There is so much volume and volatility in Bitcoin markets that a whale can sell insane amount of coins (e.g. 10k) in within days without much effect on price. Placing limit orders in front of the best ask and moving them in case the price goes down will do the trick. Bitfinex traded over 100k coins within last 24 hours. it's reasonable to assume that you can capture 1% of this volume on the daily basis using the limit orders. Selling 10k Bitcoins can be easily done within 10 days without pushing the price down. I think it's possible to do this within 1 day.
The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
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Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#52It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…
I don't understand the dilemma. Nobody is forcing you to use bitcoin and it's still an incredibly small market in the grand scheme of things. The libertarian position is (generally) that government mandated fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. No such force exists when it comes to bitcoin, and if people are unhappy with the concentration of bitcoin in the hands of a small number of people, they are free to us…
What's the difference between a government manipulating a currency and a cabal of wealthy individuals manipulating a currency? Or is your problem mainly that businesses have to accept dollars?
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this time it's voluntarily. Anybody can get it at any time. I've been telling my friends and family since 2012, and only one of them invested. Those who take risks, get rewarded. You can't win if you refuse to try. Of course, there are truly poor people out there who can't have a dollar to spare, but it's mostly due to geography, corruption or war, not evil capitalists.
Most of these people are likely affected by capitalism to an extreme: imperialism. Much larger of an injustice than anything you listed. The people who are most able to take risks (in the investment sense) are those with the most. An exponential growth system such as this only widens the gap, voluntary or not. Everyone can get in, but the benefit is unequal. You need money to make money. This does not solve any equal…
Imperialism is not capitalism, they are orthogonal concepts.
You're right, imperialism did cause problems, but the extreme poverty has been shrinking. And now we have the mechanisms for almost anybody to get out of it. I grew up very poor, as in barely enough money for basic food and new clothes once-twice a year. Now I'm in the top 3% of US earners (not counting Bitcoin).
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#54It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…
It seems like every currency is going to have a power-law distribution of holders, whether it's Bitcoin or USD. I don't see how that undercuts the libertarian desire for currencies without central control.
No central control assuming you ignore the mining pools.
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#55It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…
Also since a large number of coins are lost the 40% number understates the size of the whales. Estimates are that 20% of coins are simply lost for good.
This is interesting but my understanding of blockchain is limited so:
Aren't all transactions 'encoded' in the blockchain?
If so why can't the coins be found?
If not, what does the blockchain "record"?
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#56It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…
It'll be interesting to see what happens when a few people own 90% of the bitcoin and everyone else just sort of shrugs and starts using a new cryptocurrency, instead.
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#57Whales or sharks?
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#58I really enjoy investing in cryptocurrencies. However, I have a lot of doubt this is going to make the world a more fair or better place. It's going to create a wealth gap like has never been seen in first world countries.
But this time it's voluntarily. Anybody can get it at any time. I've been telling my friends and family since 2012, and only one of them invested. Those who take risks, get rewarded. You can't win if you refuse to try. Of course, there are truly poor people out there who can't have a dollar to spare, but it's mostly due to geography, corruption or war, not evil capitalists.
> But this time it's voluntarily
Gambling's rarely been mandatory. If you were going to recommend your folks to have a punt, wouldn't a casino be better? You know the odds then.
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#59Market manipulation is a big risk here. Basically "wolf of wall st" style shenanigans, or the stuff that salomon brothers did in the mortgage bond market in the 1980s.
Essentially a few big investors who've cornered the market, acting in concert, can move the market essentially according to their own desire. I read yesterday that the order book for btc was $33 million (don't know what the daily volume is; could anyone enlighten me? Not an active bitcoin follower but have experience in markets). The top 1,000 BTC holders own about $100 Billion at current prices. Even a few of them could concertedly buy small amounts of BTC at rapidly increasing prices, then if that leads to a huge rally and increase in volume (like yesterday) they can sell into that volume and make a nice profit. Lots of other things like that they can do: https://www.girardgibbs.com/securities-fraud/stock/market-ma...
Not saying they do those things, but that is a real risk in unregulated, concentrated markets where there is no real way to quantify value
EDIT: montecarl pointed me to the gdax site, also https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/price/6m/USD?c=e&t=l shows price and vol data (im a noob) and it looks like volume is much higher, on the order of 100-150k BTC / day so over $1B USD volume at $17K / BTC.
Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd bet that large holders of gold sell small amounts all the time without the market going nuts and kicking off volatility swings. But I could be wrong. It's less the mechanism and the implication that people imply by following whales. Why should a store-of-value market react when someone sells a small amount regardless of their current holdings?
I agree with you but this is an apples to oranges (or perhaps apples to 747s) comparison. The top 1000 holders of gold don't have anywhere near 40% of the market. Not to mention that 40% of the market for BTC is only a few million coins.
Certainly, but most of us have limited choice about what investments to make -- same for any of the non-1000 that's participating in Bitcoin. It's not apples to 747s as far as their money goes.
Which means Bitcoin proponents should really save the store-of-value label for later on down the road when it looks and behaves more like a store-of-value.