6 ms·

When are we going to stop calculating BTC total value by multiplying number of BTC times what is, let's face it, a spot price. There is no way you could sell 2

When are we going to stop calculating BTC total value by multiplying number of BTC times what is, let's face it, a spot price. There is no way you could sell 2 billion euros worth of BTC. You can't convert them into real property.

huytersd 3y ago
Sure you can, you’ll have to do it slowly over years.
mightybyte 3y ago
A quick look at the 24-hour trading volumes of the top 10 crypto exchanges (only a single trading pair per exchange of BTC against a USD or equivalent) gives a total volume of ~3.8 billion dollars. Many people say that there is a lot of fake volume in crypto but this is still a pretty conservative number. The total BTC volume according to CoinMarketCap is about 23 billion, but I prefer the smaller number because it gives a much better picture of the volume that could be feasibly captured with pretty unremarkable exchange access. If we assume that one can capture 5% of this 24-hour volume (a reasonably conservative assumption given good enough trading infrastructure), it would take about 11 days to offload that amount of bitcoin by selling across the top 10 exchanges. So you absolutely could convert an amount like that into "real" assets. 11 days doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount of time to me, and we haven't even talked about OTC deals or other providers offering block trading services.
- thisgoesnowhere 3y ago
  You think that there is the equivalent of 3.8b dollars of inflowing to Bitcoin specifically every day? The total amount individual traders put into stocks in the first week of the year is ~7b. Is Bitcoin actually > 3x higher than that? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-05/bofa-says-investors-rushing-to-cash-at-record-pace-in-first-week https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-05/bofa-says...
  - nimchimpsky 3y ago
    they didn't say that, they said 3.8b of volume
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    the new ETFs have had inflows that high over just the last week, so, yes? if bitcoins price has barely moved by ETFs that buy bitcoin based on how much people bought the ETFs then yes there is that much liquidity
    - thisgoesnowhere 3y ago
      The bitcoin ETFs have had 7b in us dollar inflows in a week?
    - loeg 3y ago
      The ETFs had net inflows of less than $1B. GBTC had significant outflows.
      - yieldcrv 3y ago
        I probably had not been reading net then, thanks. Looks like the German government will have no issue liquidating their amount quickly over several trading sessions, venues and OTC if they desire to
  - roenxi 3y ago
    A billion dollars isn't a lot of money any more. We could start seeing trillionaires appear on stage in about 25 years; which would imply "billionaire" being what millionaire is now.
    - thisgoesnowhere 3y ago
      I'm talking purely in relative terms to the entire us stock market.
  - mightybyte 3y ago
yieldcrv 3y ago
2013 called and wanted its argument back that hasnt been true for a very very long time and its simply the same standard used for all other asset classes. lets normalize talking about bitcoin using the same standards we use on other things, of course that would require even knowing how other assets are talked about
- loeg 3y ago
  It is pretty normal to consider the trading volume of a stock or asset when discussing valuation of huge lots.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    when discussing selling them, which no party in the article is talking about. and its not normal when simply discussing balances
    - loeg 3y ago
      This thread, the one you replied to, is explicitly discussing selling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39197062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39197062 .
      - yieldcrv 3y ago
        I don’t see that and the article > investigators cited by German news agency dpa said no decisions had been made regarding cashing in the bitcoins
ikmckenz 3y ago
As someone who worked for a trading firm that did some* crypto stuff, you absolutely could sell 2B Euros worth of BTC, in a matter of weeks (contingent on market conditions), without significantly impacting the price. *Some being trading volumes under but approaching $1B/month, although we didn't really have directional price exposure.

huytersd 3y ago

Sure you can, you’ll have to do it slowly over years.

mightybyte 3y ago

A quick look at the 24-hour trading volumes of the top 10 crypto exchanges (only a single trading pair per exchange of BTC against a USD or equivalent) gives a total volume of ~3.8 billion dollars. Many people say that there is a lot of fake volume in crypto but this is still a pretty conservative number. The total BTC volume according to CoinMarketCap is about 23 billion, but I prefer the smaller number because it gives a much better picture of the volume that could be feasibly captured with pretty unremarkable exchange access. If we assume that one can capture 5% of this 24-hour volume (a reasonably conservative assumption given good enough trading infrastructure), it would take about 11 days to offload that amount of bitcoin by selling across the top 10 exchanges. So you absolutely could convert an amount like that into "real" assets. 11 days doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount of time to me, and we haven't even talked about OTC deals or other providers offering block trading services.

thisgoesnowhere 3y ago
You think that there is the equivalent of 3.8b dollars of inflowing to Bitcoin specifically every day? The total amount individual traders put into stocks in the first week of the year is ~7b. Is Bitcoin actually > 3x higher than that? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-05/bofa-says-investors-rushing-to-cash-at-record-pace-in-first-week https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-05/bofa-says...
- nimchimpsky 3y ago
  they didn't say that, they said 3.8b of volume
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  the new ETFs have had inflows that high over just the last week, so, yes? if bitcoins price has barely moved by ETFs that buy bitcoin based on how much people bought the ETFs then yes there is that much liquidity
  - thisgoesnowhere 3y ago
    The bitcoin ETFs have had 7b in us dollar inflows in a week?
  - loeg 3y ago
    The ETFs had net inflows of less than $1B. GBTC had significant outflows.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      I probably had not been reading net then, thanks. Looks like the German government will have no issue liquidating their amount quickly over several trading sessions, venues and OTC if they desire to
- roenxi 3y ago
  A billion dollars isn't a lot of money any more. We could start seeing trillionaires appear on stage in about 25 years; which would imply "billionaire" being what millionaire is now.
  - thisgoesnowhere 3y ago
    I'm talking purely in relative terms to the entire us stock market.
- mightybyte 3y ago

yieldcrv 3y ago

2013 called and wanted its argument back that hasnt been true for a very very long time and its simply the same standard used for all other asset classes. lets normalize talking about bitcoin using the same standards we use on other things, of course that would require even knowing how other assets are talked about

loeg 3y ago
It is pretty normal to consider the trading volume of a stock or asset when discussing valuation of huge lots.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  when discussing selling them, which no party in the article is talking about. and its not normal when simply discussing balances
  - loeg 3y ago
    This thread, the one you replied to, is explicitly discussing selling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39197062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39197062 .
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      I don’t see that and the article > investigators cited by German news agency dpa said no decisions had been made regarding cashing in the bitcoins

ikmckenz 3y ago

As someone who worked for a trading firm that did some* crypto stuff, you absolutely could sell 2B Euros worth of BTC, in a matter of weeks (contingent on market conditions), without significantly impacting the price. *Some being trading volumes under but approaching $1B/month, although we didn't really have directional price exposure.