Why the big whales are not cashing out?

[coin-investor]

This is possible but I believe there are people hoarding their Bitcoin,maybe some government are considering this option one of the country that could do that are China,Russia  Us or maybe any rich arab country ,is there a system that can detect this..

[hilariousandco]

At $12B market cap a government, investment fund, or bank itself could purchase the majority of Bitcoin in circulation. This technically would not be the end of bitcoin, but the scenario you propose is possible.

So you think 12b could buy up the majority or all the Bitcoins?

12 billion dollars.

[Przemax]

In my opinion the big whales are either some big investments funds or government, cant withdraw their assets from bitcoin for some accounting reasons. As long as those assets are high they can borrow the money based on that assets.

If they would withdraw their assets the value of assets would drop and their credit ratings would drop. So its paradoxicaly that banks and loans could be the reason of relative stability of bitcoin prices.

[darkangel11]

Because they know Bitcoin can do much better. Why sell a goose that lays golden eggs?

[FaucetRank.com]

I'm just thinking that if any country buy up majority of Bitcoin than after buying Bitcoin what will they do?
If they sell those Bitcoin then who would like  to Buy from Government?

[tee-rex]

I'm just thinking that if any country buy up majority of Bitcoin than after buying Bitcoin what will they do?
If they sell those Bitcoin then who would like  to Buy from Government?

They won't have to sell all these bitcoins, but they will be able to manipulate the prices and by doing that prevent businesses from accepting Bitcoin as payment. If prices jump every day a dozen percentages, only traders will be happy. It is basically the same thing that many central banks typically do by currency interventions to stabilize the exchange rate. But in this case, they will rather try to destabilize the Bitcoin exchange rate.

[markj113]

Printing a lot of money would make the value or rate of the money itself decreasing and will happen fluctuation. Fiat is now working on demand - supply, so if the supplies were just too much, the value would be decreased. Making money is not that easy, and that's why the country would prefer to take a loan from another country and not to print the money themselves

Heard of quantative easing?

They have printed alot more than $12b, global QE currently at around $12.3 trillion and counting

[Carlsen]

Does anybody know who those whales are?
Because, maybe they all did already cash out their coins, and none of them is left over to do that anymore.
It would actually be not a bad thing in my opinion, if bitcoin would be spread consistent over the bitcoin community.
Nobody should have a too big influence.

[RodeoX]

Ah the mythical whale who's evil plan is to either buy all the coins or crash the market with a huge sale at rock bottom prices. Here is why that is not going to happen.

If the whale tries to buy all the coins he will drive the price ever higher. He can't actually just buy them. He must make a deal with every person on the planet who holds BTC. To make it worse, he doesn't even know who those people are. Good luck.

Now let's say he does manage to buy a million coins for his evil plan to cause a panic. When he sells them all for a penny a piece he is going to lose huge sums of the money. It will cause a crash as long as he is selling. But when he is out of coins there is nothing to keep the price from creeping up again, and he has gained nothing.

So here is a spoiler alert. Wealthy people did not become wealthy by acting in a foolish and illogical way. They know the story of the goose that lays golden eggs and are not going to wast their time and money killing something they could profit from.  Only an "evil" whale, who cares nothing about profit, who only wants to destroy the price would do this. Even then it would be a temporary event.

Why?

[just_Alice]

That question has always been intriguing me. Reading about possible control over Bitcoin by the government, I thought about the ways how they could actually do it. One idea that came to my mind was to print enough fiat to buy all bitcoins existing and get done with it for good. But then I recalled about the top Bitcoin holders including Satoshi himself keeping their coins, and it struck me that they might not be selling their stashes just because of this, for the fear that government could easily buy up all bitcoins that are traded and turn into the biggest whale itself.

How likely is that?

Even printing out unlimited sums of fiat will not make it possible to buy all Bitcoins and that is so not because the guys like Satoshi will hold theirs, but because of the exponential rising of the price in a case of massive buying. So trying to buy all the Bitcoins they will do only good for Bitcoin.

[uneng]

That question has always been intriguing me. Reading about possible control over Bitcoin by the government, I thought about the ways how they could actually do it. One idea that came to my mind was to print enough fiat to buy all bitcoins existing and get done with it for good. But then I recalled about the top Bitcoin holders including Satoshi himself keeping their coins, and it struck me that they might not be selling their stashes just because of this, for the fear that government could easily buy up all bitcoins that are traded and turn into the biggest whale itself.

How likely is that?

Both alternatives can be happening. The big whales can be the nice investors or the government men. The nice investors can be holding the bitcoin to prevent the government men to buy all and start commanding the bitcoin market.
The government men can have the biggest part of bitcoins and are using this to command what will happen with the bitcoin market, maybe China, why not? Strange things happen sometimes with bitcoin price, who knows if they have influences over it?

[Ayers]

because it's better to wait at this poit, they know this, if you were to ask the same question when bitcoin price was much lower, they would have done a mistake, also it's not very convenient for them to cash out a big amount of bitcoin, because big amount of taxes should be payed then

[Kevin77]

The only way they can make it illegal is to make an international law that every country in the world would approve. I don't think this would happen, bitcoin will simply coexist with real world fiat economy from my point of view.

It's already illegal in few countries and hence it wouldn't be impossible for all countries to follow the same route.

Taxes would be applied by USA and UK as they are already keeping track of bitcoin users and they are working on those
exchanges too to see how the currency is being used online. If any misuse is found, the currency would be banned worldwide soon.

[RodeoX]

... If any misuse is found, the currency would be banned worldwide soon.

How?
I am not aware of a single law that is worldwide.

[SmartIphone]

That question has always been intriguing me. Reading about possible control over Bitcoin by the government, I thought about the ways how they could actually do it. One idea that came to my mind was to print enough fiat to buy all bitcoins existing and get done with it for good. But then I recalled about the top Bitcoin holders including Satoshi himself keeping their coins, and it struck me that they might not be selling their stashes just because of this, for the fear that government could easily buy up all bitcoins that are traded and turn into the biggest whale itself.

How likely is that?

The more money the government prints the less the value of that currency will become so it's not a good idea because the value of bitcoin would be increased.
You say that Satoshi has lots of bitcoin, can someone paste a link here showing us how many bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamodo have?

[deisik]

... If any misuse is found, the currency would be banned worldwide soon.

How?
I am not aware of a single law that is worldwide.

That doesn't mean that such laws don't exist

The UN Security Council has "the authority to issue binding resolutions to member states". I guess that such resolutions could be loosely construed as international laws applicable everywhere throughout the world. I have heard about a few small countries that are not members of the UN, if I'm not mistaken, but I think we can safely disregard them

You say that Satoshi has lots of bitcoin, can someone paste a link here showing us how many bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamodo have?

The exact figure remains unknown but the ~1M bitcoins estimate comes from this analysis

[RodeoX]

... If any misuse is found, the currency would be banned worldwide soon.

How?
I am not aware of a single law that is worldwide.

That doesn't mean that such laws don't exist

The UN Security Council has "the authority to issue binding resolutions to member states". I guess that such resolutions could be loosely construed as international laws applicable everywhere throughout the world. I have heard about a few small countries that are not members of the UN, if I'm not mistaken, but I think we can safely disregard them

True. I don't know all the rules out there. And the UN is the largest international organization with some authority. However they have utterly failed to enforce even the most agreed upon rules. Syria is a member that drops poison gas bombs on it's own people with no repercussions. So I can't see a resolution baning BTC.
But crazy things do happen. Perhaps they would try a ban.   In that case I am going to refuse to obey. What are they going to do? Send troops from China to stop me? My own government would also be powerless to stop me. Indeed they have never really stopped me from doing what I want. It would be very easy to get enough people to disobey that a crackdown would simply not be feasible.  

[ikydesu]

That question has always been intriguing me. Reading about possible control over Bitcoin by the government, I thought about the ways how they could actually do it. One idea that came to my mind was to print enough fiat to buy all bitcoins existing and get done with it for good. But then I recalled about the top Bitcoin holders including Satoshi himself keeping their coins, and it struck me that they might not be selling their stashes just because of this, for the fear that government could easily buy up all bitcoins that are traded and turn into the biggest whale itself.

How likely is that?

The bigest whales could be keep the circulation stable, so they keep their coins. Or could be they've already spending it just listle bit constantly.
However using fiat for purpose to buy bitcoin is ridiculous decision if there are government do this, print fiat means adding the supply, when the demand is less than supply the price decrease, then fluctuation, they will not risking their wealthy for temporary fortune.

[deisik]

How?
I am not aware of a single law that is worldwide.

That doesn't mean that such laws don't exist

The UN Security Council has "the authority to issue binding resolutions to member states". I guess that such resolutions could be loosely construed as international laws applicable everywhere throughout the world. I have heard about a few small countries that are not members of the UN, if I'm not mistaken, but I think we can safely disregard them

True. I don't know all the rules out there. And the UN is the largest international organization with some authority. However they have utterly failed to enforce even the most agreed upon rules. Syria is a member that drops poison gas bombs on it's own people with no repercussions

Any substantive resolution of the Security Council should be unanimously accepted by its five permanent members. If these members fail to come to a consensus while discussing such a resolution, it gets declined and thus can't be enforced, i.e. doesn't become binding to other member states (the veto power). If the rule gets agreed upon by the permanent members, it will be enforced...

And just in case, Syrian chemical weapons had been destroyed according to the Security Council resolution

So I can't see a resolution baning BTC. But crazy things do happen. Perhaps they would try a ban.   In that case I am going to refuse to obey. What are they going to do? Send troops from China to stop me? My own government would also be powerless to stop me. Indeed they have never really stopped me from doing what I want. It would be very easy to get enough people to disobey that a crackdown would simply not be feasible.  

Maybe, they would just fire you, for a start?

[error08]

That question has always been intriguing me. Reading about possible control over Bitcoin by the government, I thought about the ways how they could actually do it. One idea that came to my mind was to print enough fiat to buy all bitcoins existing and get done with it for good. But then I recalled about the top Bitcoin holders including Satoshi himself keeping their coins, and it struck me that they might not be selling their stashes just because of this, for the fear that government could easily buy up all bitcoins that are traded and turn into the biggest whale itself.

How likely is that?

Any government or big banks can easily buy all the bitcoin currently in supply, there will be lots of hurdles for them to do this but this doesn't mean it is impossible. Also i don't see any incentive government/bank will have doing this.

Satoshi himself and many other big holders seems holding their bitcoin quite tightly not because of fear you have mentioned for sure. Talking about satoshi he will not move any single bitcoin from his known addresses because that can destroy whole bitcoin market due to fear and talking about other big holders they are just holding it as good investment. Some of them keep on cashing out profit which can't be noticed from outside because that amount is really low to make any significant move on market.

I think the key to controlling Bitcoin is not by buying out huge amounts of coins but by controlling the Bitcoin network itself. If they can shutdown or manipulate the Bitcoin network people will try to bail out and panic sell all their coins. Then the Bitcoin price will crash to the rock bottom and the government will sweep up all coins for pennies on the dollar. Going from decentralized to centralized overnight.

How to shutdown or manipulate bitcoin network? People who have faith as big holders/miners/developers/founders won't let it happen, that's why bitcoin could last till now.
And why the he*l any government will do that to clean up bitcoin out of market, I don't think so.
We would be fine as long as bitcoin doesn't harm financial economics of the countries.