Where or how are big sales and buys conducted?

[Narydu]

Sorry for this silly question but if I would like to sell and or buy short between 3000 BTC or USD equivalents, is TH and MTgox the only/best way? Is there a way to go for big numbers not disrupting the price given the small depth of one or the other? Or if done over exchanges, this buy/sell outs might become trendesetters?

[Revalin]

That's about it, yes.  If you buy or sell 3000 btc right now it's only about a $0.10 premium over the ticker price.  If that's still too much you could try breaking your order into smaller lots, but you'd probably end up moving the market nearly as much that way.

[teflone]

Dark pools/exchanges I think they are called...

[Vandroiy]

Just don't do it all in one order. 3000 BTC is no problem, the market accepts orders of size 500 BTC without much commotion, sometimes up to over 2000. Use Tradehill or MtGox, they seem to work okay.

I don't know about shorting though. There is Bitcoinica, but they're even more Wild West than Gox, which is a reason to worry IMO.

[MPOE-PR]

Where or how are big sales and buys conducted?

Mostly in #bitcoin-otc afaik.