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Question: How hard/impossible would it be for me as a US citizen to cash in on a large lot like that? Say I want 10 million dollars for some partying I want to

Question: How hard/impossible would it be for me as a US citizen to cash in on a large lot like that? Say I want 10 million dollars for some partying I want to do for New Years. It seems some people have mega riches, but is it actually feasible for me to realize that money (in US Dollars, deposited to my Chase bank account)?

otoburb 13y ago
Once you complete the transaction, there are also tax implications. An attorney wrote up a description with some broad strokes: http://www.bitcointax.info/ http://www.bitcointax.info/ Useful if you're a US citizen or resident and have bitcoins you want to sell.
lukev 13y ago
No. The market just isn't that deep. I really doubt there are people looking to spend 10 million (or even 1 million) dollars on bitcoin in any normal time frame. Most of the bitcoin super-rich are the early adopters, who mined hundreds of bitcoins on their personal PCs while that was still possible.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  One million dollars is less than 1400 BTC on gox at the moment. There are several transactions a day in this range. And contrary to the popular folklore, you can get USD out of gox, it just costs you a fair amount to do so. If you're dealing in million dollar transactions, it can be arranged.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    How much would it cost to convert an amount of bitcoins valued at one million dollars ?
  - gwern 13y ago
    And as a matter of fact, the guy who broke the back of the most recent surge to $900 on MtGox was selling something like $5m and is doing just that.
- BinaryBrainz 13y ago
  To put it in perspective, Bitcoincharts.com [1] reports that the market trade volume is around 200,000 BTC (I believe this to be a 24hr stat). BTC-China is currently the largest exchange and their 24-hr volume is 67,500 BTC. So yeah, several thousand BTC being traded at once could be a significant disturbance in the force. I wonder if it would be possible to come up with some kind of market indicator to detect when one of major holding addresses starts to sell off on one of the exchanges. This may be possible if the escrow/intermediary accounts are known. If one of these 'major holders' really felt like being evil, they could test out some of the BTC to USD processors to see how well their setup to handle large transactions and nuke them with 1000BTC conversions. Coinbase.... BOOM!... BTCQuick.... BOOM! [1] Bitcoin Charts / Markets - http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ Edit: turns out Coinbase has a 50BTC/day buy or sell limit.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    It would be trivial to write a script to watch the top however many addresses for movement. You wouldn't know if the coins were headed for an exchange or not, though.
waterlesscloud 13y ago
Sure, although it would likely take some time, and would cost some money. Probably would be more along the lines of a private sale than dumped on an exchange, though of late we've seen dumps/buys in the million dollar range.
buugs 13y ago
I'm not entirely sure but I think to cash in you would need to find willing buyers at the price you want. So it works similar to trading. So if you want $1million dollars at $700 per bitcoin you would have to find a market with enough people to buy at $700.
wuschel 13y ago
IF bitcoin will materialize as common internet currency, these guys/girls will have some jolly good time. Until this happens this list is is nothing but a high-score in a web based game, for there is no way to exchange your BTC into real currency. Of course, anyone who has invested in BTC is highly interested to push the hype button and spread the word of BTC as universal payment system. This is the only way to bring more hard currency into the BTC cashflow.
- aqme28 13y ago
  What? There are tons of ways to turn BTC into any number of currencies.
  - shocks 13y ago
    Right, but try cashing out $85 million. You'll have a hard time.
    - waterlesscloud 13y ago
      Cashing out $85 million of pretty much anything would require some special efforts.
      - res0nat0r 13y ago
        How about just 1 million? It seems most responses above are "it can be arranged", which wouldn't be acceptable to me if I had millions in bitcoin I wanted to cash out.
        waterlesscloud 13y ago
        A million is easy. Put up your ask for 1400-1500 BTC and wait for someone to buy it. Maybe spread it out over a small range so it doesn't look intimidating, but at that size it doesn't really matter. Probably happen in a few hours. Again, several of these transactions happen every day. Have the money wired to your bank. If you're selling on bitstamp, even that step is easy. Done.
clarkmoody 13y ago
You would have to make a deal one-on-one with a buyer. The current liquidity on the exchanges would mean that you tank the price and end up with way fewer dollars. And you would start a price panic.
fat0wl 13y ago
The whole price of Bitcoin is an illusion that they use to get people to keep buying. It's the result of a bidding war. There is an article here about that basically explains (this is my interpretation not his words) how the price of BTC is kindof like the sticker price on an item in the store. It doesn't represent the real value, it's simply the value as perceived by consumers and is, in a way, fixed -- http://falkvinge.net/2013/09/13/bitcoins-vast-overvaluation-seems-to-be-caused-by-usually-illegal-price-fixing/ http://falkvinge.net/2013/09/13/bitcoins-vast-overvaluation-... But the fact that early adopters are psychotically rich for doing nothing is... one of the many signs of a flawed system. Basically if everyone started selling the market would destabilize because supply/demand curve would change & I'm pretty sure the value of what they're selling would plummet before they can unload most of their stack. EDIT: Since I was immediately downvoted, please note that this happens regularly any time you speak ill of Bitcoin's pyramid scheme aspects and is completely expected/anticipated when I post these responses. It's a public service that I will drop eventually, but think about this -- even people who own a ton of BTC (article I linked to) criticize it as being insanely flawed. They only stay with it because as they point out, they believe the price will continue to rise. Speculators love it because they KNOW it's flawed, but still feel confident in a bet that the price will rise. I think it's why ultimately it will take gov intervention or a market catastrophe that screws over all the speculators to finally destroy such interest in Bitcoin and finally give it a chance to start over again... as a currency.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  > But the fact that early adopters are psychotically rich for doing nothing is... one of the many signs of a flawed system This is also the case with rich families. It doesn't make the system unusable.
  - fat0wl 13y ago
    Hah rich families are usually rich because they spear-headed a manufacturing industry or rose to political power. Yes, their CHILDREN may not deserve the wealth, but they earned it. Bitcoiners are getting rich for designing a pump-and-dump scam & passing it along. It's called a pyramid scheme. You make a pitch that sounds convincing and then shop it out through "Multi-Level Marketing" strategies. Why do Bitcoiners believe so much in a currency that allowed the originator to pull so much wealth out of thin air? Say we estimate conservatively and say the Bitcoin ecosystem is only worth what was put into it. Well, now the founders own like 1/4 of all that money, for doing nothing but coming up with a convincing sounding scheme ("ummm... call it deflationary people will think that sounds intellectual"). A currency is not a currency if it is so distorted that it is radically reorganizing the wealth of those who convert to it.
Kequc 13y ago
No you need to make a private sale, we're talking back alley or across a table somewhere. Getting money out of the US based exchange Mt.Gox is impossible in the range you are talking about. Currently they are cashing out everyone at $10,000/day, that isn't per person that's combined. Or you can move your Bitcoins to another exchange (which have a much lower valuation) and which are all foreign. Then cash out there. Then repatriate your USD. Which has tax implications. So in an amount as big as $10M you're going to lose a large amount of "money." You also have to pray that somewhere along the way your anonymous untraceable Bitcoins aren't stolen.
downandout 13y ago
Actually, it wouldn't be that hard over the course of a few weeks or months. Yes, the price of BTC would drop to some degree, but not necessarily considerably. Over the last 30 days, approximately $720 million worth of bitcoins have been traded on MtGox and btc-e. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btceUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btceUSD.html
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
clamprecht 13y ago
$10 million for New Years - I want to party with you. Monaco 2014? ;)

otoburb 13y ago

Once you complete the transaction, there are also tax implications. An attorney wrote up a description with some broad strokes: http://www.bitcointax.info/ http://www.bitcointax.info/ Useful if you're a US citizen or resident and have bitcoins you want to sell.

lukev 13y ago

No. The market just isn't that deep. I really doubt there are people looking to spend 10 million (or even 1 million) dollars on bitcoin in any normal time frame. Most of the bitcoin super-rich are the early adopters, who mined hundreds of bitcoins on their personal PCs while that was still possible.

waterlesscloud 13y ago
One million dollars is less than 1400 BTC on gox at the moment. There are several transactions a day in this range. And contrary to the popular folklore, you can get USD out of gox, it just costs you a fair amount to do so. If you're dealing in million dollar transactions, it can be arranged.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  How much would it cost to convert an amount of bitcoins valued at one million dollars ?
- gwern 13y ago
  And as a matter of fact, the guy who broke the back of the most recent surge to $900 on MtGox was selling something like $5m and is doing just that.
BinaryBrainz 13y ago
To put it in perspective, Bitcoincharts.com [1] reports that the market trade volume is around 200,000 BTC (I believe this to be a 24hr stat). BTC-China is currently the largest exchange and their 24-hr volume is 67,500 BTC. So yeah, several thousand BTC being traded at once could be a significant disturbance in the force. I wonder if it would be possible to come up with some kind of market indicator to detect when one of major holding addresses starts to sell off on one of the exchanges. This may be possible if the escrow/intermediary accounts are known. If one of these 'major holders' really felt like being evil, they could test out some of the BTC to USD processors to see how well their setup to handle large transactions and nuke them with 1000BTC conversions. Coinbase.... BOOM!... BTCQuick.... BOOM! [1] Bitcoin Charts / Markets - http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ Edit: turns out Coinbase has a 50BTC/day buy or sell limit.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  It would be trivial to write a script to watch the top however many addresses for movement. You wouldn't know if the coins were headed for an exchange or not, though.

waterlesscloud 13y ago

Sure, although it would likely take some time, and would cost some money. Probably would be more along the lines of a private sale than dumped on an exchange, though of late we've seen dumps/buys in the million dollar range.

buugs 13y ago

I'm not entirely sure but I think to cash in you would need to find willing buyers at the price you want. So it works similar to trading. So if you want $1million dollars at $700 per bitcoin you would have to find a market with enough people to buy at $700.

wuschel 13y ago

IF bitcoin will materialize as common internet currency, these guys/girls will have some jolly good time. Until this happens this list is is nothing but a high-score in a web based game, for there is no way to exchange your BTC into real currency. Of course, anyone who has invested in BTC is highly interested to push the hype button and spread the word of BTC as universal payment system. This is the only way to bring more hard currency into the BTC cashflow.

aqme28 13y ago
What? There are tons of ways to turn BTC into any number of currencies.
- shocks 13y ago
  Right, but try cashing out $85 million. You'll have a hard time.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    Cashing out $85 million of pretty much anything would require some special efforts.
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      How about just 1 million? It seems most responses above are "it can be arranged", which wouldn't be acceptable to me if I had millions in bitcoin I wanted to cash out.
      - waterlesscloud 13y ago
        A million is easy. Put up your ask for 1400-1500 BTC and wait for someone to buy it. Maybe spread it out over a small range so it doesn't look intimidating, but at that size it doesn't really matter. Probably happen in a few hours. Again, several of these transactions happen every day. Have the money wired to your bank. If you're selling on bitstamp, even that step is easy. Done.

clarkmoody 13y ago

You would have to make a deal one-on-one with a buyer. The current liquidity on the exchanges would mean that you tank the price and end up with way fewer dollars. And you would start a price panic.

fat0wl 13y ago

The whole price of Bitcoin is an illusion that they use to get people to keep buying. It's the result of a bidding war. There is an article here about that basically explains (this is my interpretation not his words) how the price of BTC is kindof like the sticker price on an item in the store. It doesn't represent the real value, it's simply the value as perceived by consumers and is, in a way, fixed -- http://falkvinge.net/2013/09/13/bitcoins-vast-overvaluation-seems-to-be-caused-by-usually-illegal-price-fixing/ http://falkvinge.net/2013/09/13/bitcoins-vast-overvaluation-... But the fact that early adopters are psychotically rich for doing nothing is... one of the many signs of a flawed system. Basically if everyone started selling the market would destabilize because supply/demand curve would change & I'm pretty sure the value of what they're selling would plummet before they can unload most of their stack. EDIT: Since I was immediately downvoted, please note that this happens regularly any time you speak ill of Bitcoin's pyramid scheme aspects and is completely expected/anticipated when I post these responses. It's a public service that I will drop eventually, but think about this -- even people who own a ton of BTC (article I linked to) criticize it as being insanely flawed. They only stay with it because as they point out, they believe the price will continue to rise. Speculators love it because they KNOW it's flawed, but still feel confident in a bet that the price will rise. I think it's why ultimately it will take gov intervention or a market catastrophe that screws over all the speculators to finally destroy such interest in Bitcoin and finally give it a chance to start over again... as a currency.

hahainternet 13y ago
> But the fact that early adopters are psychotically rich for doing nothing is... one of the many signs of a flawed system This is also the case with rich families. It doesn't make the system unusable.
- fat0wl 13y ago
  Hah rich families are usually rich because they spear-headed a manufacturing industry or rose to political power. Yes, their CHILDREN may not deserve the wealth, but they earned it. Bitcoiners are getting rich for designing a pump-and-dump scam & passing it along. It's called a pyramid scheme. You make a pitch that sounds convincing and then shop it out through "Multi-Level Marketing" strategies. Why do Bitcoiners believe so much in a currency that allowed the originator to pull so much wealth out of thin air? Say we estimate conservatively and say the Bitcoin ecosystem is only worth what was put into it. Well, now the founders own like 1/4 of all that money, for doing nothing but coming up with a convincing sounding scheme ("ummm... call it deflationary people will think that sounds intellectual"). A currency is not a currency if it is so distorted that it is radically reorganizing the wealth of those who convert to it.

Kequc 13y ago

No you need to make a private sale, we're talking back alley or across a table somewhere. Getting money out of the US based exchange Mt.Gox is impossible in the range you are talking about. Currently they are cashing out everyone at $10,000/day, that isn't per person that's combined. Or you can move your Bitcoins to another exchange (which have a much lower valuation) and which are all foreign. Then cash out there. Then repatriate your USD. Which has tax implications. So in an amount as big as $10M you're going to lose a large amount of "money." You also have to pray that somewhere along the way your anonymous untraceable Bitcoins aren't stolen.

downandout 13y ago

Actually, it wouldn't be that hard over the course of a few weeks or months. Yes, the price of BTC would drop to some degree, but not necessarily considerably. Over the last 30 days, approximately $720 million worth of bitcoins have been traded on MtGox and btc-e. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btceUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btceUSD.html

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

clamprecht 13y ago

$10 million for New Years - I want to party with you. Monaco 2014? ;)