Why aren't the worlds richest people buying up all the coins?

[cowandtea]

'cause I won't sell mine to them even they offer all their fortune, it's still undervalue.

But we still need their support to really increase Bitcoin price, the price have being stagnant cause not enough money flowing in.

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[Dabs]

Buffet, in particular, has stated he won't buy something he does not understand. And he doesn't buy stocks of companies anymore, he just buys the company itself.

Gates, I think just wants to sell more XBoxes or something. (Maybe he'll accept bitcoins for that? I don't know.)

[dominicwin]

I agree I doubt "old money" type billionaires and millionaires will be getting into Bitcoin, but I don't see why young tech millionaires/billionaires wouldn't get into it.

[Shad3dOne]

Serious question here. Bitcoin has more awareness now than ever, but why aren't people like bill gates and warren buffet just buying all of the coins?

I know I'm prolly going out on a limb here, but their sanity comes to mind as a good reason.

[Mike Christ]

This is an impossible task; you can only buy so many coins before the price starts jumping extremely high, not to mention the people who refuse to sell their coins no matter the price.

Aside from that, it's cautiousness.

[BitTrade]

Because in order to buy bitcoins, someone needs to sell them to you.  It's called supply and demand. 

[CurbsideProphet]

Hey guys,

Serious question here. Bitcoin has more awareness now than ever, but why aren't people like bill gates and warren buffet just buying all of the coins?

Do you ever wonder that? Like you would think they would be buying up all the coins, and the market cap would be tens of billions right now. Maybe they are going to war against Bitcoin?

A 51% attack controlled by opposition of Bitcoin would be fairly easy with the amount of resources these guys have.

Whats your opinion?

Nothing is stopping them, it's a free market.

[BitTrade]

Nothing is stopping them, it's a free market.

The market is stopping them, it's a free market.

[Dabs]

I agree I doubt "old money" type billionaires and millionaires will be getting into Bitcoin, but I don't see why young tech millionaires/billionaires wouldn't get into it.

Therefore, old money like Buffet and Gates won't be buying. But new money, like the facebook twins, they already bought.

[b!z]

Because they are sane people and they don't need all of the Bitcoins.

[DoomDumas]

Do you ever wonder that? Like you would think they would be buying up all the coins, and the market cap would be tens of billions right now.

Buying 90% of all existing bitcoin would drive the price well over 10k each bitcoin.  And we must not forget that each 10 minutes new bitcoins are mined.. so they could never get ALL bitcoins.  I'm pretty sure some super-rich have already think of that, evaluated the move and understood it would never worth it, even to try to destroy it.

IMO, Bitcoin are like the internet, impossible to destroy !  It's there, and will last forever, like gold, but way better

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

What's stopping them? Basic economic logic.

Say you have 10 BTC and they offer to buy for $200 per bitcoin, so you sell 2 at that price. Well they are rich and want ALL your coins, so offer $300 and you sell 1 more. You don't want to sell too many with the price rising that fast, of course, so you always keep a chunk in reserve for the big payoff. Fine, they say, wanna play it that way? "$20,000 per coin!" You have 7 left, maybe you sell 4 of them, but not all of them because who knows where this is going? They eventually go ballistic and offer you $10 million for your last few coins. You sell just one, thinking $3 mil oughtta hold down the fort pretty well, and since they keep upping the ante why not wait until they offer a billion? Of course long before this they would run out of money. And well before that you'd start wondering if all that fiat money was even worth anything anymore, so you'd be even more incentivised to hold on to a few coins.

[RodeoX]

Whats stopping the worlds richest from buying all the coins?

Reasons:
1. Lack of understanding. Professional investors do not invest in things they do not understand.

2. If I were to start using my billions to buy up all the BTC, then the price will skyrocket as I buy. Then it will crash when I stop. The rich and poor compete on a level playing field with bitcoin. 

3. They are buying a lot more coins than ever before. If Bill Gates has a million dollars worth of BTC, how would we know?

[Ovum]

Serious question here. Bitcoin has more awareness now than ever, but why aren't people like bill gates and warren buffet just buying all of the coins?

I know I'm prolly going out on a limb here, but their sanity comes to mind as a good reason.

Check

[dominicwin]

I agree I doubt "old money" type billionaires and millionaires will be getting into Bitcoin, but I don't see why young tech millionaires/billionaires wouldn't get into it.

Therefore, old money like Buffet and Gates won't be buying. But new money, like the facebook twins, they already bought.

ah I didn't know that they already bought. I imagine some of them have already made a lot of money off bitcoin if they purchased around the time I did when interest in it was first growing.

[franky1]

the real answer to the question the OP asks is this.

at any one time there are probably only about 200k bitcoins on any one market which if every one of those coins sat at the sell order price of $140 it would cost $28MILLION to buy them.. but they're not all sat at a single order price, they are scattered up the sell wal at ever increasing prices.

at the moment clarkmoody shows there are 35k bitcoins on the MTGOX exchange with a sell point from £149 to $17,933,000,000 each

so ill leave you to imagine the costs to buy just 35kbitcoin in one swoop..  

now thats just 35k bitcoins.. not the 11.8MILLION bitcoins in existance..

[Dabs]

No millionaire or billionaire will buy bitcoins from an exchange. They'll go hunting around for a private off-exchange deal. Some people have hundreds or thousands of coins, they will start there.

[hulk]

I think the rich guy would prefer to invest in a company that produce ASIC instead of buying Bitcoin, they would earn even more using this strategy.

[No_2]

Hey guys,

Serious question here. Bitcoin has more awareness now than ever, but why aren't people like bill gates and warren buffet just buying all of the coins?

Do you ever wonder that? Like you would think they would be buying up all the coins, and the market cap would be tens of billions right now. Maybe they are going to war against Bitcoin?

A 51% attack controlled by opposition of Bitcoin would be fairly easy with the amount of resources these guys have.

Whats your opinion?

To give an analogous example; Warren Buffet famously shunned gold investment in early 2000 and plowed money into his enterprises that went on to underperformed gold over the proceeding decade. He would have been better off putting the cash into gold and not expending effort on his enterprises.

I think Bitcoin does not fit most people's mental models of how finances work. But then that comes down to a discussion of how allied with 'reality' people's mental models are.

[Luckybit]

I think the rich guy would prefer to invest in a company that produce ASIC instead of buying Bitcoin, they would earn even more using this strategy.

Buying Bitcoin is the safest investment in a lot of ways but no, a rich person wouldn't touch Bitcoin yet. The ultra rich want to buy control and power over others.

Bitcoin companies aren't run in a way which would give them much control over the community yet. In the future that could change if the community depends too much on Bitcoins and does not diversify into altcoins.