Billionaire wants to buy 25% of the bitcoin supply

[gentlemand]

by using leverage, rehypothecation/commingling, securitization etc and access to cheap credit, it doesn't seem totally inconceivable that even a market of gold's size could be manipulated, since spot prices are enslaved to fractional reserve markets. and bitcoin will be much smaller than gold for quite a while yet.

/tinfoil hat

I thought that was a straightforward stone cold fact that even the average five year old was aware of. Is there any question that gold's value is anything other than massively screwed with?

[Pipdips]

Questions for anybody willing to speculate:

What happens to Bitcoin price if buy orders start pouring in worth $1,000,000,000 or more? Will Bitcoin price just skyrocket overnight? Do big green spikes and giant green candles start appearing?  Certainly Bitcoin volume will spike in the green like nothing we have seen before, right?

Let's say that there is a Bitcoin purchase of $1,000,000,000 or even $10,000,000,000 worth, what will happen in the short term of 1 or 2 days?  How about 1 or 2 weeks?  The price of Bitcoin would skyrocket from $8,500 to $15,000 or more, overnight... right?

[figmentofmyass]

by using leverage, rehypothecation/commingling, securitization etc and access to cheap credit, it doesn't seem totally inconceivable that even a market of gold's size could be manipulated, since spot prices are enslaved to fractional reserve markets. and bitcoin will be much smaller than gold for quite a while yet.

/tinfoil hat

I thought that was a straightforward stone cold fact that even the average five year old was aware of. Is there any question that gold's value is anything other than massively screwed with?

i think anyone who does a modicum of research into the subject is aware, but that's a small minority of people. i definitely don't think it's the consensus opinion. no one in the mainstream questions these absurd fractional reserve practices. gold bugs crying manipulation are made to appear as the lunatic fringe---don't you think?

and that attitude is spilling over to bitcoin now too. very few people see the writing on the wall with bakkt and other physically settled derivatives that may come to dominate the spot market. the old guard is setting up the exact same infrastructure that already exists for gold.

[Whaleagent]

I know these dudes are definitely rich, that saying "rich" even undermines how much wealth they actually have, but I don't think they can even buy 25% of the total supply. Even if they buy it all through OTC through multiple entities, it's going to pump up the price too high I think. Correct me if I'm wrong.

They would have to spend around $38 billions to buy 25% of the supply right now, however, as you said, there would be no way to prevent the price from pumping too high. They would need to buy it slowly throughout 1 year or so and even then, what happens if bitcoin goes back to 20k?

[gentlemand]

i think anyone who does a modicum of research into the subject is aware, but that's a small minority of people. i definitely don't think it's the consensus opinion. no one in the mainstream questions these absurd fractional reserve practices. gold bugs crying manipulation are made to appear as the lunatic fringe---don't you think?

Hmm. Not sure. I've never hung out in gold bug places at length but it seems plain as you like to me. I don't really see how anyone could think otherwise with the easily accessible figures regarding paper gold. Since most everything else is pure fiction too perhaps it's only the hardened gold bugs who actually care.

They would have to spend around $38 billions to buy 25% of the supply right now, however, as you said, there would be no way to prevent the price from pumping too high. They would need to buy it slowly throughout 1 year or so and even then, what happens if bitcoin goes back to 20k?

Even if they existed they wouldn't have a hope in hell. Millions of coins are lost. Millions are in the hands of people who'll never sell. Millions more will be in the hands of people who'll only sell for many times more than the current price, the rest will be in the hands of people who'd spot someone of that ilk and gouge them until they ran out of money nowhere near their target.

If you add up all the coins on exchange books across the whole world it's probably no more than a few hundred thousand and some of them will be priced at ludicrous levels.

[WinslowIII]

by using leverage, rehypothecation/commingling, securitization etc and access to cheap credit, it doesn't seem totally inconceivable that even a market of gold's size could be manipulated, since spot prices are enslaved to fractional reserve markets. and bitcoin will be much smaller than gold for quite a while yet.

/tinfoil hat

I thought that was a straightforward stone cold fact that even the average five year old was aware of. Is there any question that gold's value is anything other than massively screwed with?

i think anyone who does a modicum of research into the subject is aware, but that's a small minority of people. i definitely don't think it's the consensus opinion. no one in the mainstream questions these absurd fractional reserve practices. gold bugs crying manipulation are made to appear as the lunatic fringe---don't you think?

and that attitude is spilling over to bitcoin now too. very few people see the writing on the wall with bakkt and other physically settled derivatives that may come to dominate the spot market. the old guard is setting up the exact same infrastructure that already exists for gold.

Gold has it's uses, jewelry mostly. It's got no limit on it's supply, they can just mine more if the demand goes up. Comparing this market with bitcoin with it's infinite potential uses, solid cap and decreasing inflation that is known by everyone is completely fruitless.
No, the bitcoin market cannot end up like the gold market - manipulated into a stagnant oblivion.

[bbc.reporter]

@WinslowIII. This might be mentioned before, however bitcoin's economy can also become a stagnant oblivion if the holders continue to hold all of their coins without spending them.

[figmentofmyass]

Gold has it's uses, jewelry mostly. It's got no limit on it's supply, they can just mine more if the demand goes up. Comparing this market with bitcoin with it's infinite potential uses, solid cap and decreasing inflation that is known by everyone is completely fruitless.
No, the bitcoin market cannot end up like the gold market - manipulated into a stagnant oblivion.

but why can't bitcoin be manipulated the same way, with fractional reserve paper markets? with gold, the supply doesn't matter since trading volumes are totally disconnected from actual gold reserves. how is bitcoin different? if bakkt starts doing 10x the volume of spot markets---and is physically settled---do you think the market would ignore its prices?

perhaps it's only the hardened gold bugs who actually care.

that's what it seems like. no one else seems too bothered by it.

[pooya87]

but that would cost a ton of money and can not be sustained over the long term since the market is also growing constantly and as a result it is becoming harder and harder to manipulate the price.

what's your opinion about the gold market? prices are dictated by the london bullion market and comex futures market. both of these markets trade volumes that are completely disconnected to the real physical underlying holdings (essentially fractional reserve), yet they dictate spot prices:

Recent empirical research has determined that gold price discovery is jointly driven by London Over-the-Counter (OTC) spot gold market trading and COMEX gold futures trading, and that the “international gold price” is derived from a combination of London OTC gold prices and COMEX gold futures prices. See “Who Sets the Price of Gold? London or New York (2015)” by Hauptfleisch, Putniņš, and Lucey.

by using leverage, rehypothecation/commingling, securitization etc and access to cheap credit, it doesn't seem totally inconceivable that even a market of gold's size could be manipulated, since spot prices are enslaved to fractional reserve markets. and bitcoin will be much smaller than gold for quite a while yet.

/tinfoil hat

i can't really speak about the gold market and i don't think it is a fair comparison since the gold market is not going to grow, it is what it is. while bitcoin market will continue to grow for years to come.

these are interesting points and i don't deny the facts about manipulation, its existence and control of the price. what i can never accept is the extent of that control. as i said the manipulation can not be sustained.

[adaseb]

Most likely its not even possible to buy the entire 25% of all bitcoin in circulation.

Currently according to Coinmarketcap, BTC has a current supply of 17.7 million, so 25% is about 4 million coins. And if you look at the amount of coins which are moved daily-weekly its around 1-2 million or so. In a given year, if its a bullish year then eventually most hodler's will sell and it might be higher but keep in mind there will be other buyers in the market at the same time.

Hence making it very difficult to buy 4 million BTC in a short time frame.

[1Referee]

Hence making it very difficult to buy 4 million BTC in a short time frame.

It's close to impossible at this stage.

Accumulating any amount over 1 million Bitcoin will very likely be a multi year plan. There aren't that many whale sellers left, and OTC desks depend on them in order to match them with high level buyers. Also don't forget that this is a small smarket. Large scale accumulation is noticed quickly and steep premiums will be charged if there aren't that many whales left to provide enough coins to meet the supply.

In the end, if an entity with the capital was really interested in buying up all these coins, it would have been a secret plan, and not put out in the public like this.

[STT]

but why can't bitcoin be manipulated the same way, with fractional reserve paper markets? with gold, the supply doesn't matter since trading volumes are totally disconnected from actual gold reserves.

Bitcoin has an open ledger so thats very different to gold.   At present the worlds largest producer of gold and also buyer and importer of gold is the same nation which is China.   They control the market at present despite USA having the largest reserves of any nation.
Effectively China is setting the gold price by not fully disclosing their figures, they report reserves over some years but Im not sure how accurate.

Buying alot of Bitcoin seems possible but would likely alter the price, the way to buy would be during bad news sell offs when supply and volume spikes.   That way the orders could be better covered, the agency in the article says they are market makers but they could also cover whether its a single buyer or multiple parties and also the likely duration of buying

[dvdrewritable]

Buy 25 percent of Bitcoin in all Bitcoin! But it is a very big investment. So if it is really bought 25 percent, then they are very easy to manipulated market. Applying will be 25% and they will be able to take it whenever they want for good income. However, is true, then we will see the real implementation.

[WinslowIII]

@WinslowIII. This might be mentioned before, however bitcoin's economy can also become a stagnant oblivion if the holders continue to hold all of their coins without spending them.

Long term, demand will set the price, not the supply offered for sale. There are too many uses of bitcoin in which the price is irrelevant. You use bitcoin to speculate in order to increase your fiat, it's a mistake to assume everyone else does as well.
There's no guarantee bitcoin will long term succeed in being a major part of the financiall world, if there were the price would be magnitudes higher than now. But you gotta admit, the odds are looking pretty good right now.

[Whaleagent]

i think anyone who does a modicum of research into the subject is aware, but that's a small minority of people. i definitely don't think it's the consensus opinion. no one in the mainstream questions these absurd fractional reserve practices. gold bugs crying manipulation are made to appear as the lunatic fringe---don't you think?

Hmm. Not sure. I've never hung out in gold bug places at length but it seems plain as you like to me. I don't really see how anyone could think otherwise with the easily accessible figures regarding paper gold. Since most everything else is pure fiction too perhaps it's only the hardened gold bugs who actually care.

They would have to spend around $38 billions to buy 25% of the supply right now, however, as you said, there would be no way to prevent the price from pumping too high. They would need to buy it slowly throughout 1 year or so and even then, what happens if bitcoin goes back to 20k?

Even if they existed they wouldn't have a hope in hell. Millions of coins are lost. Millions are in the hands of people who'll never sell. Millions more will be in the hands of people who'll only sell for many times more than the current price, the rest will be in the hands of people who'd spot someone of that ilk and gouge them until they ran out of money nowhere near their target.

If you add up all the coins on exchange books across the whole world it's probably no more than a few hundred thousand and some of them will be priced at ludicrous levels.

Yeah well, that's also true, looking at this chart: https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html exchanges only hold 1-2 million bitcoins at most and that's all of them added up, they will need more than 4 million bitcoins right now to get to 25% so yeah, it looks quite unrealistic, even 5% would be quite hard to acheve, at least in a short period of time, it would only be feasible to do it during 1 whole year.

[figmentofmyass]

but why can't bitcoin be manipulated the same way, with fractional reserve paper markets? with gold, the supply doesn't matter since trading volumes are totally disconnected from actual gold reserves.

Bitcoin has an open ledger so thats very different to gold.

having an open ledger doesn't address the problem.

with gold, it's clear as day that fractional reserve is being employed in the price-setting markets. this is provable on paper through public financial disclosures. it's not hidden. the comex gold vault holdings are transparent. the market already knows. it just doesn't care.

since the market doesn't care about fractional reserve, how would a blockchain solve anything?

[gentlemand]

having an open ledger doesn't address the problem.

with gold, it's clear as day that fractional reserve is being employed in the price-setting markets. this is provable on paper through public financial disclosures. it's not hidden. the comex gold vault holdings are transparent. the market already knows. it just doesn't care.

since the market doesn't care about fractional reserve, how would a blockchain solve anything?

Surely the near instant ability to verify and deliver is the big difference? There's absolutely no hope of gold ever managing that which is how it's wound up that way.

As you imply, the question is whether The People care enough. Since avoiding fractional reserve is so much easier to achieve I think, or hope, enough will.

[therhslv]

Its just a blog on forbes website , i would not trust such a claims . Any other news outlets there that got info about billionare who wants to buy bitcoin ? As i follow alot of good news portals , none of them got article like this currently But anyway if he wants to buy then just buy on exchanges and price will skyrocket

[huhhuh18]

Actually, for them to buy up to that percentage, they'd have to cause a huge pump for that to happen and that'll mean their price forecasts will change with time. They should try it lol...maybe that could send us to $1M per Bitcoin. Lovellyy!!!

[BitHodler]

Any other news outlets there that got info about billionare who wants to buy bitcoin ? As i follow alot of good news portals , none of them got article like this currently But anyway if he wants to buy then just buy on exchanges and price will skyrocket

Obviously, no news outlet is being fed information that important. They just suck everything out of their thumb or rehash what other news outlets wrote and add their own flavor to it to make it appear as a whole new article.

I think it's safe to say that high net worth legacy investors find it an easier and safer option to buy into cash settled contracts rather than spot that requires storage and a degree of technical understanding.

I have seen a lot of crypto related YouTubers pick up on this and use it as a click-bait title to attract more views. The funniest part is that they really seem to take it serious and consider it ultra bullish news for Bitcoin.