to unlock it which I guess you could nominate over the phone or bury in a txt file on the same card in an exciting espionage-esque manner.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Depends on which country you're in, because there are some whose mail services are anything but secure.

And in any country, sending bitcoin on an SD card or a seed phrase in poem form or whatever isn't completely safe unless you can encrypt the seed such that nobody could crack it.  I'm not a computer geek, but I think that's entirely possible and if so, the most you'd lose is a storage device--I'd assume you'd have access to the private keys yourself?

[Wexnident]

Which country you are at anyway? And how bout distance of you to the receiver? If you want a guaranteed transfer, you can try setting up some form of time limit for the storage device to be used. Of course, you can encrypt it for double the safety, but probably making it delete itself or altering the seed phrase itself after a set time has passed seems quite nice.

I'm pretty sure mail services only check the item itself, its physical form and they don't particularly pay attention to what it's contents are. You can put the SDcard (or whatever your planning to use) together with a bunch of random stuff, for example, souvenirs and the like, and hide it there. Kind of like, creating a secret compartment of sorts?

[cryptofarid10]

I know everyone can send bitcoin coinbase to coinbase to use mail. But it’s not safe Because, If the email is inaccurate inventory then that bitcoin can win in someone else's wallet

[hatshepsut93]

Take a wallet seed or private key(s), encrypt it with your friend's PGP public key, print the cyphertext on paper and mail it to him - that's it. I hope sending encrypted letters is not illegal, right?
Sending private keys in plaintext is very risky, a letter can get lost or stolen, there can be rogue employees, maybe the government likes to selectively read citizen's correspondence, etc.

[adaseb]

Go to https://www.bitaddress.org

Create a wallet by moving mouse around, copy the private key, click "Wallet details", paste the private key, click BIP38 Encrypt, enter a password that is over 10 characters, lower, upper case, numbers, and maybe a symbol or two.

Scroll down and you will have a private key beginning with "6", this is the BIP38.

As long as your password is some random text and larger than 10 in length with letters, numbers, symbol. Its will be NEAR impossible to crack until the end of time. Honestly you can even just send that BIP38 Private key as a Postcard without an envelope with everyone allowed to see and they can't do anything without the password.

Either print it out on paper or save it on a USB drive.

[pooya87]

The reason for this, is because I want to send funds to a friend in an offline manner for privacy/anonymity. It can also help me move the cold storage wallet card to another secure place (if the need arises).

you can split what you send them into two parts and send each part separately either using the same medium or through different means. for example one part by phone/email and other part with snail mail.
the two parts are the encrypted private key and the other is the password of it. you can print it on paper or put it in something digital (floppy disks, CD, USB,...).

[Abiky]

Does it have to remain on the wallet card? Or you could photograph the card and put the pic on a Micro SD card in an encrypted 7zip file.

All they'd need is a password to unlock it which I guess you could nominate over the phone or bury in a txt file on the same card in an exciting espionage-esque manner.

That could work too. Since the wallet has an encrypted private key, I've got nothing to lose. The passphrase to unlock the wallet card's private key could be sent via SMS through a burner phone for added security. Or I could simply use "steganography" methods to hide the passphrase inside another picture contained in the microSD card. The cheapest route for this would be to use an 8GB microSD which only costs $6 at eBay. I'd personally wouldn't mind the read/write speeds of the microSD card as long as it's cheap enough to acquire for this purpose. I believe that a Class 4 microSD card will suffice.

Speaking of microSD cards, I've been looking into something much smaller than an ordinary microSD card that can be easily hidden from the naked eye. It's called the "NM card" (Nano Memory Card) developed by Huawei. The small form factor is convenient for hiding the memory card underneath a greeting card or something else inside an envelope. But the downside is that "NM" cards much more expensive than microSD cards with the same storage space.

Depends on which country you're in, because there are some whose mail services are anything but secure.

And in any country, sending bitcoin on an SD card or a seed phrase in poem form or whatever isn't completely safe unless you can encrypt the seed such that nobody could crack it.  I'm not a computer geek, but I think that's entirely possible and if so, the most you'd lose is a storage device--I'd assume you'd have access to the private keys yourself?

Yes. I have access to the private keys myself. I've used bitaddress.org to create my own wallet that would require a passphrase to unlock the private key. Then, I sent the generated keys (both public and private) to a company which designs crypto wallet cards. I've got nothing to lose since the key is encrypted by a very long passphrase. If by accident the correspondence gets lost/stolen, no one will be able to unlock the Bitcoin funds on the wallet card without the correct passphrase. And trying to "brute force" or crack the key will take a long time to achieve with today's computers (unless someone uses a Quantum computer to do it in the future).

Take a wallet seed or private key(s), encrypt it with your friend's PGP public key, print the cyphertext on paper and mail it to him - that's it. I hope sending encrypted letters is not illegal, right?
Sending private keys in plaintext is very risky, a letter can get lost or stolen, there can be rogue employees, maybe the government likes to selectively read citizen's correspondence, etc.

For a truly paranoid person like me, this seems to be the best way for sending Bitcoin safely through snail mail. No one would be able to decipher the cyphertext printed on paper without the correct private key. PGP encryption proves to be a battle-tested solution for sending private messages in a P2P manner. I don't think it's illegal to send encrypted letters through snail mail in my country, but I'll check with my lawyer just to be safe. This method looks to be much more cost-effective than a microSD or NM card. But it's good to know the different ways of sending Bitcoin through snail mail to use them for my own benefit.

Go to https://www.bitaddress.org

Create a wallet by moving mouse around, copy the private key, click "Wallet details", paste the private key, click BIP38 Encrypt, enter a password that is over 10 characters, lower, upper case, numbers, and maybe a symbol or two.

Scroll down and you will have a private key beginning with "6", this is the BIP38.

As long as your password is some random text and larger than 10 in length with letters, numbers, symbol. Its will be NEAR impossible to crack until the end of time. Honestly you can even just send that BIP38 Private key as a Postcard without an envelope with everyone allowed to see and they can't do anything without the password.

Either print it out on paper or save it on a USB drive.

Thanks for the advice. My wallet card is already encrypted with a passphrase using BIP-38, so I've nothing to worry about. The passphrase consists of 45 characters with symbols, numbers, and both lower and uppercase letters. Still though, I'd prefer to send Bitcoin through snail mail in the most discreet way possible. A USB drive would bring some suspicion to anyone who gets their hands on the correspondence. I'd simply use a microSD card covered with black (vinyl) tape underneath one of the pages of a travel brochure. That way, it'll impossible for anyone to tell that I'm sending something sensitive over regular mail.

[Ucy]

Seems you really want the wallet sent to person?
Well, I honestly wouldn't send lots of coin like that. Some will probably know what the wallet is(unless disgused), steal it or try to crack it. I probably will send empty wallet first and then send the person the keys via the internet in encrypted form. Then send a message to the owner on how to decrypt key and store it in the wallet.

[helios1122]

The advice on this thread is amazing. I will have to try some of that. Sounds very geeky and fun.

[tbterryboy]

Seems you really want the wallet sent to person?
Well, I honestly wouldn't send lots of coin like that. Some will probably know what the wallet is(unless disgused), steal it or try to crack it. I probably will send empty wallet first and then send the person the keys via the internet in encrypted form. Then send a message to the owner on how to decrypt key and store it in the wallet.

This might be a good strategy. OP can apply this to send the cold storage over a regular mail. First only try to send the wallet without any coins inside and then you can later refill the wallet with desired number of coins. But, truly speaking there is not actual need to take this risk. Bitcoins can be sent to any individual in any corner of the world in just few clicks so why try these riskier means of sending bitcoins?

OP can even send bitcoins to his friend and then ask them to transfer those bitcoins into a cold storage. This would make it much safer and reliable rather than mailing the entire cold storage knowing the risk that our coins might even be lost in the journey.

[Assface16678]

Seems you really want the wallet sent to person?
Well, I honestly wouldn't send lots of coin like that. Some will probably know what the wallet is(unless disgused), steal it or try to crack it. I probably will send empty wallet first and then send the person the keys via the internet in encrypted form. Then send a message to the owner on how to decrypt key and store it in the wallet.

This might be a good strategy. OP can apply this to send the cold storage over a regular mail. First only try to send the wallet without any coins inside and then you can later refill the wallet with desired number of coins. But, truly speaking there is not actual need to take this risk. Bitcoins can be sent to any individual in any corner of the world in just few clicks so why try these riskier means of sending bitcoins?

OP can even send bitcoins to his friend and then ask them to transfer those bitcoins into a cold storage. This would make it much safer and reliable rather than mailing the entire cold storage knowing the risk that our coins might even be lost in the journey.

One of the best and secured transaction is used with the traditional way because we all know that today with the use of technology there are still many people would like to do something wrong to the other people and want to take advantage to them, and most of them are using their knowledge and skills in computer-related so they can make quickly stealing of information of the transaction easily. One of the previous transaction of sending information before is the snail mail even it takes a long time before the sender sends into the other party and get a reply again. Also, no one can steal the information unless they get the mail for the exchange that was a good strategy too still it is just only to the both party.

[Docnaster]

I doubt the mail is being x-ray scanned and such so I think as long as you hide it well, like have a really large box with a lot of stuff around it without it looking suspicious then it would be fine but also do bear in mind that sometimes these people can also mis-place or even worse lose your package.

So, I still think it is quite risky, safest way would be handling it hand in hand, I know that's not ideal but personally I'm not sure if I could afford the risk sending it by mail.

[Abiky]

More important for me is, does this person even know how to use it? I'm not discouraging you but if you're not sure, and he's not sure, the chances are that it's going to end up badly. It's kind of like that CW story where he insists some guy is going to courier him some super secret cold wallet or private key or something and then in the end nothing.

But if you have to, pooya's way is the best. Send half and half.

Yes. My friend is very aware of how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies work. So sending him a wallet card by mail, shouldn't be a problem. For my non tech-savvy relatives, that's another story. If I'd want to send Bitcoin to them over regular mail, I'd need to leave some instructions on how to decipher the provided ciphertext and how to unlock the BTC funds. I think it's best to do this via a phone call than anything else. Sending half and half is a wise idea, as that way I'd minimize risks (in case the mail gets stolen, etc). With all of the advice I've been given here, I can easily start sending Bitcoin over snail mail right away.

Honestly you could probably just send it and not worry, best case would be sending an encrypted and send the password in a separate method or letter at a different time, this would keep things safe as the chance of it being stolen and the other method being stolen would be pretty rare. You could do them through two different methods aka one USPS one fedex then you should be really solid. (Unless they both sit in the mailbox, id require a signature to avoid it)

Signature confirmation for the correspondence, seems to be the safest way path to take for sending BTC through regular mail. That way, you'll make sure the right person receives the letter instead of someone else. An encrypted message contained on the letter that would be unlocked by the recipient's PGP key would be all I need to send Bitcoin in a safe & secure way. Not to mention, the contents will be private from prying eyes. In case it gets into the wrong hands (which I doubt that'll be the case with Signature confirmation), I should have nothing to worry about as no one will be able to decipher the message without the corresponding PGP key. For discretion, I could simply enclose the message on a greeting card to avoid bringing suspicion. As a precautionary measure, the wallet card's private key is encrypted (BIP38) with a long passphrase consisting of 45 characters. It seems to be that it's convenient to do this in order to transfer BTC from one place to another in the most anonymous way possible.

[bearexin]

You can actually transfer the cold storage wallet manually if the friend of yours is residing somewhere near you. But in case your friend is someone over the nation boundary than you have to think for some of the similar ways. I think, snail mail would not cause any problem for transferring/sending that wallet card over to your friend's mail address. You can actually add a number of attachments to the same mail and change the file name of the wallet file to some random name which would keep it anonymous.

Even if anyone tries to get inside your snail mail, that person would ever easily know the exact file. You can add some strategies by creating a single file with multiple names and adding your exact file with a bit different digits which would be known by the receiver.

[fiulpro]

I think you should rather do that in person , if the person lives too far away then you should contact your local mail service this way you can talk with them , because I do remember that they have this section where you can send and receive the sensitive mail. Therefore you can try that , but at the end of the day that small thing can be easily displaced thus will be very very scary to let someone else supervise it .
How about you buy him like a teddy bear and place that inside somewhere only you and he knows and send that teddy after sewing it back up.
This way no one will suspect anything, it's harder to loose a teddy rather than a 1 cm microsd.

[Abiky]

You can actually transfer the cold storage wallet manually if the friend of yours is residing somewhere near you. But in case your friend is someone over the nation boundary than you have to think for some of the similar ways. I think, snail mail would not cause any problem for transferring/sending that wallet card over to your friend's mail address. You can actually add a number of attachments to the same mail and change the file name of the wallet file to some random name which would keep it anonymous.

Even if anyone tries to get inside your snail mail, that person would ever easily know the exact file. You can add some strategies by creating a single file with multiple names and adding your exact file with a bit different digits which would be known by the receiver.

Unfortunately, my friend lives in another country so transferring the cold storage wallet manually is not an option. Considering that the correspondence will travel across borders, the Bitcoin funds must be contained in the most secure way possible. I could easily send a "decoy wallet" with a very small number of Bitcoin contained on a USB drive. The rest of the funds will be sent on a separate letter with an encrypted PGP message which contains the wallet's keypairs. Since only the person in question will be able to unlock the funds, I'll have nothing to worry about if the mail gets lost or stolen. For even added security, the wallet's private key is encrypted using BIP 38 with a passphrase consisting of 45 characters. I think that's more than enough for sending Bitcoin safely through snail mail.

Still though, I'd prefer discretion while sending the coins than anything else. So far, the smallest data storage device is Huawei's "NM Card". If there was something smaller than that, I could better hide the Bitcoin wallet from prying eyes. A simple greeting card or a book with Bitcoin hidden on it seems to be a great way to send Bitcoin safely and discreetly over snail mail.

If there are any other methods on how to do this better, please let me know. Snail mail is the only option I have for sending Bitcoin discreetly and anonymously to another person across the world. After all, one can be too paranoid in this world filled with heavy surveillance by worldwide governments.

[Artemis3]

Does anyone know of a way where I can safely send a cold storage wallet through regular mail (snail mail)? I know that it's not safe to send money this way, but crypto's portability (it can even fit in a microSD card) allows you to hide your utmost sensitive funds without getting noticed by the naked eye. Which is why, I'd want to know how do I transport a cold storage wallet (in this case, a wallet card) with Bitcoin on it through snail mail "under the radar"?

The reason for this, is because I want to send funds to a friend in an offline manner for privacy/anonymity. It can also help me move the cold storage wallet card to another secure place (if the need arises).

Do you think it's possible to send Bitcoin safely through snail mail or not? Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Sure: Write a letter. Easy isn't? Its a form of stenography, in that letter, 12 words can be used to recreate the wallet, the seed words are there hidden in plain sight. Using a secure method of communication, reveal the recipient the method to discover which words are the seed words, or mark them in a special way only the recipient knows, etc. Its important you do this with your hands, don't print the letter, write it the old fashioned way.

If you send an encrypted sd card, you WILL raise suspicion (whats this, some criminal plans? copyrighted material?).

Well i suppose you could also send some junk mail, magazine, whatever as long as the recipient knows how to extract the words from it, use your imagination. This is similar to the methods of hiding your seed words in the first place, you are just sending them by mail.

[Abiky]

Sure: Write a letter. Easy isn't? Its a form of stenography, in that letter, 12 words can be used to recreate the wallet, the seed words are there hidden in plain sight. Using a secure method of communication, reveal the recipient the method to discover which words are the seed words, or mark them in a special way only the recipient knows, etc. Its important you do this with your hands, don't print the letter, write it the old fashioned way.

If you send an encrypted sd card, you WILL raise suspicion (whats this, some criminal plans? copyrighted material?).

Well i suppose you could also send some junk mail, magazine, whatever as long as the recipient knows how to extract the words from it, use your imagination. This is similar to the methods of hiding your seed words in the first place, you are just sending them by mail.

Yes. SD cards, USB drives, and such would raise suspicion than anything else. The situation is worse when you're sending Bitcoin to someone in a third-world country. As you've said earlier, it's best to hide the seed words from plain sight using some form of steganography. If it were me, I'd simply send a greeting card with a message that only the recipient understands. The recipient will be able to decode the message written on the card easily in order to gain access to the BTC wallet's keypairs. There are various ways to do this, but I believe an encrypted PGP message will suffice.

In the worst scenario, you could create an encrypted microSD card with the BTC wallet's sensitive information. That same storage device will be hidden discreetly inside a box of cereal. The recipient would need to empty the cereal box completely in order to gain access to the encrypted microSD card. Even sending fortune cookies with hidden messages will be suitable for this task.

Nonetheless, it's important to always secure your Bitcoin by encrypting the private key (using BIP-38) when sending your coins to another person via snail mail. In case the correspondence gets stolen, lost, or even inspected by the government, you'll have nothing to lose. It's great to see the various ways one could send Bitcoin safely and discreetly over snail mail. This is a good way to preserve privacy/anonymity as the transfer is done in an off-chain manner. But I wouldn't trust this method for sending large amounts of Bitcoin anytime soon. Just my opinion