Bitcoin Forum

If a BTC portfolio gains millions of dollars, is it really that easy to just sell them on the exchange? They just let you deposit millions into your bank account? Or what do you do when you want to cash out?

The file size of bitcoin probably will not matter on how expensive would it be in regards to bitcoin market. A 10mins. time interval would make btc to process transaction from sending the transaction to confirm the transaction with the bitcoin miners. If you say that bitcoin will be transferred to an exchange then it will all depend on the number of bitcoins being moved and then the exchange you used.

It's easier said than done. For small amount, it's no issue at all! However, as you are saying, it's "millions of dollars", the process becomes tricky to certain extent! Get ready to become a KYC verified individual of the exchange of your choice! That's the first step. Also I would never recommend you to do the transaction in one go! The exchange may freeze your fund and probably ask you to show the source of the money! So do it in parts and never use only one exchange to do the transaction. Probably use 3 or 4 reputed exchanges in your case!

Secondly, I understand you want to convert your bitcoins into fiat which will be transferred to your bank account. Never do that if your previous financial history doesn't have that much volume. Regardless of your country, you bank will always report such a high amount of transaction to the respective enforcement agencies. If your account has a financial history of transaction 50,000 USD, stay within that limit. If such an account gets a transfer of millions of dollars, get ready to be detained by the police to understand the source of the money!

In a nutshell, never try to convert millions of dollars in one go! That's not safe since your bank is involved in the process.

That actually depends on the country where you are living mate. Here in my country if ever I had the chance to earn millions of dollars on my portfolio I still need to follow my local exchanges rules and regulations. They even put limit of transactions per account, per day and per month. Meaning, I just need to transact within our local exchanges limit of transaction before transferring to my Bank account to avoid any suspecion or even freeze my account during the deposit. Our local exchanges also has options to cash out through remittances but still it has limits and has a much lower cashout limit like only $1,000 per transaction compared to banks that has $8,000 limit per day.

You will likely have to work with your exchange to up your withdrawal limit. Coinbase for instance only allows withdrawals up to $50,000 in a day and if you need to withdraw more you need to request an increase in limit. Once the limit is increased it should be no problem selling a few million worth of BTC and withdrawing the cash to your bank account.

Now whether you can trust an exchange or your bank to not lock you out of your funds due to some bogus reason, or how they handle the security of your funds is a different story.

I don't think it's really easy, transacting in millions would get quite complicated as it's not an amount that would simply fly under the radar, getting such an order filled up firstly would take a while and directly on exchanges it would likely have an effect on the price; Few millions of USD would have minimal or no effect, but when you start going much higher it would get more significant, and possibly, before you're done selling up the price could have changed already.

Such big swaps usually happen over the counter and there is usually a method to it. A couple of reputable exchanges over this service for larger transactions. Try searching up their OTC page.
You'll also need be more security and privacy conscious. Ideally mixers and coinjoining services should be used to blur the trail of the transactions.

Quite confusing inquiry. Did you mean about the profit gains or the asset containing the funds and the gains? Its not that they allow you to deposits. If your funds are clean and your level of kyc on a cex is allowed you on depositing it. Then there is no problem at all. I think cashing out I have no idea here cause I don't know any whales that cash out millions of dollars on the bank. But a friend of mine, cashing out small everyday to make it not suspicious on banks.

In our country banks are really strict if you got some big withdrawals they tend to locked your account until you gave an explanation about the funds.

That will depend on your strategy to sell your bitcoin at that price or you still want to hold. Whatever you decide, you should accept the next thing that will happen to bitcoin. I think the exchange will allow us to withdraw to our bank account, but I suggest you withdraw in a small or medium amount, so you do not have to make your bank suspicious with a large amount of money that will be sent to your account. That is what I always did before because I want to play safe with my bank account.

Gemini has three markets:

1. The standard order book that all the other exchanges have. You can't trade $1M on this effectively because the liquidity is too low.
2. A "block trading" market, where the minimum to trade is 5 BTC. You place a limit order and market makers bid on your order. I think a reasonable limit for trading on this market is $1M.
3. A twice-daily auction, where 100 BTC might be traded.

The details highly depend on your country's regulations, exchange's and bank's policies, but generally, as you withdraw money to your bank account, at some point you will get contacted by your bank and they will ask you to explain the nature of these transactions. That is of course if they don't already know that you're an investor who regularly moves hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

You will be asked about the origin of your coins, they could contact exchanges to verify them, and they might even close your bank account if it will look suspicious, for example if you will say that you won those coins at unregistered crypto casino. Many banks and exchanges would also ask some chainanalysis company to run checks on your addresses for signs of illegal activity.

I think if bitcoin hit million it will be taugh situation to sell the whole amount. No exchanger can give you that service so easily. O think there must be some tricky policy for selling big amount. It may create more security proof for selling them..

When looking to liquidate such a big holding you need to consider several things:

1) Don't sell them on a single exchange or if you really want try looking for an OTC deal. Market selling $1M worth of BTC is likely to create some slippage.
2) Use a reputable exchange. If it is regulated by some financial authority - even better. You don't want your wealth trapped in a virtual account on some shady website, but that's common sense.
3) Check your bank AML and AT policy. If you withdraw a big amount at the same time, they might call you and ask a few questions before releasing your funds.

Some exchanges/banks act harsher than others do. Those who transact millions likely have high-tier, fully verified accounts on exchanges .. or they just sustain the decentralized governance by using Bisq-like DEXs. I would personally not trust having millions on exchanges, but there are quite a few people out there who do. Trust is an issue I'm having, hence why I'm here..

I wouldn't want to risk it and convert all my coins to one type of fiat currency deposited into a single bank account. This would go against the values that I try to uphold and against everything that bitcoin stands for. Let's speculate for the purpose of answering you. If I wanted to convert millions, I'd divide it not only between banks but whole currencies and people. I'd convert as much as possible into cash, so that the government wouldn't get tipped off, set up a foreign bank account, probably in Estonia or Switzerland and convert some of my coins into Euro, then make sure my wife gets a different bank account and does the same thing.

Since I’m in the US I’d probably use coinbase to sell, get KYC’ed, get reported to the IRS, pay my capital gains taxes, be limited to amount I could transfer/withdraw each week or month, etc...

I can live with that. 

It's really easy if you live in a country that understands and recognizes cryptocurrency.

Say you wanted to withdraw a million Euro in Germany, you could do it and I doubt that any bank would block your account.

There's always a way to look more and less suspicious, like if you sell it all at once and make a 1 time withdrawal of a million and then come to the bank and demand a million in cash that could raise some eyebrows and you'd be sent home and asked to come in a few days when everything is verified.

Ofc there would be issues, the exchange for one could potentially ask for KYC details since let's say, you're $40 investment suddenly became a million dollars, even if they did know you were hodling, I'd suppose they'd still ask KYC for the sake of it. There's also one point noted out here about how moving it into fiat (all of it, directly), could prove to be detrimental, since banks would certainly ask details about it, and heck, may even tax it. The rules for crypto is still pretty unclear in some countries after all, so you may get hit one way or another.
Probably better if you used it to expand your portfolio, or just slowly liquidate it (which is the best answer imo).

Cashout such as large amount of BTC depends on your country. If there is Bitcoin ATM then it would easier to take hand cash. But if you sell via exchange and deposit funds into your bank account then it would be a easy process. Although you can skip the exchange problems by making small transaction, but your local bank would ask you questions that funds coming from where. They would freeze your account as well. Means you have to be careful selling such as amount of bitcoin. Selling peer to peer would be a solution, but still problems with your local banks. Perhaps you have to use so may account to receive these funds. Don't trust any centralized exchanges with million dollars, they would freeze account due to money laundering. Just be patience and handle slowly with small small transaction.

You'll be facing the problem with limits. It is easy to take on it if you're able to activate the highest deposit/withdrawal limit for that exchange before your portfolio gains a million dollars. Each level of accounts has limits and check how much your account has for withdrawal limit.

You can withdraw it a little by little or getting into the daily maximum withdrawal for the first try and so on and so forth. P2P is another option or selling it through OTC will help you withdraw it too. But the price differs from the normal and regular exchanges that we have like in Binance or Coinbase.

This is possible but I would suggest doing this on your local country exchange. Doing it this way will make it much easier for you. Like others here say, you will most probably have to verify your identity and it will be much easier if you can easily travel to offices and some sort if problem arise. These exchanges will have limits on cash movement and you will never get bypass it. So yes you cannot transfer it in one go.

Yeah, it can be burdensome to cash out those Bitcoins. I do not think that if there is a place to cash out millions of dollars. The best would be using OTC exchanges to cash out. They are less regulated, and if you sell in high volume, then you can get some fee reduction. Visit OTC when you want to sell BTC from time to time.

I think, it will require you KYC before you can withdraw that amount, and I do not recommend to save 1m usd in a certain crypto exchange, better to use hardware wallet for better security, it will make you feel safe rather than in exchanges, no offense but few exchanges has already experienced attacks from hackers, yes your funds are safe but it is much better not to feel anxious because of that, or you may diversify your money into different exchanges.

I suppose that there is no dearth of people who have made millions from having bought BTC low during 2015-16. These people must have already been technically and financially savvy enough to understand the implications of Bitcoin and hold it for this long. I expect that most of these people have the trail to prove if asked for.

The only ones that have millions but would find it hard to encash may be individuals with funds hacked from the ICOs and exchanges. For those people, the Hawala-type transactions reminiscent of the Nigerian prince scam would be the only possible route.

If we earn millions of dollars from Bitcoin, it is not easy to sell it on exchanges and send it to our bank account. We will definitely be asked for
KYC verification, after which we will be questioned about the source of Bitcoin that we get. It will go through a long process, until finally
the millions of dollars we earn can reach our bank account. So to cash out I'll do it in stages, and use a few exchanges to sell the Bitcoin that
I got into fiat. That way it will not raise suspicion.

This will be different in every country, with every exchange and with every bank.

Banks have improved to the level that most will no longer block your account when using it for crypto, that used to be very different 5 or 8 years ago.

Exchange here in Europe like Kraken and Bitstamp also behave really different:
- Kraken: the highest KYC for individuals (called intermediate KYC) only allows withdrawals of 100k daily and up to 500k monthly. Getting out millions will take several months/years.
- Bitstamp does not have these limits, even for individuals. But they are more strict and question the source of your crypto when you start
Don't hold too much crypto or cash on exchanges. Remember MtGox. I still wait for my money (no crypto) I had there after so many years.
Remember: not your keys, not your bitcoin. If they go bankrupt, you're just one of many on the list of creditors.

Countries: well you have have many possibilities. Some countries have capital gains tax, some have capital tax, some have nothing.
Example my country Belgium: when you held your coins for years and sell now, there is no tax. When you do some trading it will be 33%, when you trade as pro it will be 50% tax.

It is better to divide this transaction into many small ones, otherwise problems may arise.

Yes, it is easy to sell bitcoin at the exchange, especially if you are a verified member. I think they will not be suspicious of your account because you already sent your document to them. But if the exchange does not need you to verify your account like what we see on Binance, I think they will ask you to verify your account. If that were me, I would not cash out too big money, and I will do it continuously until I got the money. But I do not want to cash out all of the money because I want to continue trading and make more profit.

It depends on why you are converting to fiat. If you want to invest in something else, you might already find it on the blockchain (for example, if you want to move it to the S&P 500, you could buy it here (https://www.itovault.com)).  If you need to buy a house however, there will probably be fewer people willing to sell for bitcoin immediately.

You definitely will hit KYC limitations, so I would do a test withdrawal to an exchange first.  Don't get all your BTC frozen!

That’s quite a lot, I think there are things that you have to put into consideration before you talk about selling such an amount and withdrawing it to your bank account. First is that you have to know what your bank account can take, and sometimes I have seen people withdraw too much and have their accounts suspected and frozen and they have to answer questions for it. So you have to put hat into consideration. Then that aside, there are some exchanges that will ask you for KYC verification once the amount you want to sell passes 1000 or 2000 dollars, unless you have plans to make use of DEX, but you have to be very careful. Though I have seen someone sell a close amount with P2P exchange or you can sell it bit by bit.