Topic: What would be the best way to get through customs at an airport with your Btc? - page 7. (Read 2105 times)

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.

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.

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.

Seed phrase with a password, so you can store the seed phrase wherever you want aslong as you keep the password separate

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

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. 

Not bad So "1476. reveal" would become 5C4, the color would be #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.

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 think most of us only can say "it may work".

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.

That goes against everything Bitcoin stands for: self-custody, be your own bank, "trust, don't verify", everything!

There are so many ways this can go wrong.

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.

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

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.

This is quite a long and risky process Phil especially if there's quite some fancy amounts on the address.

 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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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