What if Bill Gates buys all the Bitcoin?

LostDutchman

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Quote from: williecity on April 11, 2014, 09:57:50 PM

Lets say a billionaire decides to buy all the Bitcoin,
or the US government in their attempt to make Bitcoin less relevant decides to buy everything available for sale.

All they need to do is buy a few millions which will be a big percentage of the total bitoin,
and with astronomical price most would have been sold and less community...

could that be the end of Bitcoin?

Bitcoin would change.

Bitcoin = Gatescoin.

And would then be worthless.

My $.02.

Wink

bryant.coleman

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Quote from: sosulon on April 12, 2014, 09:43:08 PM

Why buy when he can create his own coin ? Grin

Yes. Nice point. Or he can launch one in collaboration with the bankers and WU / Ebay / Paypal. Looking at his past and the amount of praise he showers for the bankers, I assume that option is much more viable.

sosulon

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Why buy when he can create his own coin ? Grin

Bitcoin Magazine

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Quote from: Equate on April 12, 2014, 01:42:35 AM

Then the coin name will be changed from Bitcoin to Billcoin.

why not call it 666 coin

Waramp22

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No one can buy all the bitcoin in the world. Much like no one can buy all the gold or silver in the world.

Bit_Happy

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A Great Time to Start Something!

Quote from: tzortz on April 12, 2014, 12:04:23 PM

Quote from: Bit_Happy on April 12, 2014, 11:50:11 AM

Quote from: bryant.coleman on April 12, 2014, 10:24:13 AM

Quote from: franky1 on April 12, 2014, 10:21:56 AM

yep and in less then 2 weeks other people will buy more miners, meaning he will need to buy more miners to catch up again. and thus you now see the cat and mouse game of mining.

So even theoretically, it is impossible to own all the Bitcoins. Practically, it is impossible even to collect 50% of the currently circulating coins. Even a 10% hoarding will result in prices upward $5K.

Few people with that much money are going to just throw it away.
Obviously, slowly collecting more BTC when the market falls is much more effective.

Yes, but who is spending so much when an investment continuously crashing?

The people who win long term; They buy low and sell high.

forboon

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Quote from: serenitys on April 12, 2014, 12:05:17 PM

Overlooking the finer point that if any entity or government *could* theoretically buy all existing bitcoin with the goal of making it worthless and irrelevant, and were they to theoretically succeed, then at the end of the day, they would've just wasted huge sums of money in the process...their fiat is gone in exchange for btc which is also no longer worth anything. Lose/lose/

Only a dumbass would do that.

So, I figure the US government will be making plans any day now to do just exactly that Roll Eyes

What you describe of cat and mouse is a game. How can anyone beat the godfather of the solutions to cooperative and non cooperative games, satoshi, john nash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

THE UNEXPLOITABLE MAN.

serenitys

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Be Here Now

Overlooking the finer point that if any entity or government *could* theoretically buy all existing bitcoin with the goal of making it worthless and irrelevant, and were they to theoretically succeed, then at the end of the day, they would've just wasted huge sums of money in the process...their fiat is gone in exchange for btc which is also no longer worth anything. Lose/lose/

Only a dumbass would do that.

So, I figure the US government will be making plans any day now to do just exactly that Roll Eyes

tzortz

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Quote from: Bit_Happy on April 12, 2014, 11:50:11 AM

Quote from: bryant.coleman on April 12, 2014, 10:24:13 AM

Quote from: franky1 on April 12, 2014, 10:21:56 AM

yep and in less then 2 weeks other people will buy more miners, meaning he will need to buy more miners to catch up again. and thus you now see the cat and mouse game of mining.

So even theoretically, it is impossible to own all the Bitcoins. Practically, it is impossible even to collect 50% of the currently circulating coins. Even a 10% hoarding will result in prices upward $5K.

Few people with that much money are going to just throw it away.
Obviously, slowly collecting more BTC when the market falls is much more effective.

Yes, but who is spending so much when an investment continuously crashing?

Bit_Happy

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Activity: 2114

Merit: 1040

A Great Time to Start Something!

Quote from: bryant.coleman on April 12, 2014, 10:24:13 AM

Quote from: franky1 on April 12, 2014, 10:21:56 AM

yep and in less then 2 weeks other people will buy more miners, meaning he will need to buy more miners to catch up again. and thus you now see the cat and mouse game of mining.

So even theoretically, it is impossible to own all the Bitcoins. Practically, it is impossible even to collect 50% of the currently circulating coins. Even a 10% hoarding will result in prices upward $5K.

Few people with that much money are going to just throw it away.
Obviously, slowly collecting more BTC when the market falls is much more effective.

bryant.coleman

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Quote from: franky1 on April 12, 2014, 10:21:56 AM

yep and in less then 2 weeks other people will buy more miners, meaning he will need to buy more miners to catch up again. and thus you now see the cat and mouse game of mining.

So even theoretically, it is impossible to own all the Bitcoins. Practically, it is impossible even to collect 50% of the currently circulating coins. Even a 10% hoarding will result in prices upward $5K.

rikkie

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Richard Coleman - Chief Executive @ CloudThink.IO

That's impossible. There will always be a lot of people who want sell. Or he should give an very big amount for it.

franky1

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Quote from: bryant.coleman on April 12, 2014, 10:19:41 AM

Quote from: spazzdla on April 12, 2014, 08:02:56 AM

Bitmain tech can deliver in 5 days from payment to the other side of the planet. I'll never buy a pre order with a lenght longer than 20 days.

But what about the already existing Hash Power? Even if Bill Gates can get as much Hash power as everyone else combined, that means that he has only 50% of the mining market share.

yep and in less then 2 weeks other people will buy more miners, meaning he will need to buy more miners to catch up again. and thus you now see the cat and mouse game of mining.

bryant.coleman

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Quote from: spazzdla on April 12, 2014, 08:02:56 AM

Bitmain tech can deliver in 5 days from payment to the other side of the planet. I'll never buy a pre order with a lenght longer than 20 days.

But what about the already existing Hash Power? Even if Bill Gates can get as much Hash power as everyone else combined, that means that he has only 50% of the mining market share.

franky1

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1) there are 12.636mill coins in circulation.(as of today's timestamp)
2) there are only a few hundred thousand on the "sell order wall" at any one time
3) these sell orders are not all priced below $1000

if gates did TRY, he would only net about 100k coins. but by doing so he would be eating up orders that are priced all the way upto many thousands of dollars.

meaning the other 12.5million+ coins that individuals have, which are not on sell orders would instantly be valued at several thousand dollars each.

it is impossible to own ALL bitcoins, as some smart people are hoarding coins and will refuse to sell no matter what happens right now.

even if these hoarders decided to sell. they would still keep a small token amount purely for the day a billionaire spikes the price to over $100k a coin. buy eating all those sell orderlines.

spazzdla

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Quote from: bryant.coleman on April 12, 2014, 01:21:09 AM

Quote from: chandan123 on April 12, 2014, 12:53:57 AM

he ( any other ) can invest such money on mining equipements/research to mine bitcoin instead of buyin Tongue

Buying will be much easier than mining. First of all, there is no reliable provider who delivers the mining rigs on time. Also it will be quite hard to beat all the mining giants who dominate the scene as of now.

Bitmain tech can deliver in 5 days from payment to the other side of the planet. I'll never buy a pre order with a lenght longer than 20 days.

spazzdla

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Not possible, the price would start to go Jupiter bound if he attempted this or anyone did. We wouldn't even see the moon as we passed it.

bythesea

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Quote from: bryant.coleman on April 12, 2014, 07:34:32 AM

Quote from: bythesea on April 12, 2014, 06:26:25 AM

If you buy all the BTCs then the price will drop since no trade would exist ( well if one person has all ). If there is no trade there is no value....

Well... one can't own all the Bitcoins by buying up the available ones from the market. Every hours or so new block are being mined. And it will be impossible to own 100% of the mining sector.

The question was " what if Bill Gates buys all the Bitcoins ", even if he owns 99.9991% of the market he is still practically owning 100% of the market ( well mined BTCs ), and assuming that he has cash to buy mined ones ( if they went for sale ), what then. It is better to have half of the market that would give you enough coins to drop the price and then buy cheap...

bryant.coleman

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Quote from: bythesea on April 12, 2014, 06:26:25 AM

If you buy all the BTCs then the price will drop since no trade would exist ( well if one person has all ). If there is no trade there is no value....

Well... one can't own all the Bitcoins by buying up the available ones from the market. Every hours or so new block are being mined. And it will be impossible to own 100% of the mining sector.

tzortz

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Quote from: bythesea on April 12, 2014, 06:26:25 AM

If you buy all the BTCs then the price will drop since no trade would exist ( well if one person has all ). If there is no trade there is no value....

You mean if someone buys all gold on earth, then will make it no value??

Topic: What if Bill Gates buys all the Bitcoin? (Read 3807 times)