324 sats \ 5 replies \ @BBitcoinUSA 25 Jun 2023 \ on: Maintaining privacy while purchasing a bitcoin miner bitcoin
You can have the package shipped to any post office, under your name (or whatever name you’re using that day) you just write “General Delivery” , and then the address of the post office below that . They hold it for a certain period of time and then you just go in and pick it up.
You could have it shipped it to a post office located far away from where you live. I don’t know what they require in terms of ID verification at pick up. If we can get past this step, all we’d have to worry about is what level of clandestine data collection and tracking is being done on you by the security camera setup at any given post office.
… I’ve never tried this, only read about it (been meaning to try this out with a random package sometime and see how intrusive it would be) … I’d love to hear more about the process it if anyone here has done it before
This is possible however if you're ordering a miner from Bitmain the packaging makes no attempt to hide what is in the box. The reason for this though is because people want to know they are getting authentic Bitmain ASIC units that have been shipped and not been opened. They have serial numbers and the works.
I had a few shipped to me and asked the buyer if they wanted me to open the box to verify everything shipped in one piece because you could hear some stuff rattling around. I assume just the power cable and manuals but you never know. The buyer was crystal clear that it was important the package remained as shipped.
Anyways if the American government isn't tracking you when you go through all this effort to be anonymous, the Chinese one is. Just have to find a reasonable line you are comfortable with.
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Good point, didn’t think of that. If it’s the FutureBit Apollo you want and you live in the US, I bet you could call them and ask for pick up in person. I believe they’re manufactured in California and corporate HQ is in Brooklyn NY, possibly have some inventory on site there too? If you’re going through all that trouble you could also make a vacation out of it
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That is a good option, if geographically convenient. Might be worth trying, thanks for the suggestion!
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As a follow up, I contacted FutureBit and they only ship from their California factory and do not offer in person pickup or purchasing.
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I haven't confirmed this, but I would suspect that you'd need to provide proof of identity to pick up the package from the post office. So unless you have some proof of identity that matches up with the identity you use to place the order, this probably is not an option.
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