What if someone bought up all the existing bitcoins?

[Radiohead]

Oooooh, I can hardly wait. Who is he? The price for my bitcoins will be $1 million each. This guy will make me rich. I will pay good money to know who he is.

actually it would be $infinity.  woohoo!

If the Dollar is worthless, that would still be nothing though.

+1

an infinite amount of zero.

Another + from me. Your surely a cognitive thinker

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[steeveGrube]

just waiting for the day when bitcoins will be $1 million each!!!

and all petrol, dollars, golds, diamonds holder will cry a lot!!!

buy BTC now!!!

ora cry later!!!!

 

[bornil267645]

I don't think anyone except satoshi nakamoto can pull that off. He will be wanting to collect his spread treasure.

[Eastbay]

What is someone bought all the gold? or oil? or electricity? or corn?

Then what would the mexicans eat.... the humanity.... 

[steeveGrube]

I don't think anyone except satoshi nakamoto can pull that off. He will be wanting to collect his spread treasure.

naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

sathosi is playing with his model train like a little guy!!!

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/face-behind-bitcoin-247957.html

no longer thinks to bitcoin!!

 

[Billbags]

Hi, I am a noob to all this bitcoin stuffs. It sounds like an interesting idea but before I invest too much into it I have
some questions and concerns. Perhaps highest on my list of concerns is the possibility that someone will buy up all,
or most, of all the bitcoins that exist.

Will it be just like the existing economic system where the rich get richer on the backs of the poor?
Will that not destroy the whole bitcoin project and make whatever bitcoins I happen to get myself worthless?

I have read a few things on this kinda stuff and some of it sounds pretty scary. I don't know how much of it
is FUD or how feasible any of it is at all at all.  

Please help me understand and ease my mind in regard to this issue.


Thank you

1) I'll let Satoshi answer this one.....

Satoshi Quote
July 9, 2010: "When someone tries to buy all the world’s supply of a scarce asset, the more they buy the higher the price goes. At some point, it gets too expensive for them to buy any more. It’s great for the people who owned it beforehand because they get to sell it to the corner at crazy high prices. As the price keeps going up and up, some people keep holding out for yet higher prices and refuse to sell. The Hunt brothers famously bankrupted themselves trying to corner the silver market in 1979."

"Brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt attempted to corner the world silver markets in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at one stage holding the rights to more than half of the world's deliverable silver.[1] During Hunt's accumulation of the precious metal silver prices rose from $11 an ounce in September 1979 to nearly $50 an ounce in January 1980.[2] Silver prices ultimately collapsed to below $11 an ounce two months later,[2] much of the fall on a single day now known as Silver Thursday, due to changes made to exchange rules regarding the purchase of commodities on margin.[3]" ~SN

2) If you want to understand the economics of Bitcoin, READ THIS(it's all there...just click)
http://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/
http://web.archive.org/web/20070618142414/http://szabo.best.vwh.net/scarce.html
http://szabo.best.vwh.net/ttps.html
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/04/bit-gold-markets.html?m=1
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2011/05/bitcoin-what-took-ye-so-long.html?m=1
http://unenumerated.blogspot.ca/2008/06/commodity-hysteria-overview.html?m=1

3) The first credit to Bitcoin in the white paper was a citation for Wei Dai’s “bmoney”.
The first paragraph of “bmoney”:
"It’s a community where the threat of violence is impotent because violence is impossible, and violence is impossible because its participants cannot be linked to their true names or physical locations”. ~Wei Dai

The Internet and Bitcoin were created to allow people to solve social problems in a novel way: Instead of the ancient formula of “the strongest wins and then beats the crap out of the loser” we all can achieve a peaceful society where both rich and poor, strong and weak can protect their property and freedom on more equal grounds without relying on violent institutions like governments.

[philiveyjr]

I dont think thats gonna happen as long as me n my pals hold up our bitcoins.!! :p

[Slunt]

I dont think thats gonna happen as long as me n my pals hold up our bitcoins.!! :p

Then you guys would be very rich if this happens, though I think you sell before that when the price starts to rise astronmically.

[Argwai96]

does it mean 51-attack will happen if someone buy more than 51% BTC

No. A 51% attack refers to mining capacity. Owning bitcoins doesn't give you any power or control over Bitcoin (except perhaps the exchange rate).

A 51% attack would be possible if someone bought up 51% of the bitcoin and we decided to change the mining method to PoS

[MoneyIsDebt]

1) I'll let Satoshi answer this one.....

Satoshi Quote
July 9, 2010: "When someone tries to buy all the world’s supply of a scarce asset, the more they buy the higher the price goes. At some point, it gets too expensive for them to buy any more. It’s great for the people who owned it beforehand because they get to sell it to the corner at crazy high prices. As the price keeps going up and up, some people keep holding out for yet higher prices and refuse to sell. The Hunt brothers famously bankrupted themselves trying to corner the silver market in 1979."

"Brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt attempted to corner the world silver markets in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at one stage holding the rights to more than half of the world's deliverable silver.[1] During Hunt's accumulation of the precious metal silver prices rose from $11 an ounce in September 1979 to nearly $50 an ounce in January 1980.[2] Silver prices ultimately collapsed to below $11 an ounce two months later,[2] much of the fall on a single day now known as Silver Thursday, due to changes made to exchange rules regarding the purchase of commodities on margin.[3]" ~SN

To address your point 1) above - it seems to me that a big holder with more bitcoins than the liquidity on the exchanges can keep pushing the price down, and thus keep buying at low prices.  It requires much more money to do this with silver, and more people would care and interfere.

[Bitcoin Biz]

Hi
I am new to this forum, rather very new to Bitcoin community. A very basic but important issue is on my mind. I can not figure out the incentive for miners after the capped amount of bitcoin are created (21million by the year 2040 say). Would the miners will survive only on transaction ledger commissions only? If so, would it be enough of an incentive for the community to keep bitcoin ecosystem alive after that point? Please help me to sort the issue.

[yeponlyone]

does it mean 51-attack will happen if someone buy more than 51% BTC

No. A 51% attack refers to mining capacity. Owning bitcoins doesn't give you any power or control over Bitcoin (except perhaps the exchange rate).

A 51% attack would be possible if someone bought up 51% of the bitcoin and we decided to change the mining method to PoS

Exchanges are already capable of this attack if it shifts to POS. The amount of machines dedicated to Mining is very much. If it were to shift to POS, huge losses will be suffered.

[R2D221]

(21million by the year 2040 say)

The estimate is near to 2140, actually

Would the miners will survive only on transaction ledger commissions only?

That's the idea, yes.

If so, would it be enough of an incentive for the community to keep bitcoin ecosystem alive after that point? Please help me to sort the issue.

For that to be sustainable, Bitcoin would need to be valued in millions of dollars, and have a user base of several million people as well. That way they can receive satoshis as reward and still be profitable.

We don't know whether we will get there at some point, but that's the way it needs to be for it to work.

[KiwiParty]

This is a very easy question.

Bitcoin rate is market price, the higher the demand, the higher you can sell. In theory.
But everyone has a limit when it starts to hurt, or isnt senseful to buy.
On the other side, if someone was willing and splendid enough to buy every BTC,
this person would have to make literally everyone rich who currently owns BTC.

After this happened, different to a normal currency like the dollar or euro, it would loose next to all of its value, which was necessary to achieve them.

Furthermore, just and only one person couldnt maintain all the technology.

[Wapinter]

What if someone bought up all the existing dollars?

Dollars can be printed again at will but bitcoin cannot be minted.There's a limit of how much btc can be generated so unlike gold,corn,dollar etc it is not impossible that one person has all of available bitcoin.

[PsursV]

The bitcoin amount on the world is too much,i think even a most wealthy person is unable to buy all the existing amount .
For that a state or a group of state would have to pay all its money to buy that amount and after that they know well how to make worth of it.

[mrflibblehat]

The bitcoin amount on the world is too much,i think even a most wealthy person is unable to buy all the existing amount .
For that a state or a group of state would have to pay all its money to buy that amount and after that they know well how to make worth of it, because states have power.

One of the really wealthy billionaires could buy it all but what's the point? To control the bitcoin market? It would crash.

[Meuh6879]

You CAN'T buy all bitcoins because :
- most of then is NOT on exchange
- most of then is NOT even connected at the bitcoin network actively (cold storage)

If you try to buy a high amount of bitcoins, you have this scenario :
- buy 500 BTC = 400 USD
- buy 500 BTC = next offer is at 500 USD
- buy 500 BTC = next offer is at 600 USD
- buy 500 BTC = next offer is at 1000 USD
- buy 500 BTC = next offer is at 3000 USD

you can't deal with it ... it's a free market after all.
whales can only wine when they discharge now (crash of the value).

not when they (try to) buy.

[mirana12345]

The bitcoin amount on the world is too much,i think even a most wealthy person is unable to buy all the existing amount .
For that a state or a group of state would have to pay all its money to buy that amount and after that they know well how to make worth of it, because states have power.

It's nonsense to even think about it, there is no possible way anyone would buy every single coin, because there are people who would never sell.
The large parties like states and corporations are more likely to create their own fork of bitcoin, or entirely new coin, then that they would try to buy bitcoin off.

[romero121]

Practically it won't take place. If someone buys and holds a huge volume of the bitcoin, it won't affect much in the price of bitcoin. He surely has the ability to move the price of bitcoin by accumulating huge bitcoins, which generates demand with less volume in circulation.