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Topic: What if someone bought up all the existing bitcoins? - page 18. (Read 31272 times)

legendary
Activity: 1862
Merit: 1114
WalletScrutiny.com
He wouldn't need to buy all of them. If his purchasing streak pushes prices up so high, or so fast, that nobody will sell them or use them, then for all practical purposes, bitcoin is dead. A currency with no current is not.

A currency with no current is a store of value just as an atom that sheds no electrons is still potential energy. Bitcoin is money, not a currency traded for a single commodity at the highest market price on a universal exchange. Bitcoin is not more or less dead whether a bitcoin can be sold for $4 USD or $265 USD. People tend to hoard coins as prices move up and they tend to spend coins as prices move down. Bitcoins are commonly exchanged for values that are unrelated to a fiat currency. The market would have "current" as it finds a balance between hoarding and spending.



It seems, from looking at the amount of transactions and the experiences of bitcoin shop owners, that the reverse is actually happening: people hoard coins as the price drops (hoping they will go up again in the future), and people spend coins as they go up in price (taking advantage of the increased buying power of their money).

With one prominent exception: Satoshi Nakamoto never spent his 1,000,000Ƀ, most likely cause he knows it's going much higher.
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye
He wouldn't need to buy all of them. If his purchasing streak pushes prices up so high, or so fast, that nobody will sell them or use them, then for all practical purposes, bitcoin is dead. A currency with no current is not.

A currency with no current is a store of value just as an atom that sheds no electrons is still potential energy. Bitcoin is money, not a currency traded for a single commodity at the highest market price on a universal exchange. Bitcoin is not more or less dead whether a bitcoin can be sold for $4 USD or $265 USD. People tend to hoard coins as prices move up and they tend to spend coins as prices move down. Bitcoins are commonly exchanged for values that are unrelated to a fiat currency. The market would have "current" as it finds a balance between hoarding and spending.



It seems, from looking at the amount of transactions and the experiences of bitcoin shop owners, that the reverse is actually happening: people hoard coins as the price drops (hoping they will go up again in the future), and people spend coins as they go up in price (taking advantage of the increased buying power of their money).
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 100
That would be wonderful - I would hold out until the price is up 1000000Xs:)
newbie
Activity: 22
Merit: 0
He wouldn't need to buy all of them. If his purchasing streak pushes prices up so high, or so fast, that nobody will sell them or use them, then for all practical purposes, bitcoin is dead. A currency with no current is not.

A currency with no current is a store of value just as an atom that sheds no electrons is still potential energy. Bitcoin is money, not a currency traded for a single commodity at the highest market price on a universal exchange. Bitcoin is not more or less dead whether a bitcoin can be sold for $4 USD or $265 USD. People tend to hoard coins as prices move up and they tend to spend coins as prices move down. Bitcoins are commonly exchanged for values that are unrelated to a fiat currency. The market would have "current" as it finds a balance between hoarding and spending.

legendary
Activity: 2030
Merit: 1000
My money; Our Bitcoin.
What if someone necroposted the most stupid thread up again and again?

This thread was created to provide a place to discuss, what was once considered it seems, a frequently asked question by newbies, as presented in the
New to Bitcoin? Start here! sticky.

I never really considered it a frequent question, let alone one I myself was ever concerned about, but in the interests of completeness I thought I should play the role of a newbie asking the question to provide a place to discuss the topic... 

I created threads for all those questions in that sticky... the moderators didn't even bother adding links to the thread I created which dealt with this question:
"Could miners collude to give themselves money or fundamentally change the nature of Bitcoin?
That is perhaps a topic people new to Bitcoin might be more concerned about than someone buying up all the Bitcoins. 

That New to Bitcoin? Start here! sticky should perhaps be updated again with more relevant questions and information.
legendary
Activity: 1862
Merit: 1114
WalletScrutiny.com
What if someone necroposted the most stupid thread up again and again?
full member
Activity: 151
Merit: 100
That would be like a few billion USD, am I right?
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye
He wouldn't need to buy all of them. If his purchasing streak pushes prices up so high, or so fast, that nobody will sell them or use them, then for all practical purposes, bitcoin is dead. A currency with no current is not.

On the contrary, as the price of bitcoins goes up people will be more inclined to use them. People will offer steep discounts on the items they sell to get the bitcoin in the hope those bitcoins will go up in value even more.

Right. The stores confirm this. Bitcoin highes are rush hours on bitmit and others.

That's also a good argument for all the "deflation is bad" threads that pop up every month or so.
legendary
Activity: 1862
Merit: 1114
WalletScrutiny.com
He wouldn't need to buy all of them. If his purchasing streak pushes prices up so high, or so fast, that nobody will sell them or use them, then for all practical purposes, bitcoin is dead. A currency with no current is not.

On the contrary, as the price of bitcoins goes up people will be more inclined to use them. People will offer steep discounts on the items they sell to get the bitcoin in the hope those bitcoins will go up in value even more.

Right. The stores confirm this. Bitcoin highes are rush hours on bitmit and others.
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye
He wouldn't need to buy all of them. If his purchasing streak pushes prices up so high, or so fast, that nobody will sell them or use them, then for all practical purposes, bitcoin is dead. A currency with no current is not.

On the contrary, as the price of bitcoins goes up people will be more inclined to use them. People will offer steep discounts on the items they sell to get the bitcoin in the hope those bitcoins will go up in value even more.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1473
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
OP, it can't happen. I wouldn't sell my bitcoins hence the buyer could not buy all existing bitcoins.  Grin
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
Idk whos this guy but he can make us rich
member
Activity: 80
Merit: 10
Gold Silver Bitcoin: It's your choice
Interesting that the Mathew Effect is being observed in BTC: https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/mathew-1312-bitcoin-style-the-rich-get-richer/
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
0xFB0D8D1534241423
I certainly wouldn't flee from the community. I'd sell half of my BTC to the insane buyer, and use .0000001 BTC like I use 1 BTC today. Plus, it's only a simple change in the code to add more decimal places.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
It can be done, but it would potentially cost tens of billions of dollars for one person to buy up that much coins, as the last few thousand/hundred coins will be insanely expensive.

I respectfully disagree. If there's only a few thousand bitcoins left in circulation, and one entity controls the rest, then the community will flee (probably to another blockchain), the infrastructure will shut down (why run nodes if you have no coins), exchanges will close (as trade grinds to a halt).
And in that situation, is there much value left in a bitcoin? Scarcity isn't the only thing that determines price or value. The last dodo wasn't worth "insanely much" when it was killed.

The entire global economy could run on a handful of Bitcoins.

21M is simply an arbitrary value.  If 20M were lost Bitcoin would work just as well on 1M coins in circulation.  If 20.9M were lost it would also work equally well with 100K coins in circulation.  Conversely if Satoshi had made the block reward 50,000 instead of 50 then Bitcoin would also work equally well with 21B coins in circulation.

Bitcoin is divisible to the 1E-8.  So 100K coins is  10,000,000,000,000 discrete units, but even that is just set by consensus.  Bitcoin could allow smallest divsions if a majority of hashing power agrees.  At sat 1E-12 that makes 100K coins in circulation = monetary base of  100,000,000,000,000,000 discrete units (that's more than the # of pennies in global money supply).



hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 1002
If there's only a few thousand bitcoins left in circulation, and one entity controls the rest, then the community will flee (probably to another blockchain), the infrastructure will shut down (why run nodes if you have no coins), exchanges will close (as trade grinds to a halt).
And in that situation, is there much value left in a bitcoin? Scarcity isn't the only thing that determines price or value. The last dodo wasn't worth "insanely much" when it was killed.

If we are assuming that the only motivation of this entity is to buy all coins, then your objections don't make much sense to me. If the last dodo was infinitely divisible, and every unit had the same utility as the other, then yeah, we could use that analogy. In other words, a "last Bitcoin" is practically impossible. What if 1 BTC were worth a ton of gold? How would it deter trade? It wouldn't.

On the other hand, if the question is whether such a powerful entity could destroy Bitcoin *now*, then I don't think anyone would object. Bitcoin is only as powerful as the people that support it. Negatively affecting it this may become totally unfeasible in the future though.
hero member
Activity: 642
Merit: 500
It can be done, but it would potentially cost tens of billions of dollars for one person to buy up that much coins, as the last few thousand/hundred coins will be insanely expensive.

I respectfully disagree. If there's only a few thousand bitcoins left in circulation, and one entity controls the rest, then the community will flee (probably to another blockchain), the infrastructure will shut down (why run nodes if you have no coins), exchanges will close (as trade grinds to a halt).
And in that situation, is there much value left in a bitcoin? Scarcity isn't the only thing that determines price or value. The last dodo wasn't worth "insanely much" when it was killed.
legendary
Activity: 1806
Merit: 1003
It can be done, but it would potentially cost tens of billions of dollars for one person to buy up that much coins, as the last few thousand/hundred coins will be insanely expensive.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
Inactive
What is someone bought all the gold? or oil? or electricity? or corn?




They could make a ridiculously huge tortilla chip.  Would we have enough salsa?
legendary
Activity: 1862
Merit: 1114
WalletScrutiny.com
Somehow I like how this discussion gets started over and over again Smiley

Simple answer: If anybody would really achieve to buy all BTCs (which would cost close to all the money in the world as stated above), on average 5 minutes later some miner would have more for him. Most likely AMD would get bought up by the same mysterious guy, every university in the world would give classes on "FPGA and future mining approaches", not only WWF would rally against BTC, the price of electricity and every hardware - new or old - containing any kind of IC would sky rocket, ... crazy world Smiley
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