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Ask HN: Any Bitcoin Millionaires on HN?

31 points by npguy 14y ago

looking for 'bought 1000 dollars worth of Bitcoins when it was under 10 cents' or similar stories.

marco-fiset 14y ago
I would really like to hear about that also.
twog 14y ago
I was, almost, but I got really hungry & bought a pizza instead
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mwally 14y ago
  The legend lives.
te_platt 14y ago
I know one but it's not really my place to put out his story. I know at least a dozen others who could have been but couldn't stand the pressure (or had the good sense not to take the pressure). When you buy something that doubles in price there is good reason to sell. Up 10 times and it starts to be irresponsible not to. Up 1000 times and still holding borders on psychopathic.
- iaw 14y ago
  As niggler pointed out in another thread, if you are at 10x your original investment you can close out 1/10th of your position and be left with a free ride in the market. The trick is to not get greedy, start taking profits as the market rises and then put those profits into less volatile investments.
gitsum 14y ago
I mined about 13000 bitcoins in 2010 when it was possible to mine with a single quad core CPU. It was worth about $100 when I stopped mining in August 2010, and I was ecstatic that I had earned a nice steak dinner for doing absolutely nothing. After I missed the first peak at $31 in 2011, I was determined to sell everything if it ever hit that price again. Unfortunately, little did I know the price would surge to $145, and I sold most of my stash at the then all-time high of $40-50. Not quite a bitcoin millionaire, but still a good chunk of change (of which a sizable amount will be going to the IRS).
WestCoastJustin 14y ago
Maybe this is a very stupid question, but how do you convert bitcoins to cash? Sure there are people/sites that will accept bitcoins for domains, pizza, etc. But lets say you have 100k in bitcoins, how do you get 100k in cash? There must be a way. "Man Tries to Sell House for Bitcoins" [1], how is he ever going to get his money back?! [1] http://mashable.com/2013/03/22/house-bitcoins/ http://mashable.com/2013/03/22/house-bitcoins/
- eigenrick 14y ago
  http://mtgox.com http://mtgox.com (currently being DDOS'd) or https://btc-e.com/ https://btc-e.com/ These exchanges will convert your currency to/from BTC
mynewwork 14y ago
Does bitcoin have enough volume for a millionaire to cash out without crashing the price? How much bitcoin <--> dollar conversion happens in a day? I'm curious if a "bitcoin millionaire" might end up with a tenth of that if they tried to sell and their selling drove down the price.
- LyndsySimon 14y ago
  Market cap is just over $1b USD at the moment. A guy used MtGox to sell 5,000 BTC the other day, and caused a small dip - about 15%, if I recall. That's about 500k USD out in an afternoon. Some exchanges also have "dark pools", designed to allow big investor to get into and out of the market "quietly".
  - BoyWizard 14y ago
    A single person cashing out can cause a 'small' drop of 15%? Imagine the chaos if the USD crashed 15%. That's recession territory.
  - codemonkeymike 14y ago
    A Billion dollar stock is much more liquid then the BTC market, as a lot of bitcoins have been lost and many more are being horded.
- iaw 14y ago
  You can determine this by looking at all of the exchanges bids for BTC. Combine them, order them by price descending, integrate until you have $1 MM. Whatever BTC price that is is where someone would move the market to if cashing out $1 MM. Realistically, if you had that much BTC to sell it would be wisest to do it in phases, or better yet, tiers. Offer volumes of BTC at various "outrageous" price levels (eg, $5 over market, $10 over market) and make sure you put a substantial amount of volume at each price level. Whenever the market surges you'll cap the exchange rates at your price levels until all your volume is depleted. In fact, you can see people already doing this on some exchanges...
smewpy 14y ago
From gitsum, who is linkdead: "I mined about 13000 bitcoins in 2010 when it was possible to mine with a single quad core CPU. It was worth about $100 when I stopped mining in August 2010, and I was ecstatic that I had earned a nice steak dinner for doing absolutely nothing. After I missed the first peak at $31 in 2011, I was determined to sell everything if it ever hit that price again. Unfortunately, little did I know the price would surge to $145, and I sold most of my stash at the then all-time high of $40-50. Not quite a bitcoin millionaire, but still a good chunk of change (of which a sizable amount will be going to the IRS)."

31 points by npguy 14y ago

looking for 'bought 1000 dollars worth of Bitcoins when it was under 10 cents' or similar stories.

marco-fiset 14y ago

I would really like to hear about that also.

twog 14y ago

I was, almost, but I got really hungry & bought a pizza instead

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mwally 14y ago
The legend lives.

te_platt 14y ago

I know one but it's not really my place to put out his story. I know at least a dozen others who could have been but couldn't stand the pressure (or had the good sense not to take the pressure). When you buy something that doubles in price there is good reason to sell. Up 10 times and it starts to be irresponsible not to. Up 1000 times and still holding borders on psychopathic.

iaw 14y ago
As niggler pointed out in another thread, if you are at 10x your original investment you can close out 1/10th of your position and be left with a free ride in the market. The trick is to not get greedy, start taking profits as the market rises and then put those profits into less volatile investments.

gitsum 14y ago

I mined about 13000 bitcoins in 2010 when it was possible to mine with a single quad core CPU. It was worth about $100 when I stopped mining in August 2010, and I was ecstatic that I had earned a nice steak dinner for doing absolutely nothing. After I missed the first peak at $31 in 2011, I was determined to sell everything if it ever hit that price again. Unfortunately, little did I know the price would surge to $145, and I sold most of my stash at the then all-time high of $40-50. Not quite a bitcoin millionaire, but still a good chunk of change (of which a sizable amount will be going to the IRS).

WestCoastJustin 14y ago

Maybe this is a very stupid question, but how do you convert bitcoins to cash? Sure there are people/sites that will accept bitcoins for domains, pizza, etc. But lets say you have 100k in bitcoins, how do you get 100k in cash? There must be a way. "Man Tries to Sell House for Bitcoins" [1], how is he ever going to get his money back?! [1] http://mashable.com/2013/03/22/house-bitcoins/ http://mashable.com/2013/03/22/house-bitcoins/

eigenrick 14y ago
http://mtgox.com http://mtgox.com (currently being DDOS'd) or https://btc-e.com/ https://btc-e.com/ These exchanges will convert your currency to/from BTC

mynewwork 14y ago

Does bitcoin have enough volume for a millionaire to cash out without crashing the price? How much bitcoin <--> dollar conversion happens in a day? I'm curious if a "bitcoin millionaire" might end up with a tenth of that if they tried to sell and their selling drove down the price.

LyndsySimon 14y ago
Market cap is just over $1b USD at the moment. A guy used MtGox to sell 5,000 BTC the other day, and caused a small dip - about 15%, if I recall. That's about 500k USD out in an afternoon. Some exchanges also have "dark pools", designed to allow big investor to get into and out of the market "quietly".
- BoyWizard 14y ago
  A single person cashing out can cause a 'small' drop of 15%? Imagine the chaos if the USD crashed 15%. That's recession territory.
- codemonkeymike 14y ago
  A Billion dollar stock is much more liquid then the BTC market, as a lot of bitcoins have been lost and many more are being horded.
iaw 14y ago
You can determine this by looking at all of the exchanges bids for BTC. Combine them, order them by price descending, integrate until you have $1 MM. Whatever BTC price that is is where someone would move the market to if cashing out $1 MM. Realistically, if you had that much BTC to sell it would be wisest to do it in phases, or better yet, tiers. Offer volumes of BTC at various "outrageous" price levels (eg, $5 over market, $10 over market) and make sure you put a substantial amount of volume at each price level. Whenever the market surges you'll cap the exchange rates at your price levels until all your volume is depleted. In fact, you can see people already doing this on some exchanges...

smewpy 14y ago

From gitsum, who is linkdead: "I mined about 13000 bitcoins in 2010 when it was possible to mine with a single quad core CPU. It was worth about $100 when I stopped mining in August 2010, and I was ecstatic that I had earned a nice steak dinner for doing absolutely nothing. After I missed the first peak at $31 in 2011, I was determined to sell everything if it ever hit that price again. Unfortunately, little did I know the price would surge to $145, and I sold most of my stash at the then all-time high of $40-50. Not quite a bitcoin millionaire, but still a good chunk of change (of which a sizable amount will be going to the IRS)."