What happens if someone buys all existing bitcoins and destroys them?

[btcgdi]

Seems like it'd be real good for anyone who had some seeing as though they would become a lot more rare/in demand/valuable.  We'll have to wait many more decades til everything's been released before such a buyout would ever be possible though. Won't be in my lifetime.

[Driice]

What people who attack Bitcoin for these kind of problems fail to understand as well though is it's open source anyone can make digital currencies now, we already have competing currencies like Litecoin coming into the fray, like it or not digital currencies are probably going to be around for a long while especially if they can be tinkered with and released at will.

[lassdas]

With today figures, you will need $250M to buy the last 0.000000001 btc standing. And you can add more zeroes if you ever are approaching that point.

So? $250M is nothing to Federal Reserve. And I don't think, if there would be only 1000 bitcoins left, that they would be worth millions.

That's ridiculous, there's no fuckin' way you can buy anything close to all bitcoins with that amount of money.
Take a look at the order-books to get an idea of what you'd have to pay.

For example, if you would buy all available coins on MtGox right now, you'd have to pay
16 224 128 220 282 USD and you would only get 64372 bitcoins, and
12 478 225 504 440 EUR would buy you another 64753 bitcoins.

That's a hell of a lot of money, even for the FED.
They might get a tiny fraction for $250M, but there's no way they could ever buy them all (or close to),
most bitcoins are not even for sale.
   

[baggyp]

It would be a pretty clever way for the Fed to get some cash circulating... *tin foil hat*

[mjc]

I hope they do.  Because after they my BTC from my hand's they'll be worth so much it will not matter.  we'll just start over.

[Gabi]

The total value of all bitcoins currently is several hundred million USD. That is pocket change for some bank or government who would wish to destroy bitcoin. What would stop them, to open an exchange of bitcoins into USD, with twice the ratio as all other exchangers, and then never spend (or destroy) all acquired bitcoins, until there are none, or a really small amount left in circulation? I realize this would drive the price of the remaining bitcoins way up, but wouldn't it destroy the bitcoin system, if only say 0,1% of 21 million possible bitcoins actually existed (and that number would be constantly decreasing)?

Call me when someone want to buy all bitcoins, i'll sell mine for some billions of $   or a bit more!

[usagi]

The total value of all bitcoins currently is several hundred million USD. That is pocket change for some bank or government who would wish to destroy bitcoin. What would stop them, to open an exchange of bitcoins into USD, with twice the ratio as all other exchangers, and then never spend (or destroy) all acquired bitcoins, until there are none, or a really small amount left in circulation? I realize this would drive the price of the remaining bitcoins way up, but wouldn't it destroy the bitcoin system, if only say 0,1% of 21 million possible bitcoins actually existed (and that number would be constantly decreasing)?

What happens if someone puts all the money into a giant hole, pours gasoline on it, and sets it on fire?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnX-D4kkPOQ

[Endgame]

Somebody already tried damaging bitcoin by destroying a bunch of coins. I remember reading a thread about it a while back. They didn't manage to destroy bitcoin, but they did provide some good lulz.

[Warry]

Bitcoin dies, someone rises and makes a new currency and everyone switches to that..

[muyuu]

Not selling all my coins at any price. Might sell a few at 10000 each

[hundenapf]

Question is rather what happens when the Internet is banned 

[vyvy]

There's nothing to stop them from doing that but why would they want to?  They'll basically be giving away money to the common man (something banks aren't willing to do today in the form of loans).  After acquire most of it, the remaining coins would be mostly worthless, as others will just move on to another crypto currency and there would be little demand for Bitcoins.

Realistically, it'll be much easier and cheaper to destroy Bitcoins via other means than buying it all up.

[xxjs]

With today figures, you will need $250M to buy the last 0.000000001 btc standing. And you can add more zeroes if you ever are approaching that point.

So? $250M is nothing to Federal Reserve. And I don't think, if there would be only 1000 bitcoins left, that they would be worth millions. They would be worth zero.

wtfvanity, could you elaborate on how hoarding bitcoins, and then dumping them all at once on the market, would actually destroy bitcoin? It would make the bitcoin worth 100's times less overnight, yes. But after that, it would climb right back up, it wouldn't be "destroyed". Am I wrong?

$250M is just the value based on small trades today. It would not be possible to buy a substantial amount of bitcoins for the current price.

[notig]

It would not be a good idea. If someone did that...... if you started buying up the coins the price would go up. It would be expensive and bit coin users would get rich. In the end even if you got them all and destroyed them all you would manage to do is prove that people can get rich by using these alternative currencies. Another would rise in it's place as fast as lightning.

That's why I think ultimately banks should embrace bitcoin. If they do that then at least they can control it somewhat more than if they try to kill it. If they try to kill bitcoin through any means then another system will simply pop up in it's place. But if they all the sudden integrated banks with new bitcoin exchanges they could take control from mtgox and make money.

[antimattercrusader]

I don't know if it's been brought up yet - but what about "lost" coins?

I don't think you could truly buy every single coin, and a buying frenzy of that nature would push the price up. Someone would have to want to buy it out pretty bad and have a large commitment of funds, possibly alot more than the current value of BTC.

[Monster Tent]

The long term lending section does more damage to bitcoin than any government could.

More likely they will setup hundreds of exit and entry nodes such as buying mt gox and other large exchanges then tracking the money flow.

[mandyb]

Not very likely!  Some other form will pop up to take it's place.

[serp]

As has been mentioned, buying all the coins would be impossible since not every coin is up for sale somewhere.  You could buy up all the coins currently listed with an ask price at mtgox but obviously you aren't going very many at all for what most refer to as the current price (last or avg). 

Right now there are about 10,793,875 total bitcoins in existance.  Of those there are about ~84,000 currently for sale on mtgox.  To buy up those 84,000 it would currently cost $16,224,019,674,361.37 USD.  That's over 16 trillion dollars to buy 0.7% of the current available bitcoins.  Not to mention the number of bitcoins yet to be created.

Really, all any attempt to buy up that many coins would just end up making us all rich as the price would sky rocket.

[DiHydro]

First of all you can't buy all the bitcoins cheaply, that isn't how markets work.

Also: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Won.27t_loss_of_wallets_and_the_finite_amount_of_Bitcoins_create_excessive_deflation.2C_destroying_Bitcoin.3F

Edit: I would quite enjoy someone attempting this "attack".

I never realized that Bitcoins were infinitely divisible, that does seem to make them resilient to any but the most determined attackers.

[SRoulette]

I become insanely rich and retire.