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This does fit with what I think is the most interesting use case of bitcoin that I'd read about: A Ukrainian living in the Russian controlled portion of the cou

This does fit with what I think is the most interesting use case of bitcoin that I'd read about: A Ukrainian living in the Russian controlled portion of the country getting out with his wealth intact. The border was controlled by corrupt Russian guards that would steal things of value. You could pass the border occasionally to visit family on the other side, but it was risky to take anything. He put all his wealth into bitcoin, memorized his wallet seed words like his life depended on it, crossed the border with nothing, and then regenerated his wallet on the other side (and then presumably transferred the money back into a usable fiat currency/bank account). I thought that was pretty cool. It'd be interesting if the community put a guide together to make it easy for people that need to escape hostile countries with their wealth intact to do so, something I might try to do if I find some time to write it up.

sombremesa 6y ago
Something about this story is fishy. If he could put his money into bitcoin, I'm assuming he needed to digitize his wealth somehow. At that point, why not just do Paypal or ACH?
- spottybanana 6y ago
  Paypal is not really in that many countries... And I think ACH is US only? Also BTC is exchanged to physical cash since the early days. Nowadays BTC ATM count is in the thousands: https://coinatmradar.com/charts/growth/ https://coinatmradar.com/charts/growth/
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    Yes, ACH is US-only. Other countries have similar systems but they are on-record and the banking system can withhold or deny transfers... or even tax them on behalf of your government.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- adwww 6y ago
  US or international banking sanctions on the Russian controlled part of Ukraine might make that impossible.
- martinko 6y ago
  Services such as localbitcoins, where you can buy btc in person are available basically everywhere.
spottybanana 6y ago
With BTC that is pretty trivial thing to do... I think I saw guides already 8-9 years ago for that. Haven't really thought about it but I think it still works pretty much the same. Google brainwallet.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Trivial for the average technical person like you and me maybe, but not so trivial for the non-technical person who's trying to escape X authoritarian country. Even for us the risk of messing up and losing all of your wealth makes it quite scary.
  - spottybanana 6y ago
    Well, if you really need it there are much more incentives to learn it. I wouldn't really be good at explaining it since I don't have much motivation to even learn it myself, because I don't need it. I don't think the tendency to make mistakes related on the technical skill level, but to a lot of other factors. For example, those who will forget the passphrases are not those for whom it is important, but more for those for who BTC is more like fun side-bet. They have bought some, forgotten about it, and when they’ll actually see the rising price and try to cash out, they have forgot some password or how did they set up the wallet.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  be aware most brainwallets are broken for today as most common passwords have been cracked and there is an upper limit (which clamps the maximum bits)
nannal 6y ago
Just as a warning to people that might want to try this, a lot of work has gone into monitoring the addresses tied to private keys created from potential words. For example, if you use a word in the (infamous) rockyou wordlist as your private key & send money to the corresponding public key, it will not be your money for long. If it were me, I think I'd be sneaking out an SD card in a condom in my prison wallet.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  You could also store your private key on an RFID tag implanted under your skin (also MRI safe).
  - umvi 6y ago
    Security through obscurity is best here. Just shift all the digits of your key by some secret (but very simple) algorithm and store in google drive.
    - ohazi 6y ago
      WTF, do not do this. You can use real encryption, like GPG in symmetric mode with a memorized passphrase that gets properly key-stretched. Then store the resulting uniform random-looking blob in image metadata or whatever. Obscurity is to prevent them from asking you what's in an obviously encrypted file like "bitcoin_wallet.dat.gpg," it's not for actual protection if they do happen to focus on you.
      - umvi 6y ago
        > Then store the resulting uniform random-looking blob in image metadata or whatever. Steganography is still security through obscurity. I don't see how it's any more secure than storing a manipulated key in plain text, especially if you are competent. If it were me I would just xor my address with a key of the same length (correcthorsebatterystaple-esque) and then xor it back out on the other side. How would you even know it was a bitcoin wallet address vs. something else? Or even write a letter to someone, where the second letter of the first word of every paragraph form the wallet address.
snarf21 6y ago
The thing that I don't understand is this. If Russia really decides to crack down, can't they just block all bitcoin traffic at the ISP level? Then how do you get BTC for your wealth? If you can't push your decentralized transaction, what do you actually have?
- spottybanana 6y ago
  > can't they just block all bitcoin traffic at the ISP level? Are you serious? That block is trivial to avoid. VPN's are used mostly for porn and that kind of things, but with BTC you have clear financial incentive to work around those blocks.
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  This is actually why they're launching bitcoin network satellites. https://blockstream.com/satellite/ https://blockstream.com/satellite/
Waterluvian 6y ago
Why not throw the password over the fence? Ie. send it to a known drop or person with encryption.
- martinko 6y ago
  That's also an option.
fuoqi 6y ago
Sounds like a fake propaganda story (oh look, those corrupt Russian siloviks! every single one of them!). There is A TON of Ukrainian workers (zarobitchane) in Russia who not always work legally and they trivially wire funds back to their relatives. (Fun fact: currently foreign workers is one of the most important income sources of foreign currency for the Ukrainian state) Even if we assume that Crimean border guards were indeed so corrupt, it's trivial to go from Crimea (I assume you talk about it) to the Russian mainland, since there are virtually no checks between them, and then back to Ukraine. One possibility which could make this story more trustworthy is that those funds were illegal (e.g. bribes accumulated during Ukraninan rule), so the person would want to transfer them as discretely as possible. I think Bitcoin is widely used for similar purposes in China, as it's (was?) one of the best ways to move abroad illegally acquired funds.
- fossuser 6y ago
  I found where I think I had originally read it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tatianakoffman/2020/06/13/why-bitcoin-is-a-silent-protest-against-corrupt-governments-everywhere/#188214803542 https://www.forbes.com/sites/tatianakoffman/2020/06/13/why-b... It sounded plausible enough to me. Relevant quote is below: """ Bitcoin is a protest against corruption. Naval Ravikant, founder of Angelist once tweeted: "Bitcoin is a tool for freeing humanity from oligarchs and tyrants, dressed up as a get-rich-quick scheme." With this perspective in mind, it’s no surprise that Bitcoin has a much higher rate of adoption in countries that have a history of government oppression - Germany, China, Venezuela - and a lower rate of adoption in the U.S. Americans are much more likely to have faith in their U.S. Dollar than a new cryptocurrency. One story was shared with me anonymously by a Ukranian software engineer - let’s call him Greg. In 2014, what began as a peaceful protest in Ukraine quickly grew into a civil war, riddling the country with violence and unrest. As expected, due to political instability, the local currency was devalued by 70%. Greg lost his job and was looking for a way to escape the rebellion. “There was nothing left for me there, I was surrounded by death and destruction. I started plotting an escape.” Airports and roads were guarded by soldiers to prevent people from fleeing - temporary visits to family, however, were permitted by car. It was well known that many of the officials charged with guarding the borders were corrupt and would confiscate money and valuables at checkpoints. And so Greg, having kept most of his savings in USD, decided to trade it all for Bitcoin. He memorized the 12 words from his seed phrase like “his life depended on it” and ran, with nothing but a small backpack on his person, managing to escape with all of his wealth intact. [For anyone new to Bitcoin, you can access a Bitcoin wallet from anywhere on the internet as long as you know your seed phrase.] There are countless stories like Greg’s. Tales of people fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe, South America and Africa, using Bitcoin as a means to carry value with them. For many, Bitcoin is what saved their wealth and, by extension, their life. Skeptics often use the argument that Bitcoin “isn’t backed by anything.” But this is an inherently privileged North American view. Bitcoin is backed by a demand for financial freedom, for an asset outside the control of governments, and one that cannot be confiscated easily. """
knorker 6y ago
That cannot be real. He has access to acquire, and move bitcoin, but not access to move it to an exchange, exchange it and deposit it? What? This sounds like yet another made-up story about a use case for bitcoin that doesn't actually exist. They like making up stories that are yes technically not impossible, but would be the absolute worst way of doing what they want to accomplish. Someone told me bitcoin enables negative exchange rates, because they happened to get currency fluctuations while the transaction was pending in bitcoin-intermediary exchange medium. No. That's not what happened. You could just have used CurrencyFair and been equally lucky. And end-to-end (back account to bank account) "old banking" likely would have been faster.

sombremesa 6y ago

Something about this story is fishy. If he could put his money into bitcoin, I'm assuming he needed to digitize his wealth somehow. At that point, why not just do Paypal or ACH?

spottybanana 6y ago
Paypal is not really in that many countries... And I think ACH is US only? Also BTC is exchanged to physical cash since the early days. Nowadays BTC ATM count is in the thousands: https://coinatmradar.com/charts/growth/ https://coinatmradar.com/charts/growth/
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  Yes, ACH is US-only. Other countries have similar systems but they are on-record and the banking system can withhold or deny transfers... or even tax them on behalf of your government.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
adwww 6y ago
US or international banking sanctions on the Russian controlled part of Ukraine might make that impossible.
martinko 6y ago
Services such as localbitcoins, where you can buy btc in person are available basically everywhere.

spottybanana 6y ago

With BTC that is pretty trivial thing to do... I think I saw guides already 8-9 years ago for that. Haven't really thought about it but I think it still works pretty much the same. Google brainwallet.

fossuser 6y ago
Trivial for the average technical person like you and me maybe, but not so trivial for the non-technical person who's trying to escape X authoritarian country. Even for us the risk of messing up and losing all of your wealth makes it quite scary.
- spottybanana 6y ago
  Well, if you really need it there are much more incentives to learn it. I wouldn't really be good at explaining it since I don't have much motivation to even learn it myself, because I don't need it. I don't think the tendency to make mistakes related on the technical skill level, but to a lot of other factors. For example, those who will forget the passphrases are not those for whom it is important, but more for those for who BTC is more like fun side-bet. They have bought some, forgotten about it, and when they’ll actually see the rising price and try to cash out, they have forgot some password or how did they set up the wallet.
WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
be aware most brainwallets are broken for today as most common passwords have been cracked and there is an upper limit (which clamps the maximum bits)

nannal 6y ago

Just as a warning to people that might want to try this, a lot of work has gone into monitoring the addresses tied to private keys created from potential words. For example, if you use a word in the (infamous) rockyou wordlist as your private key & send money to the corresponding public key, it will not be your money for long. If it were me, I think I'd be sneaking out an SD card in a condom in my prison wallet.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
You could also store your private key on an RFID tag implanted under your skin (also MRI safe).
- umvi 6y ago
  Security through obscurity is best here. Just shift all the digits of your key by some secret (but very simple) algorithm and store in google drive.
  - ohazi 6y ago
    WTF, do not do this. You can use real encryption, like GPG in symmetric mode with a memorized passphrase that gets properly key-stretched. Then store the resulting uniform random-looking blob in image metadata or whatever. Obscurity is to prevent them from asking you what's in an obviously encrypted file like "bitcoin_wallet.dat.gpg," it's not for actual protection if they do happen to focus on you.
    - umvi 6y ago
      > Then store the resulting uniform random-looking blob in image metadata or whatever. Steganography is still security through obscurity. I don't see how it's any more secure than storing a manipulated key in plain text, especially if you are competent. If it were me I would just xor my address with a key of the same length (correcthorsebatterystaple-esque) and then xor it back out on the other side. How would you even know it was a bitcoin wallet address vs. something else? Or even write a letter to someone, where the second letter of the first word of every paragraph form the wallet address.

snarf21 6y ago

The thing that I don't understand is this. If Russia really decides to crack down, can't they just block all bitcoin traffic at the ISP level? Then how do you get BTC for your wealth? If you can't push your decentralized transaction, what do you actually have?

spottybanana 6y ago
> can't they just block all bitcoin traffic at the ISP level? Are you serious? That block is trivial to avoid. VPN's are used mostly for porn and that kind of things, but with BTC you have clear financial incentive to work around those blocks.
ethanwillis 6y ago
This is actually why they're launching bitcoin network satellites. https://blockstream.com/satellite/ https://blockstream.com/satellite/

Waterluvian 6y ago

Why not throw the password over the fence? Ie. send it to a known drop or person with encryption.

martinko 6y ago
That's also an option.

fuoqi 6y ago

Sounds like a fake propaganda story (oh look, those corrupt Russian siloviks! every single one of them!). There is A TON of Ukrainian workers (zarobitchane) in Russia who not always work legally and they trivially wire funds back to their relatives. (Fun fact: currently foreign workers is one of the most important income sources of foreign currency for the Ukrainian state) Even if we assume that Crimean border guards were indeed so corrupt, it's trivial to go from Crimea (I assume you talk about it) to the Russian mainland, since there are virtually no checks between them, and then back to Ukraine. One possibility which could make this story more trustworthy is that those funds were illegal (e.g. bribes accumulated during Ukraninan rule), so the person would want to transfer them as discretely as possible. I think Bitcoin is widely used for similar purposes in China, as it's (was?) one of the best ways to move abroad illegally acquired funds.

fossuser 6y ago
I found where I think I had originally read it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tatianakoffman/2020/06/13/why-bitcoin-is-a-silent-protest-against-corrupt-governments-everywhere/#188214803542 https://www.forbes.com/sites/tatianakoffman/2020/06/13/why-b... It sounded plausible enough to me. Relevant quote is below: """ Bitcoin is a protest against corruption. Naval Ravikant, founder of Angelist once tweeted: "Bitcoin is a tool for freeing humanity from oligarchs and tyrants, dressed up as a get-rich-quick scheme." With this perspective in mind, it’s no surprise that Bitcoin has a much higher rate of adoption in countries that have a history of government oppression - Germany, China, Venezuela - and a lower rate of adoption in the U.S. Americans are much more likely to have faith in their U.S. Dollar than a new cryptocurrency. One story was shared with me anonymously by a Ukranian software engineer - let’s call him Greg. In 2014, what began as a peaceful protest in Ukraine quickly grew into a civil war, riddling the country with violence and unrest. As expected, due to political instability, the local currency was devalued by 70%. Greg lost his job and was looking for a way to escape the rebellion. “There was nothing left for me there, I was surrounded by death and destruction. I started plotting an escape.” Airports and roads were guarded by soldiers to prevent people from fleeing - temporary visits to family, however, were permitted by car. It was well known that many of the officials charged with guarding the borders were corrupt and would confiscate money and valuables at checkpoints. And so Greg, having kept most of his savings in USD, decided to trade it all for Bitcoin. He memorized the 12 words from his seed phrase like “his life depended on it” and ran, with nothing but a small backpack on his person, managing to escape with all of his wealth intact. [For anyone new to Bitcoin, you can access a Bitcoin wallet from anywhere on the internet as long as you know your seed phrase.] There are countless stories like Greg’s. Tales of people fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe, South America and Africa, using Bitcoin as a means to carry value with them. For many, Bitcoin is what saved their wealth and, by extension, their life. Skeptics often use the argument that Bitcoin “isn’t backed by anything.” But this is an inherently privileged North American view. Bitcoin is backed by a demand for financial freedom, for an asset outside the control of governments, and one that cannot be confiscated easily. """

knorker 6y ago

That cannot be real. He has access to acquire, and move bitcoin, but not access to move it to an exchange, exchange it and deposit it? What? This sounds like yet another made-up story about a use case for bitcoin that doesn't actually exist. They like making up stories that are yes technically not impossible, but would be the absolute worst way of doing what they want to accomplish. Someone told me bitcoin enables negative exchange rates, because they happened to get currency fluctuations while the transaction was pending in bitcoin-intermediary exchange medium. No. That's not what happened. You could just have used CurrencyFair and been equally lucky. And end-to-end (back account to bank account) "old banking" likely would have been faster.