What would happen if a group/person bought all the bitcoin in circulation.

[jackg]

Hello. I was just thinking: what would happen if someone or a group of people such as Bill Gates, decided to purchased all the bitcoin in circulation, or a majority of it anyway.

They could purchase it for $500 per Bitcoin.
Then, due to the hightened demand and lack of any other way of getting bitcoin, they could be sold on for more than $1000. Making a $500/unit increase.

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[Meuh6879]

bids and sells.

if you sell, price plunge
if you buy, price skyrocket.

if you want, you can sell right now 1 BTC for 10 000 USD.
and trust me, they have plenty of offer like that to wait a big (and crazy) player.

[ivanst776]

If this happens then the bitcoin price will be increased too much because there aren't much sell orders with the actual price.

[mexxer-2]

bids and sells.

if you sell, price plunge
if you buy, price skyrocket.

if you want, you can sell right now 1 BTC for 10 000 USD.
and trust me, they have plenty of offer like that to wait a big (and crazy) player.

Reminds me of that story:
A businessman comes to a village, where there are lots of monkeys. He promises that he will give $10 per monkey, initially people don't believe it but as time goes on, they start catching and selling nearly 50%(initial population 1k) of the monkeys to the businessman. He then tells the people that he will be going somewhere else and will come a month later with a better offer. A month later he does come back and this time offers $40 per monkey, now there are only 25% of the monkey left after villagers sell all the remaining monkeys. Once again the businessman before going to to some other village says the same thing as last time. And a month later after that comes with an offer of $160 per monkey, this time all monkeys are captured and sold by the villagers and the businessman gives the payments promptly, now no monkeys are left at all in the village. Now what the businessman does is, leaves his secretary in the village and goes somewhere else with the same promise as the other times, this time he promises that he will offer $640 per monkey next time. Now what the secretary does is, starts selling monkeys each for $400, as the villagers know they can later sell for $240 profit, and that there are no monkeys in the village that they can sell, they start buying the monkeys from the secretary. Now what happens you ask? The secretary runs away with the money and then meets the businessman who then laugh at the villagers' stupidity.
While the villagers have monkeys 

[Doomer]

They could purchase it for $500 per Bitcoin.
Then, due to the hightened demand and lack of any other way of getting bitcoin, they could be sold on for more than $1000. Making a $500/unit increase.

No. If he tried to buy so many bitcoins, the price would be skyrocketed before he would get even a small part of them. So, he would not be able to buy them in the firdt place.

To put it simply.
Suppose you want to buy 1 million bitcoins per $500 each.
You'll find just 100,000 coins at $500;
for the next 100,000 coins you'll have to pay $1000 each one;
for the next 100,000 coins you'll have to pay $2000 each one;
etc etc
and, in the extreme case you want all, all, all the bitcoins, for the last existing bitcoin you'll have to pay trillions of trillions and the whole galaxy.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Then they will have cornered the market, but usually that doesn't work out too well for the people who attempt it.  Like the Hunt bros with silver and some other dudes in the grain market years ago. 

[El Emperador]

it's not possible to corner the bitcoin market because all the coins are not created yet.

[Meuh6879]

it's not possible to corner the bitcoin market because all the coins are not created yet.

well, all is a question of supply.
you can't buy ... proprietary bitcoin unavailable on market for example (like my bitcoins in cold storage).

because it's my life economies.

  but if a big player is here, i can sell 1 BTC for 1 Billions.
good deal because ... they have always plenty of billions over the hand : http://www.celebritynetworth.com/list/top-100-richest-people-in-the-world/

[TERA]

If someone bought all the bit coin then it would be worthless since its not being used as money

[Junko]

Hello. I was just thinking: what would happen if someone or a group of people such as Bill Gates, decided to purchased all the bitcoin in circulation, or a majority of it anyway.

They could purchase it for $500 per Bitcoin.
Then, due to the hightened demand and lack of any other way of getting bitcoin, they could be sold on for more than $1000. Making a $500/unit increase.

Buying all bitcoin in circulation at $500 per is just not possible. Someone may have enough money to do so, but the only way they would be able to buy all bitcoin at $500 each would be if those who currently own them were 1. forcibly compelled to sell and 2. forced to sell at that specific price. In what scenario could that possibly happen?

[zimmah]

it's not possible to corner the bitcoin market because all the coins are not created yet.

well, all is a question of supply.
you can't buy ... proprietary bitcoin unavailable on market for example (like my bitcoins in cold storage).

because it's my life economies.

  but if a big player is here, i can sell 1 BTC for 1 Billions.
good deal because ... they have always plenty of billions over the hand : http://www.celebritynetworth.com/list/top-100-richest-people-in-the-world/

I don't know man, if someone offers a million for a Bitcoin I wouldn't trust it.         

[Meuh6879]

I don't know man, if someone offers a million for a Bitcoin I wouldn't trust it.         

  banking system will take care of the transaction for you ... after the regular 10 working days to confirm wire 

[gentlemand]

How many coins are for sale at any one time? On the exchanges it's probably a few tens of thousands. Then you have OTC availability too. That might be another few tens of thousands. The rest is lost coins, die hard hoarders and those with zero intention of selling.

In one swoop then they might be able to buy a couple of hundred thousand coins, but in the process they'd clean out all of the exchanges. Sellers would pile in and keep on raising the price until it was in the tens of thousands and they'd still be several million coins short.

[podyx]

Somebody could perhaps buy every bitcoin in the world for like $50k each,

What would happen is a wealth transfer from those who buy to the ones who sell as there are no longer any bitcoins for sale and thus cannot be used and has no value.
IE they become broke (from being trillionaires) while the rest of us becomes wealthy.

[kwukduck]

bids and sells.

if you sell, price plunge
if you buy, price skyrocket.

if you want, you can sell right now 1 BTC for 10 000 USD.
and trust me, they have plenty of offer like that to wait a big (and crazy) player.

Reminds me of that story:
A businessman comes to a village, where there are lots of monkeys. He promises that he will give $10 per monkey, initially people don't believe it but as time goes on, they start catching and selling nearly 50%(initial population 1k) of the monkeys to the businessman. He then tells the people that he will be going somewhere else and will come a month later with a better offer. A month later he does come back and this time offers $40 per monkey, now there are only 25% of the monkey left after villagers sell all the remaining monkeys. Once again the businessman before going to to some other village says the same thing as last time. And a month later after that comes with an offer of $160 per monkey, this time all monkeys are captured and sold by the villagers and the businessman gives the payments promptly, now no monkeys are left at all in the village. Now what the businessman does is, leaves his secretary in the village and goes somewhere else with the same promise as the other times, this time he promises that he will offer $640 per monkey next time. Now what the secretary does is, starts selling monkeys each for $400, as the villagers know they can later sell for $240 profit, and that there are no monkeys in the village that they can sell, they start buying the monkeys from the secretary. Now what happens you ask? The secretary runs away with the money and then meets the businessman who then laugh at the villagers' stupidity.
While the villagers have monkeys 

Great analogy to show that bitcoins are actually monkeys.

[Rizky Aditya]

Theoretically, this will never happen as there is too many lost Bitcoins and also, I am never selling my Bitcoin so yeah.... The price would still rise like it is now, nothing is going to change.

[mexxer-2]

Great analogy to show that bitcoins are actually monkeys.

You know(don't tell me otherwise) what I mean to say

[MataKhobRazi]

Reminds me of that story:
A businessman comes to a village, where there are lots of monkeys. He promises that he will give $10 per monkey, initially people don't believe it but as time goes on, they start catching and selling nearly 50%(initial population 1k) of the monkeys to the businessman. He then tells the people that he will be going somewhere else and will come a month later with a better offer. A month later he does come back and this time offers $40 per monkey, now there are only 25% of the monkey left after villagers sell all the remaining monkeys. Once again the businessman before going to to some other village says the same thing as last time. And a month later after that comes with an offer of $160 per monkey, this time all monkeys are captured and sold by the villagers and the businessman gives the payments promptly, now no monkeys are left at all in the village. Now what the businessman does is, leaves his secretary in the village and goes somewhere else with the same promise as the other times, this time he promises that he will offer $640 per monkey next time. Now what the secretary does is, starts selling monkeys each for $400, as the villagers know they can later sell for $240 profit, and that there are no monkeys in the village that they can sell, they start buying the monkeys from the secretary. Now what happens you ask? The secretary runs away with the money and then meets the businessman who then laugh at the villagers' stupidity.
While the villagers have monkeys 

Really good ! I liked it ^^

[QuintLeo]

Won't happen. Gates isn't interested enough, Buffet thinks it's a bad investment, and pretty much anyone else that COULD do so has no interest.


 On the other hand, if someone DID start doing so, it WOULD be noticed and would push the price a fair bit higher over time as it got more and more concentrated.

[1Referee]

It's impossible, but let's pretend it did happen. All coins are mined, and this group or entity has all the coins. It's then basically the same as what is happening with all the shitty altcoins today. They will make it look like a lot people are trading and generating huge volumes, while it's basically a few people that do it. It will result in a coin that is being left and forgotten.