What happens if some1 rich buys it all?

[Adrian-x]

I know it's impractical and can't be done within probably even a day nor a week, but what would happen if someone very rich would like to spend ~1 billion on bitcoins and buy it all?

At first glance looks like it would be the end. Thinking a bit more it suggests that the later bitcoins would be so expensive that even he couldn't afford it, but he would have so much that could make a huge profit out of it.

If there's someone more literate than me in economics, I'd love a detailed and argumented response.

This has bee discussed before.

1) you go bankrupt as did the Hunt brothers - in there attempt to monopolise silver. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Bunker_Hunt

2) an amazing feature of Bitcoin not often discussed is if you have them all they become worthless.

So in conclusion even if you think you have the means you don't, and if you were successful you have gained nothing.

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[Stunna]

Price would be driven up too fast, impossible to buy a large % of all bitcoins in my opinion. Most people never want to go back to fiat.

[FireBlazzer]

I know it's impractical and can't be done within probably even a day nor a week, but what would happen if someone very rich would like to spend ~1 billion on bitcoins and buy it all?

At first glance looks like it would be the end. Thinking a bit more it suggests that the later bitcoins would be so expensive that even he couldn't afford it, but he would have so much that could make a huge profit out of it.

If there's someone more literate than me in economics, I'd love a detailed and argumented response.

i would think bitcoins value would drop like a rock.... as the bitcoin economy would fail, thus ending the demand for bitcoin.. a possbale replacment might pop up.

unless there was something vary importaint you could only get with bitcoins.. causing the price to be high as people would be willing to pay almost anything for it.

thats what i suspect

[Malawi]

Price would first skyrocket, bringing out coins from cold wallets. Then as the rich guy had basically all BTC, everybody else would loose interest and switch to another crypto.

There has to be a distribution of BTC's for them to have any use and value.

[FireBlazzer]

Price would first skyrocket, bringing out coins from cold wallets. Then as the rich guy had basically all BTC, everybody else would loose interest and switch to another crypto.

There has to be a distribution of BTC's for them to have any use and value.

agreed

[alkuluku]

an amazing feature of Bitcoin not often discussed is if you have them all they become worthless.

Yep, it's really this simple. And most likely you don't even need all of them to do that. If you get like 75% of them, it means lots of people would've sold all they had and what Malawi said happens.

Price would first skyrocket, bringing out coins from cold wallets. Then as the rich guy had basically all BTC, everybody else would loose interest and switch to another crypto.

There has to be a distribution of BTC's for them to have any use and value.

[wolverine.ks]

wouldn't it be possible to detect if one entity was buying them all? If it looked as if that were happening people would stop selling altogether.

[wolverine.ks]

What's the difference between one persion buying 75% of all the btc, and 75% of all btc being lost or destroyed?

[alkuluku]

wouldn't it be possible to detect if one entity was buying them all? If it looked as if that were happening people would stop selling altogether.

Never underestimate the power of greed.

Someone's buying a lot -> prices go up -> people will sell their pants off.

[alkuluku]

What's the difference between one persion buying 75% of all the btc, and 75% of all btc being lost or destroyed?

A lot or not much. Depends on the scenarios.

[FireBlazzer]

well at least if someone buys it its proably more easy to get it back out in the system

[wolverine.ks]

If someone bought 75% of all btc, if the utility of btc still exceeded that of other cryptocurrencies, then the remaining resources used to acquire btc would then be divvied up among the remaining coins, wouldnt it?

why would a theoretically infinitely divisible currency be less valuable, less useful, if you had to use satoshis rather than millis, or millis rather than full btc's?  (assuming the majority holder wasnt intentionally destabilizing the currency)

i think this question is practically the same as 'what if 75% of all btc were destroyed?'

you would move the decimal and get on with your day

[TheGovernedSelf]

I know it's impractical and can't be done within probably even a day nor a week, but what would happen if someone very rich would like to spend ~1 billion on bitcoins and buy it all?

At first glance looks like it would be the end. Thinking a bit more it suggests that the later bitcoins would be so expensive that even he couldn't afford it, but he would have so much that could make a huge profit out of it.

If there's someone more literate than me in economics, I'd love a detailed and argumented response.

It is simply not possible to buy it all even with an infinite amount of money.  The simple reason is that not all bitcoins are for sale.  Currently, the only ones that can be purchased are on the exchanges.  If someone spent a large amount of money on the exchange, the exchange rate would rise and this would probably lead to other coins being available on the exchange, but it would never lead to all the coins being available on the exchange.  

Many people won't let go of their coins for less than $10,000 each. If the price is rising 100% per month, they may even increase this threshold to $100,000 or $500,000. Thus, the new market cap becomes $5 trillion instead of $1 billion.

[Malawi]

If someone bought 75% of all btc, if the utility of btc still exceeded that of other cryptocurrencies, then the remaining resources used to acquire btc would then be divvied up among the remaining coins, wouldnt it?

why would a theoretically infinitely divisible currency be less valuable, less useful, if you had to use satoshis rather than millis, or millis rather than full btc's?  (assuming the majority holder wasnt intentionally destabilizing the currency)

i think this question is practically the same as 'what if 75% of all btc were destroyed?'

you would move the decimal and get on with your day

It's not the same, an owner of 75% might chenge his mind and sell it all at once. Lost coins cannot be sold.

[johnyj]

If one guy tries to buy 100 billion USD worth of bitcoin, the following happens:

1. The exchange price will shot up quickly until he exhausted all his USD, if he is lucky enough, he might get about 10% of all the coins, and one coin might worth 1 million + USD
2. The bitcoin economy will boom and generate many billionares in the mean time
3. Bitcoin get worldwide acceptance and become the de facto world currency reserve

Considering that FED is printing 85 billion USD per month, 100 billion USD is really nothing for those money printers, it's just a matter of their interest, and I believe they will be interested in it sooner or later

The only way to acquire a large amount of bitcoin without sending the price to moon is quietly buy it during a long time period, like twins did last year, but now when price has settled at this level, even if someone want to buy 1% of coin, the exchange price will at least double

[sgbett]

I know it's impractical and can't be done within probably even a day nor a week, but what would happen if someone very rich would like to spend ~1 billion on bitcoins and buy it all?

At first glance looks like it would be the end. Thinking a bit more it suggests that the later bitcoins would be so expensive that even he couldn't afford it, but he would have so much that could make a huge profit out of it.

If there's someone more literate than me in economics, I'd love a detailed and argumented response.

This has bee discussed before.

1) you go bankrupt as did the Hunt brothers - in there attempt to monopolise silver. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Bunker_Hunt

2) an amazing feature of Bitcoin not often discussed is if you have them all they become worthless.

So in conclusion even if you think you have the means you don't, and if you were successful you have gained nothing.

They didn't go bankrupt "because they tried to monopolise silver", they went bankrupt because COMEX changed the rules of the game.

You don't buy *all* the bitcoin, you would just buy enough of it.

You are the US govt. You have infinite money. You buy anything below market price, and put it back up for sale at some percentage higher. The market will trened higher, and you will gradually accumulate bitcoin all of which was bougth for less then the market price.

The more you own the more scarce a commodity it becomes and this is what will support the price. You do it throughout the inflationary period of bitcoin. At which point bitcoin has replaced dollar, you as the govt own most of it, all the while you have also been cornering the block chain by ramping up govt controlled cpu power. You then set your miners to ignore zero fee / low fee, thus effectively enforcing a minimum price for transactions that have any need to go through quickly. Now you are taxing the world. Welcome to The New New Order!

[NewLiberty]

They didn't go bankrupt "because they tried to monopolise silver", they went bankrupt because COMEX changed the rules of the game.

You don't buy *all* the bitcoin, you would just buy enough of it.

You are the US govt. You have infinite money. You buy anything below market price, and put it back up for sale at some percentage higher. The market will trened higher, and you will gradually accumulate bitcoin all of which was bougth for less then the market price.

The more you own the more scarce a commodity it becomes and this is what will support the price. You do it throughout the inflationary period of bitcoin. At which point bitcoin has replaced dollar, you as the govt own most of it, all the while you have also been cornering the block chain by ramping up govt controlled cpu power. You then set your miners to ignore zero fee / low fee, thus effectively enforcing a minimum price for transactions that have any need to go through quickly. Now you are taxing the world. Welcome to The New New Order!

Why does anyone think that this is not already happening?

The defense is slow and continuous selling from the large holders and exchange for real assets such as gold/silver/property/asic miners/means of production.
This is already happening now, and more Bitcoin enter the market from the miners.  It is a wise design with much safety built in.

It becomes very expensive to kill one of these crypto-currencies, and a new one can start.
Try putting the cat back in the bag.

[Adrian-x]

You do it throughout the inflationary period of bitcoin. At which point bitcoin has replaced dollar, you as the govt own most of it, all the while you have also been cornering the block chain by ramping up govt controlled cpu power. You then set your miners to ignore zero fee / low fee, thus effectively enforcing a minimum price for transactions that have any need to go through quickly. Now you are taxing the world. Welcome to The New New Order!

I'd agree your plot is feasible, but as NewLiberty put it, the cat is out the bag.

I see Bitcoin as voluntary, you are not coerced into using it, (maybe you are if Fiat is collapsing - and that is part of your plan) 

So given the voluntary nature, why not switch to a new crypto currency and avoid the monopolistic tax, or even carry on under a different fork? (problematic for obvious reasons and not inviting an answer to the forking idea)   

[Stampbit]

Why would someone throw away their money crashing a market when they can just pay the government to shut it down?

[ashaw596]

Ok, then we'd let them buy them all and using all the money we get from that, we all switch to ppcoin which implements proof of share alongside proof of work.