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It's at least possible to smuggle a wallet/brain wallet passphrase (or a signed offline transaction) out of the country via sneakernet, homebuilt amateur radio,
by selfhoster11 5y ago
It's at least possible to smuggle a wallet/brain wallet passphrase (or a signed offline transaction) out of the country via sneakernet, homebuilt amateur radio, "professional" smuggling operations that can relay a message to your family outside of the country, point-to-point across the border, or a coded letter/telephone conversation if you suspect you're under surveillance. There's always a strategy to get the money out of the country (though I admit, not necessarily in the other direction).
You can't do that with a bar of gold, or a bundle of banknotes.
- martin_a 5y ago> You can't do that with a bar of gold, or a bundle of banknotes. I think especially this has been done for decades, if not centuries, and is probably one of the core definitions of smuggling.
- bko 5y agoIts a lot easier and more secure with an encrypted usb drive or a piece of paper with a seed phrase.
- selfhoster11 5y agoWhat I mean is that while traditional stores of value are portable, they are harder to hide and easier to confiscate. A wallet or offline transaction is just a piece of info that can be scribbled on a piece of paper that a customs agent or border guard won't look twice at. Even if they do confiscate it, you've lost nothing because they can't change the destination of the offline transaction, or decrypt the wallet (if encrypted). Not to mention that it's exactly as easy to smuggle and disguise a $50 worth of digital currency as it is to smuggle and disguise $50k worth of digital currency. This can't be said of banknotes, especially if all you have available is lower face value notes.