Spending VERY Large Amounts of Bitcoin?

[NorrisK]

I read an article some time ago about OTC trades (Over The Counter) where a bitcoin owner/hodler wanted to sell 1200 bitcoins in one go. He sold them all to some bitcoin company or organisation. I think he had to sell at a slight discount but got all of the cash in one lump not bit by bit on an exchange.

This just shows that bitcoin now has institutional investors, which is great news,if they keep the profit in bitcoins and/or trade later on to gain more.

-- I have read a couple of news items about BTC being used to buy houses (or as an option to pay).  Would this be possible or reasonably feasible in amounts up to, say, $1,000,000 or even more?

I guess that would be possible for the main purchase (commodity like a house), but the tax on such purchase (atleast here where i live) can not possibly be paid with crypto, for now that is.
Furthermore, the main question in such cases would be; what will the new owner of those bitcoins do with them, because if he is just going to dump them, they you're back to square one..

NOXT wil bring that possiblity sooner than you may think.

Despite a rocky road, a beta of the app that supports paying taxes in Australia using multiple cryptocurrencies has just been released.

It will also offer the option to buy bullion, giftcards, etc.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=841741.0

[mirana12345]

-- I have read a couple of news items about BTC being used to buy houses (or as an option to pay).  Would this be possible or reasonably feasible in amounts up to, say, $1,000,000 or even more?

I guess that would be possible for the main purchase (commodity like a house), but the tax on such purchase (atleast here where i live) can not possibly be paid with crypto, for now that is.
Furthermore, the main question in such cases would be; what will the new owner of those bitcoins do with them, because if he is just going to dump them, they you're back to square one..

NOXT wil bring that possiblity sooner than you may think.
Despite a rocky road, a beta of the app that supports paying taxes in Australia using multiple cryptocurrencies has just been released.
It will also offer the option to buy bullion, giftcards, etc.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=841741.0

I'm aware of that, but like i said; where i live, paying taxes with bitcoins is far from reality because the spread of awareness of bitcoin even existing amung people is very low.
But to those living in Australia (and other countries where that's actually possible) i'm guessing it's a nice advantage.

[prodigy8]

I think that if you spend all these bitcoin in an exchange then you will basically dump the price.
Because there is not so much volume for a single buy order at the same rate.
I would suggest to spread these bitcoins to many different exchanges and creating many accounts because of the limits and get good exchange rate.

[Febo]

also there is the OTC markets, you could try to auction off a large amount of coins all at once, my guess is you'd get a price close to market if not above market.

Yes, FBI did that way with their bitcoins.
If you dont want to organize that you just sell daily. if you have 100k BTC, you could easily sell off in a month.

[johnyj]

Large value transaction will always be heavily regulated even in fiat money system, the best way to do large transactions is to borrow from the bank

[SerenaL]

You can always meet somebody from localbitcoins with a large sack of cash 

[Furio]

the larger exchanges such as OK coin could handle that volume.  It would be dumb to do so since you would increase your costs by posting such a large sell order.  I would imagine in the future those kinds of transactions would happen OTC anyway.

Also, you will be tracked, these large amounts is what got silk road vendors caught, not the actual selling

[goshnam]

a large exchange can handle that kind of volume (and can handle any kind of volume generally IMO since the market will determine the price and if the price in an exchange crash people will send their USD money there to get BTC at the cheapest possible price) but it would cause a crash in BTC price.

[dothebeats]

How about putting the coins in auction instead? Selling them off all at once would drown the market. And also, it might cause a massive crash in price. It isn't ideal to do a massive sell-off in a single instant. Feds are eyeing on most people and they might knock on your doors once the deal is sealed (taxes haha).

[7788bitcoin]

I think the best way to spend your VERY large amount of bitcoin is by exchanging them slowing in a couple of BTC exchanges. If you want to get rid of large amount in a very short period of time, you will definitely be the target of "good" and "bad" guys.

[Kakmakr]

I do recall this announcement about a year ago : https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1pgny0/bitpay_processes_1_million_transaction_for/

The real problem comes in when governments get in on the action, and they want to pay for big tenders. {Military equipment like aircraft carriers and jets } The price per Bitcoin must be massive for them to do these kinds of payments.

[NorrisK]

the larger exchanges such as OK coin could handle that volume.  It would be dumb to do so since you would increase your costs by posting such a large sell order.  I would imagine in the future those kinds of transactions would happen OTC anyway.

Also, you will be tracked, these large amounts is what got silk road vendors caught, not the actual selling

I guess it would be quite easy to split any large transaction into many smaller ones to many different addresses automatically with some scripts right?

If you spread it over a few days, to different (unrelated) addresses at first, tracking will be difficult.

[n2004al]

...

I was responding to a nearby recent thread (re possible further BTC regulation in China) and a thought occurred to me.

-- If someone wants to convert a VERY LARGE amount of BTC to cash, how would they go about it?  Are the exchanges big enough to handle, say, BTC100,000 (approx. $2.5 million)?

-- I have read a couple of news items about BTC being used to buy houses (or as an option to pay).  Would this be possible or reasonably feasible in amounts up to, say, $1,000,000 or even more?

-- If someone wanted to cash in BTC for any other assets, would this likely negatively affect BTC price (lower price because of a "Whale" selling BTC)?  

-- What would an approximate amount of BTC be to affect liquidity (my point just above)?  Say to move BTC price down 10%...?

-- Are there other assets that would be appropriate for Bitcoin Whales should they want to buy them w/ BTC?


I look forward very much to reading your comments!  

1. I think yes but not immediately but piecemeal.
2. According to me, possible yes (if you find the people who want to accept such transaction), reasonable not (there are based hopes that the price of bitcoin will be higher and the spent of bitcoins with the actual price in such amounts it will be e big loss in money for the seller of bitcoin).
3. Depends from the amount. I remember that the day when Ross Ulbricht was arrested (or the day before) was sold a big amount of bitcoins at Mt Gox which affected to much the price of bitcoin. I am not finding that amount in internet now to write it here (might were 100 000 bitcoins or near this amount but you must take this amount with to much reserves). But was only for some days. Then the price arrived almost the same level as before the selling. But there are two factors which are different nowadays comparing to these times and must be taken in consideration. First is that the amount of bitcoins in circulation is much more than in the October 2, 2013 when happen all this story. So the amount which needed to "crash" the price would be bigger. Second, Mt Gox don't exist anymore so there are no more pumping factors that can help bitcoin like when existed Mt Gox. Maybe today bitcoin will be able itself to regulate the price but at these times was mt Gox which give it "power" and increase of price.
4. I don't have answer for this point. No such knowledge.
5. Sure that might be. But are different from country to country. Must be studied the various markets and ask advices from various annalists of every market. They may give in short term more than the hold of bitcoin and the waiting for the high price of it. For the long term as a lover of bitcoin I would tell no. All of us which are here in this forum expect to much from it. So it will be a mistake use it before the reach of this expectations.

[dothebeats]

I do recall this announcement about a year ago : https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1pgny0/bitpay_processes_1_million_transaction_for/

The real problem comes in when governments get in on the action, and they want to pay for big tenders. {Military equipment like aircraft carriers and jets } The price per Bitcoin must be massive for them to do these kinds of payments.

It is one, the government tries to get in in a massive transaction to get something from it.  As for them using bitcoins? I doubt it. They just want to gain control to get something out of bitcoin.

[Betwrong]

-- If someone wants to convert a VERY LARGE amount of BTC to cash, how would they go about it?

Here's the article which might be interesting to read about the owner of Sheep Marketplace, who had stolen around $40M in BTC and bought a house worth $340,000 with part of the stolen BTC.

https://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/03/27/breaking-sheep-marketplace-owner-arrested/

[1Referee]

100KBTC is enough to cause a deep flash crash. Especially on Chinese exchanges as their orderbooks are filled with a lot non existing buy orders. I personally would sell them on several large exchanges over a few weeks period, so I don't hurt the price that much.

[BTChaintrader]

I don't think anybody with such a large amounts of Bitcoins will try to sell them at once. Maybe in the future when some big businesses start accepting Bitcoin and then from time to time they will exchange there Bitcoins for dollars for example, but they the will buy some Bitcoins back in my opinion.

[Febo]

But, i think it's impossible to sell 100,000BTC at once because few reason :

Ofcourse is possible. You make an OTC trade or you make an auction as FBI did. No big buyer will go and spend few millions on a exchange and move price up by doing it, they are nto stupid, they will try to get their bitcoins as cheap as possible. Same will do big sellers.

[prodigy8]

Meeting someone locally this is mostly impossible,
Because people who have millions of dollars in cash are very rare and possible not interested in bitcoin.
The best idea seems to be to sell in many different exchanges with different/multiple accounts.

[aso118]

Contact Tim Draper. He might be interested.
Trying to dump it in exchanges is a bad idea.