Topic: How does a whale sell its huge amount of bitcoins and change them into fiats? (Read 373 times)

It's easy to do so, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you will be the only person to receive the money that is sent to your account. Definitely, you will have a few friends who are into some big business so that they can receive a huge amount of money as much as $100k at once, and they will not be questioned by the bank because of the kind of business they do. Even if you don't have such friends, you will definitely have a friend who can make some connections for you to get some rich dude with large business who can help receive the money for you, and if they send it to your account, they can still side for you that the money is for a business deal should in case any authority approach you. It's just like that; there are ways a whale can clear the money.


Cheers 🥂, Dr.Bitcoin_Strange 👺👺

Everything depends upon the country you are living, if your country completely banned cryptocurrency trading, then you will be forced to move out and search for a free heaven and if i am selling off millions worth of cryptocurrency, i would move to a country with low taxes or no taxes at all like GCC countries and would take my time and set up business in a free zone. The only reason i will move out is because the taxes are really high for cryptocurrency here in my country.

If it's just a few million dollars then I think it's pretty straightforward, as I can see some of the top exchanges accepting user payments, and the story is at a much higher threshold I think too. think that if they already have that much money, they themselves are not an ordinary person and are actually very rich in outside life enough that banks always want to invite them to use service big so that their money is spent in the bank to earn taxes or fees,...
Like myself, I used to think that some transactions that are too large will be placed on a special list by the bank, but it is not at all, or maybe they (the banks) think it is not too much for them to invite. approach.

There are some platforms that you can convert your Bitcoins to Fiat without selling so if you have a huge amount of Bitcoin and you know that it will cause problem if you sell them, then look for those exchange platforms that converting them to Fiat instant and you use it. There is no big deal. Or in another way, if you discovered your lost key and check your wallet and see a lot of coins inside, if I am the owner, I will not sell all, I will sell the unit which I can use to spend at that time and keep the rest so that I will not empty my Bitcoin wallet.

But OP is asking how a whale can convert millions of dollars of bitcoin into fiat. While we always criticize centralized exchanges, there is no denying that they are the most liquid in the market. So not only retail investors but even whales will use them if they want to convert crypto assets into fiat. Using CEX's P2P to convert to fiat is fairly straightforward for small amounts, but large amounts can be a big deal. You won't get in trouble with exchanges, but you will get in trouble with your local bank if your account suddenly has large transactions.

Everyone discussing whether this guy with millions of stash will have a problem while withdrawing the money or not. Meanwhile, the IRS department already has all the information about your assets, and income, under the table and above-the-table money laughing in the corner!

Man, it's millions of dollars we are talking about. I highly doubt that there is any chance a whale would be withdrawing money with a lot of hesitations and justifications. If someone is holding the millions then they definitely have an accountant or bookkeeper to manage the entire workflow. Have all the documentation done already?

Moreover, they would never end up selling their crypto currencies in the country where it's strictly monitored or not allowed. I mean whats the point.

I'm guessing this could easily be done by withdrawing to several offshore bank accounts. Yes, you would have to open up a few of them but today it's very easy to open up accounts in countries you have no connection to - and it's not really expensive or time consuming to do. You could gain attention and it still would be difficult not to if you have a very large amount of cash flowing in. But I guess this could work up to a reasonable amount of money and if you are not someone very known as you've said.

Currently, various popular exchanges have introduced P2P system in their exchanges to make things easier for investors, through which you can easily exchange your currency to the local currency of your country. This system is very useful for a trader. Because since the introduction of this system, traders do not have to face any problem in converting Bitcoin to fiat. Exchanges have introduced p2p system in such a way that you can use any transaction service very easily. If you are trading in small scale then you should not have any problem in trading. Traders usually use this method. That means converting BTC to fiat is currently a very easy task.

This is the problem with fiat currencies and their centralized censorship institutions, they want to regulate you and your money, they can also confiscate your money because they control it. The banks usually get suspicious when a huge sum of money enters your bank account, they want to know the source or origin and they can freeze your funds. There are two things to do in this situation: it is either you convert it all and get ready to prove that everything you do is legal or you leave your funds in the BTC network that is censorship resistant and permissionless and convert to fiat after every two weeks or more, so the withdrawal process would take a long time and may not raise any suspicion.

I think nowadays whales might use stables like USDT to sell Bitcoin relatively quickly and then withdraw USDT relatively easily. They also can just hold stables for some time to buy Bitcoin back if needed.

So, for me, it looks like they will likely use stables then look for the customers that want to buy a whole bitcoin or more for the USD

Let's say I have a job and $400 has been coming in on monthly basis as my salary and the highest I've ever saved in this account is $3500. Maybe I recovered the private keys to my lost wallet containing btc that's now worth a fortune, let's say $10,000,000. If I convert all of it to fiat and have it transferred to my bank account, that would be a very big mistake. I don't know about other places but if I do that in my country, my account would be flagged and I would be called for questioning, to explain the source of the money and I would end up creating greater problem for myself. The best thing to do is to have the BTC stored in a hardware wallet and occasionally convert smaller amount of it to fiat and invest in businesses or buildings to avoid prying eyes.

I really see no problem, if a whale does this according to his countries laws and regulations. The whale has to show proof of the origin of the bitcoins and then when it is "red flagged" at the Bank.... he just show that proof. (Mining logs or transaction history of the mining Pool and ownership of the coins)

The moment when the Exchange converts the coins to Fiat, a transaction history are recorded and that can also be included as proof. Then it is simply the whales responsibility to declare the "Capital Gains" taxes on those coins and everything is done by the book. 

Either they cash it out in one go or they cash it out by sending it to different addresses to not rouse suspicion and then cashing it out through those wallets. It’s been a staple tactic that always works since time immemorial since bitcoin has nothing it has against selling of huge quantities of bitcoin anyway. But if you’re worried bout whales selling their holdings and then dumping the value of hitcoin for their benefit then I got good news for you, it’s not as major as think it is. For one, bitcoin is decentralized, and democratic so the common people still holds the power against the one percenters. The whales know this much and are in return making sure that bitcoin is kept alive because the moment everybody jumps ship in this train whales and everyone will have nothing to use anymore,

I think it would be best to ask a whale if he know someone and ask how a whale would convert his BTC to fiat money. My guess on how they withdraw their money is to never withdraw a huge sum of money instead withdraw portion by portion so that it won't noticed. That's what some people in my country did when they have earn money from crypto and you say that the amount is in millions in fiat moi.

I don't think that any person who lives in a country where Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is legal he should go through any trouble for selling bitcoins whether it is a big amount or a small amount it doesn't matter.
But it does matter, in those countries where cryptocurrency is not legalise. There you can be in danger for selling not only million of dollars or even thousands of dollars. As currently cryptocurrency is illegal in my country, trading any kind of cryptocurrency here is a punishable crime. And already many people have been caught and jailed for this cryptocurrency transaction.
So the main thing is where you are living if there cryptocurrency is illegal then 1k dollar of selling bitcoin can be a cause of trouble for you, but if you are living in a country where it is legal then i think you don't have to be worry for anything Even then, if there is any problem, it will be cleared just by showing the document.

It won't be a problem if the bitcoins are his because the government has nothing against him as long as the bitcoins are yours. But the problem here is the envy you will face because once there are people who know about the massive amount of bitcoins you have, most of them will be interested in getting it from you, and you won't get away with it once they know your location. That's why the best thing to do is to lay low and chill, and you just need to learn the basics on how to hide your identity when converting it to fiat to protect yourself from those kinds of guys and also from huge numbers of questions from the banks.

What good is a whale signal without a whale movement?
It would be difficult for a whale to convert such huge coins into fiat without heads turning as to why, what it is intended for.
Some do purchase stuff online or from the dark web, and maybe resell upon shipping.
Perhaps, buying shares in start up companies or stocks, since that could be done.
The divide and conquer as I read somewhere here can
also best suit such a sale, for ease of changing into fiat.

After reading the first page of replies i can conclude that it is not possible for an ordinary person who just became a millionaire to withdraw money by keeping his/her identity hidden. As, i have read recently that there are exchanges that do not require KYC and there are people who gave 100% importance to remaining hidden of course their intentions are not bad always. Just like our respected Ratimov.

The point is, if you are a guy who gives hundred percent importance to anonymity then it will become die-hard for you to withdraw all of your million in one go on any centralized exchange. As divide and conquer rule best suits you here but you needed them in a hurry so what you can do is maybe contact any group of people who would withdraw your money using their centralized exchanges into their banks and then they would send it to you, maybe you could ask your friends or relatives to make this happen for you but still, it will be opened to everyone. (no secret will remain hidden).

I would suggest, trying to negotiate with the seller of the house, maybe he would agree to receive direct BTC so you could just hand over your BTC or Wallet containing BTC to him. Everyone has there own way to deal with things and find loopholes and different ways based on the country you are living, so answer will never be same and many will hesitate to share this info too.

I had to look into this and i had a thought over it, what would one be doing with such huge amount of money  at instant withdrawals be it in a crypto friendly or anti crypto country. I realize that there are some big shots who could just do that within some seconds and nothing would happen and i remembered that this topic could still be applicable to a person with modest lifestyle and all of a sudden he or she discovers their private keys to a long time wallet holding lots of funds and that is where it begins, government and bank begins to pop eyes into you but as a smart individual, you show know that it would be very risky to make such huge withdrawal at a stance because it would attract the bank to you and you would start fielding unnecessary questions which should have better been avoided with wisdom. Be it  a crypto friendly or anti crypto country, it would happen so as long as there have been no record of such financial transaction related to your account before.
This kind of situation is better handled with wisdom so as not to loose out.

Walk to an offline broker and negotiate a deal with them. Receive a portion in cash and rest in bank. But it is wise to not convert a huge amount of bitcoins at once. If you suddenly receive a huge sum of money in your bank account which doesn't match the previous transaction trend, your bank can freeze the account.

So always convert a little amount of money which doesn't raise suspicion. Or do cash trade with offline brokers.

These sets of people often or alway uses a business and a company account to sell out their bitcoin to fiat in larger quantities.
However, there are different types of bank account which i think for you to deposit a higher amount of money you must need current or company account to send out money instead of using a savings or students account to pull out large amount of money. Company account doesn't go into questioning that much and are free to transfer and receive a higher amount.

Ownership can be proved in a very simple way, and that is by signing a message with one or more public BTC addresses. After that, he has to find out the process of paying capital gains tax, and then he can sell his BTC without any problems.

If I found 10 BTC and wanted to sell them all I would have to do is submit a tax return and explain when and in what way I acquired that BTC, and for all crypto assets acquired before 2016 I do not pay any tax (local law). I don't think this kind of thing is a problem, at least not in countries where BTC is not declared illegal or if it is not acquired illegally.

For me poker player, has almost the perfect answer to this post. Additionally, before anyone can get a certain amount of fiats that can cause red light alert whether ordinary citizen or famous most have at least knowledge of money management and the day to day running of his or her residence. So if any case of this nature should emerge, it most be the persons lack of application of knowledge ( WISDOM) of money or lack of  knowledge of his or her residence. Thou this case depends on individuals view.

There are some banks that accept bitcoins directly by accepting bitcoins they give fiats money to customers but not all countries have such banking services. There are some countries where the banks of the countries are far from accepting bitcoins and there are various negative comments about bitcoins, then how do the people of those countries convert huge amount of btc into fiats money. In this case, people from all those countries can use the P2P system of different exchanges or convert their BTCs into fiats by buying and selling with different members.

I think it depends on the person's financial history and background. If a person is known to have a successful business, big money being in and out of the account won't be suspicious for the bank. The same goes for a person who is officially employed and receives a very high monthly salary, or someone who does grant-based work that also provides a lot of money from official clean sources. If a person's officially unemployed but suddenly receives a ton of money from an unrecognized source, that can raise red flags for the bank. But if we're talking about whales, that means we're talking about very rich people. Of course, there's a chance they are only Bitcoin rich, but in that case there's an option to pay taxes and get the profits. If you're a whale, you can comfortably afford to pay taxes because you'll still be left with a fortune.

I was thinking that this could be frustrating perhaps for someone who is super happy to find his private keys after so many years and who thinks that he has more than enough to buy a house but finds himself a little stuck because he cannot not buy his house in BTC or repatriate his funds to buy one.

As some people mentioned above, whales just go through OTC. Less hassle, better rates, and bulk selling without even needing to go past anyone except the OTC, who usually does face to face KYC for big deals.

Also, I heard that whales who do use exchanges make sure they have a private deal first, and exchanges just make the exchange OTC anyway.

P2P seems legit before when you had Localbitcoins but I think now volume is very hard to meet whales demands.

I will like to pretend as if this happened to me, I don't normally leave a large amount of money in my bank account and I use a private bank not the public banks that belongs to the government, I can change over 20,000$ to my native Fiat currency and I don't see anything wrong in doing so, the only time to expect problem is if the bank figure out that you are into crypto investment while there is a ban on crypto in the country.

Even if I have a very large amount of money in Bitcoin, I won't be stupid enough to convert the whole money into Fiat and send them into my bank account, my money is safer in BTC or USDT than my bank anyway.

Why would anyone do that? To show off? If you want to build a house you can't build it in a day, so take your time to use a certain amount to continue the house project every month, what could you possibly need the large amount of money for if you convert every thing into Fiat? It makes not sense.

It's not necessary to hire a professional because there's a chance you might get a problem after that. The professional might force you to give him huge fees and threat you if you not do it or they will try to manipulate and make you always follow their words.

Based on the @OP story, those ordinary citizen just need to split his Bitcoin into few wallets and only cash out from little to big, not sell in once time. Although the chainalysis can track all of his addresses, but most of the time bank don't bother to check it.

What any whale should be concerned about is the legitimacy of that BTC, if it's not bought/arranged through illegal means, then it's a go. It's, however, not uncommon that banks flag accounts, but it would be for a little while if you have all your proofs provided to them, it's as simple as that.

While some that would want to receive a very huge amount could notify their banks earlier and provide proof to avoid delay. It's all business for banks, they are only being careful of what to tell regulators, and if you are detailed, it's no issue for them.

The only way that the whale can convert his BTC into his own fiat is by gradually converting it monthly, because if it is done daily, that is easy to detect by banks or any platform that you are planning to exchange, unless you are paying someone to use their identity or use their bank to transfer those funds, so that it will be distributed and not easily detected. But it should be done monthly because the limit was detected on a monthly basis, but I am not really sure if they will be able to detect the total yearly incoming on your account. That is the only way you can convert it without any detection, but I am still not 100% sure as I haven't tried it.

You are stupid if you convert a high amount of money that can raise questions into your bank account, what do you expect? Your account will be frozen and you will have to prove that this money is not fraud or illegal money.

There is one way you can afford this, gradually change the asset into Fiat, deposit only amounts that won't create any suspicious attention, assuming you have 10 BTC, 0.5BTC- 1BTC is enough to start whatever you want to do with money in the real life.

Some cryptic whales are not big company owners or popular people, they get a lot of Bitcoin because they bought them cheap and some accumulated Bitcoin through mining years ago, those people are treated as normal people in banks, so they carefully convert a ration of their Bitcoin for Fiat.

Nobody here is worrying how one whale can be turning his/her BTC into fiat and not be caught red-handed by glaring authorities (yes, of course, the conversion can be done slowly so as to never reach the red flag level). Now, I think the big program is NOT having enough Bitcoin on someone's wallet that can be sold once there can be a big bull run soon - that is when BTC will breach the $60K level and then get into the 7-digit zone. I am expecting that there can be a big wave of interest with BTC coming from both institutional and retail investors so better watch out for that and continue holding your BTC guys!

Seen like that, indeed you are right on all counts.

You know, imagine a scenario where you actually find 10 BTC in an old wallet, you sell it, and you want to buy a dream house for your family with it, but... you step into a higher tax bracket and the government takes 60% of it...
so you put it in your bank account and decide that you will earn the rest in 10-15 years and buy your dream house than ... nothing further from the truth, because during these 15 years 80% of what is left will be eaten up by inflation ...
I see it as stealing... but when proposing a tax advisor and a lawyer, I did not mean only reduce taxation, I also meant countries where, due to the lack of clear regulations, it is actually difficult to withdraw a larger sum without being left to the individual interpretation of a jealous official.

As for the purpose of having lots of money by avoiding too much taxation, I'll tell you that I'd rather pay less tax and put the surplus into local soup kitchens for the poor or charity for sick children than to line the pockets of corrupt politicians.

Unfortunately your remark makes me think that it is the people who have the most money who also want to avoid taxes the most. It's really too bad, what's the point of having so much money ? In fact, I was thinking above all of the average citizen who could be accused of money laundering when he is innocent. Otherwise yes thank you for the answers which advises a tax lawyer, it is obvious, I had not even thought of it.

Since the person is a common citizen,he need to transfer his bitcoin bit by bit to an exchange and from the to his bank through P2P, and make sure that he cashes out every little transaction that he did. Repeatedly, he will be able to convert the million btc to fiat. Since he is a common citizen, he can't do it once to avoid any suspicious act. There is no hurry in life that is why he needs to take it bit by bit,after all he is the owner of the bitcoin. If he is not greedy and needs that cash in bulk,then he needs to consult a professional specialist for advice,if bitcoin is legal in that country.

If Bitcoin is illegal in your country then there might be a problem and Bank can detect suspicious activity. So the best option to send it to a trusted centralized exchange and convert it to stable coins. If you need fiat then just trade with P2P option.
And I don't think an Ordinary citizen need all of his million dollars at a single time. He can secure his funds by buying stable coins and storing in a non custodial wallet. Then he can follow this P2P procedure again and again to convert it to fiat.

In country if a huge amount of money is received, then the banks are going to freeze your account which you will be invited to defend the source of the money, but if scenario like this can happen, all what I will do is converting my bitcoin to fiat gradually, since all accounts in my country is having limit, if you haven't exceeded the limit, then they wont be able to freeze your account, I will make sure i don't go beyond my limit, after spend the money I withdraw in my account, then i will convert another bitcoin to fiat. If you can be doing it like that the banks wont be able to do anything with your account, but immediately you withdraw everything at once, then you will have to visit the bank and explain your source of income, and in my country the central bank have given all other commercial banks the permission to ban all accounts that are connected to crypt currency activities.

You don't dare mention you have a huge amount of bitcoin in my country because the government holds a negative view of the currency. Within a few minutes, the police and other law agencies will start monitoring and tracing your account and even your location. Using exchanges will also be risky because the money will still have to be transferred to your account which also raises a red flag. P2p transactions will be good if the other party is trusted and willing to pay in cash.

Exchanging the coin gradually is another option but the funds in the bank account will still increase to attract suspicion. The best option will be to get professional advice from an experienced and trustworthy financial or investment expert. They are skillful in handling such issues if you can pay for the services. I highlighted trustworthiness to avoid engaging a dubious company that can cause more harm. I am sure that when I get to that bridge, I will crossover.

Offshore banks and offshore companies are a thing. Have you asked yourself why trillions of dollars are being kept in offshore companies located at "tax heaven" islands? The rich people are using such companies because they are very convenient.
Selling big amounts of BTC in centralized exchanges seems very risky to me. I guess that the crypto whales are negotiating big deals with the crypto exchange owners and they sell them their BTC outside of the crypto exchange platforms.
Obviously we are not crypto whale accountants and we don't know how the crypto whales are moving their wealth, so I'm just guessing.

Just like others said. Going yolo is the worse thing you can do. Hire professional lawyer and tax advisor. A good tax advisor will not only legally limit the tax to be paid on such an amount, but also advice you how to do it as painless as possible, because perhaps for millions suddenly found in a long-forgotten bitcoin wallet, it would be better to go to a tax haven for six months for a beautiful holiday combined with a change of tax residence.
You can also consult various banks beforehand and ask if they have a problem with such a deposit.

It depends on the whale. If the whale is already wealthy and well-known, he/she won't face any problems when exchanging Bitcoin for local fiat at a local bank. However, if it is a common man or a woman, they would convert their Bitcoin into local fiat in smaller amounts to avoid arousing suspicion. Then as
pooya87 said it also depends on the country where the whale resides. Some countries do not have hash laws against converting Bitcoin to local fiat.

If a whale is popular, we've just seen how they've been exposed that they've been selling through huge exchanges as well just like what has happened on the FTX. But if this just an ordinary person, I wouldn't worry about him/her because he's bright enough to buy bitcoin as the earliest stage and selling it would be easy. The regulations will depend on where he is found and I am sure that he won't just sell all of it on an instant with just one exchange. Scattering it and spreading it across various exchanges could be his option and one thing is for sure that he can't skip the KYC part because if he wants to sell and have no problem then that's what he has to go through. Not unless, he knows a huge place where he can OTC or through P2P without having any issues.

It depends a lot on the country and their local regulations involving bitcoin and sometimes the bank that they are using. This is not something global, some countries don't have nasty banks that would just shut down your account if you withdraw even a tiny amount of fiat from a bitcoin exchange, some others do.

Don't worry about that person. If he is someone who has a lot of money, he will have no problem bringing it to the surface. The problem would be for you if you suddenly recovered a few dozen bitcoins that you had on an old laptop from when they were worth pennies.

We have discussed this many times in the Legal section of the forum and the conclusion is that the best thing to do would be to hire a professional specialized in these matters to advise you, as what you can do will depend on the legislation where you live.

That's my question. A person who lost his private keys for years and recovers them. Maybe he mined btc or he won btc with a faucet, how can he prove all that after 10 years ?

It is noticeable.


If this person has previously made deposits of large sums in centralised exchanges, he/she will not have any problems, because he/she will have already filled in enough paperwork.

The problem would be someone who has somehow kept bitcoins out of the sight of banks and authorities and suddenly turns up with millions of bitcoins from who knows how. But if it's someone who has a lot of millions, either they won't have done it that way, or they'll have ways of bringing it to the surface via alleged profits of companies or something like that.

The way I see my local investors do it is they move all their bitcoins to the top exchanges because the liquidity on centralized exchanges is huge, and the conversion from bitcoin to USDT is too simple. They then use the exchange's P2P service to convert to fiat little by little, they never place an order too large to make the banks suspicious. I think it is not too difficult to do, converting crypto to fiat is very simple, even if it is millions of dollars. I've never been worried about that, what I'm worried about is how to have a lot of bitcoin to do it  .

Sorry if you don't give me examples, I don't see how it's possible. Especially since I read that some have problems with incoming transfers. Unfortunately I don't have millions  , I'm just wondering how it's possible (for example to buy a house or something like that)

It's not a problem at all. There are many wallets nowadays that you can use to cash-out your money. And for me, why do you need to transfer all millions of dollars in a single event if you can divide your money into different assets such as pouring them in different exchanges or foreign stocks, buy different cryptos and save in different wallets. Just make sure you'll not forget the seed phrase.

Hello,

From what I read, someone who sells btc sometimes has trouble receiving the fiats in its bank account. If the sum is large, the bank turns on all its red lights. I guess it's not a problem for someone famous, but for an ordinary citizen, how it happens if he lives modestly, recovers his private keys that he lost 10 years ago and finds himself with millions?