To become a whale...

[criptix]

...how many bitcoins do you need to possess? Just curious what people's thoughts are.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

That is a good one.

On a sidenote 5000-10000 btc makes you definitely a serious player

[Bralex]

...how many bitcoins do you need to possess? Just curious what people's thoughts are.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

That is a good one.

On a sidenote 5000-10000 btc makes you definietly a serious player

From all the answers that's the good one, really?

The thing is it does not answer the question so how is that a good one exactly?

OP never asks how many because he wants to be one,(Just curious what people's thoughts are.) is what was said..

[Malin Keshar]

in some small exchanges some 100's of BTC is more than enough, or even less.

If you can leverage you can play whale with fewer money too

[g-unit]

...how many bitcoins do you need to possess? Just curious what people's thoughts are.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

That is a good one.

On a sidenote 5000-10000 btc makes you definietly a serious player

From all the answers that's the good one, really?

The thing is it does not answer the question so how is that a good one exactly?

OP never asks how many because he wants to be one,(Just curious what people's thoughts are.) is what was said..

Thank you Bralex! Damn. Some of you people are rude and probably don't even have as many bitcoins as me. In my opinion, I'd say at least 10,000 bitcoins. If I remember right, someone dumped 26,000 bitcoins last fall and it only crashed the market by like $20 bucks.

[unamis76]

To be a whale, you'd need 5 digit sums of BTC at least... But also lots of time and patience (to handle bigger whales than you)

[xboxsold]

First you would need to SELL your BTC on the Private market -- turn your BTC to cash ( Cant buy BTC with BTC ) and then Buy at market price and hope others follow,, you get the first coins cheap .. then when it hits the top you do a market sell..

[Monetizer]

I would say about a thousand or more coins. However the number gets smaller and smaller as the price goes higher and higher.

[Cablez]

A better question is what are the total holdings of a whale in bitcoinland?  Or do you think that they play with every satoshi they have?  Maybe only use half.........

[uki]

To me it depends which market we are talking about.
Any altcoin market, probably with 3 digit amount of BTC you may consider yourself as a whale.
In the bitcoin market, this is probably two orders of magnitude more.

[RyNinDaCleM]

I'd say the equivalent in BTC of $5-10M.

1000 BTC as of today is a whale.



But one day it will be 10,000 BTC...

Seriously? You think it'll only get easier to acquire 1-9k BTC? Hmm... 100k here I come  

...how many bitcoins do you need to possess? Just curious what people's thoughts are.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

That is a good one.

On a sidenote 5000-10000 btc makes you definietly a serious player

From all the answers that's the good one, really?

The thing is it does not answer the question so how is that a good one exactly?

OP never asks how many because he wants to be one,(Just curious what people's thoughts are.) is what was said..

Thank you Bralex! Damn. Some of you people are rude and probably don't even have as many bitcoins as me. In my opinion, I'd say at least 10,000 bitcoins. If I remember right, someone dumped 26,000 bitcoins last fall and it only crashed the market by like $20 bucks.

It takes a little more finesse than sticking a wall near the current bottom (at the time) of an overextended panic spike to manipulate the market. He could have done a lot more damage had he come up with a better system/style/method. It works in the other direction too. You can't buy the price up 20% and place a wall to hold it there. It simply won't work. It will be dumped into, probably faster than the 30k ask was bought at $300.

[bassclef]

If you're a whale with 10k+ coins you still need to be able to read the market like a pro and know when the herd will follow you, or else you'll probably lose it real quick.

[ajareselde]

If we are talking about a true whales at current point in time, i believe the same as most, about 10 000 BTC, but
its important to state how this amount get proportionaly smaller with passing timeframe, so the amount to bring the market under some kind of influence will
allways correspond to its countervalue in fiat, asuming the price will go forward as we all generaly think, if not there will be a reverse situation.

cheers

[waterpile]

...how many bitcoins do you need to possess? Just curious what people's thoughts are.

IMO 5k+ of BTC makes you a whale. Most of these whales most of them are composed of institutions such as Hedge Funds and Bitcoin Investment Funds.

[Q7]

I think it must be at least 6 figures and beyond to effective control and manipulate the market direction, something above BTC100000. Even with the amount, that only gives you close to about 30 million and if you consider the size of the bitcoin market cap, that is awfully a small number. Plus you also have to consider the on-spot buy/sell order at that time.

[Meuh6879]

Starting from 1000 coins in my opinion.

no.

Dump and Pump is :

- 200 BTC on kraken
- 2000 BTC on bitstamp
- 3000 BTC on bitfinex
- 4000 BTC on OKCoin

[RyNinDaCleM]

Being a whale does not mean being a manipulator. A whale is anyone who can't easily get in/out remotely close to spot without suffering massive slippage and making a noticeable wave in the chart. In most cases, 1000BTC will take a huge bite out of any orderbook. As Meuh6879 said above, exchanges with very low liquidity like Kraken will be a smaller stack, but then the argument arises that you couldn't whale around on the big exchanges with only 200 BTC, so I would disagree with that simply because it's not effective at ANY one exchange.

I would say 1000BTC is considered a whale. A small whale, but a whale none the less. Market makers are 10k+ and Manipulative whales need 20k+.

[elephantas1]

Starting from 1000 coins in my opinion.

no.

Dump and Pump is :

- 200 BTC on kraken
- 2000 BTC on bitstamp
- 3000 BTC on bitfinex
- 4000 BTC on OKCoin

on kraken 200? i dont think so wouldnt people from other exchanges start dumping coins when someone pumps with only 200?

[dothebeats]

...how many bitcoins do you need to possess? Just curious what people's thoughts are.

It heavily depends on what altcoin do you want to be a whale in. A couple of thousand btc can help you cause some movements in the btc market, but with only a couple hundred, you can manipulate the altcoin scene significantly.

[dothebeats]

I think it must be at least 6 figures and beyond to effective control and manipulate the market direction, something above BTC100000. Even with the amount, that only gives you close to about 30 million and if you consider the size of the bitcoin market cap, that is awfully a small number. Plus you also have to consider the on-spot buy/sell order at that time.

A weenie whale, that is. With that amount of BTC, you can easily manipulate small exchanges but not on the big ones. Market manipulators really need to have a deep pocket in order to dictate the market movement.

[johnyj]

Even a bear whale with 30000 coins can be slaughtered in couple of hours, anything less than 10000 coins can not be called a whale