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If you can spend cryptocurrency (you can now spend it through debit cards and it's more becoming more widely accepted at online retailers) and you know it's deflationary, why would you ever want to cash out in to fiat?

Even if 5% of all Bitcoin are dumped on to an exchange / multiple exchanges, it would cause short term panic but you'd still end up with sellers buying back in at lower prices because of the fixed supply. And let's face it, if you're smart enough to create blockchain technology / Bitcoin, you're probably smart enough not to sell your entire portfolio in one swoop on an open market without communicating with anyone...

The current bubble will come to an end and we'll enter a bear cycle at some stage - it's a given... but it's pretty unlikely the technology will just go away and fade in to oblivion given the number of people working with it and potential (or in some cases realised) use cases.

Is about as disruptive a technology as there has been since the internet itself - so if you're waiting for it to fall apart I think you'll be waiting longer than you realise...

> Let's be absolutely clear: your coins are only worth what someone is willing to pay. And when the one and only true "run on the bank" of one of these currencies happens, it will happen within the span of less than an hour. All these people who are buying to eventually cash out are going to blink and wonder what the hell happened.

That's not so different than what can happen in real life with currencies, isn't it? So at least the goal of treating Bitcoin like a currency has been met.

Those that got in early enough or have already cashed out usually keep their mouth shut. For those who regard it as a speculative asset and only want to get rich and now lament that they missed the early adopter phase, yeah, such people exist. I know several of them personally. It's always interesting to argue with them and yes, it would be better if there were regulations to protect them.

Greed is a bad investment strategy and it's only profit if you are willing to take profit. But people that push out the profit taking will always complain about not getting enough and most of them will get burned.

> BTC's Nakamoto "promises" they will never cash out their enormous share. How nice of them. The community can monitor Nakamoto's wallets all they want. I can't wait for him/her to cash out their BTC, and screw over the entire system. I'm just sitting here ready to laugh.

I see, you are not a true Buttcoin believer. Let me paraphrase an old meme: If Bitcoin succeeds, you won't have to cash out.

Jokes aside, Satoshi never made a promise to not cash out. It's likely, he/she/them are dead or lost the keys to their private wallet. Even in the unlikely case of Satoshi still being alive and having access to the coins, the minute this coins move, the price will plummet. And you can be sure that many people are watching these coins, a move will be noticed. Immediately.

>> he/she/them are dead or lost the keys to their private wallet[...] the minute this coins move, the price will plummet. And you can be sure that many people are watching these coins, a move will be noticed. Immediately.

This aspect of BTC specifically makes me roar with laughter. The fact that anyone is willing to hope that Nakamoto's coins are "lost", discounting their very real value should he/she be sitting on that cash cow. What a great con on their part. You say trading of those coins will be noticed "immediately". The transaction log will cement that trade before (well, as) it's noticed. The only thing people will notice is the aftermath. Those who are personally monitoring the blockchain with automation will notify themselves within 5 minutes, while the public at large won't figure it out for hours. By the time the "BTC is now worthless" headlines hit the major news outlets, it will be too late for the average user to cash out.

It would be a great con, indeed. Going into hiding for 7 years so far, at a time when Bitcoin wasn't worth much, hoping that in time it will grow in value.

But tell me how to cash out any of those bitcoins that are supposed to be Satoshis without crashing the price? Just because it's on the blockchain doesn't mean anything as that only shows that those coins have changed ownership. They haven't been converted to fiat at that time.

Being able to sell on exchanges usually takes a few confirmations and by then, enough people will have heard the news of the coins moving and the price will already have plummeted significantly. Sure, those old coins would still be worth something but the actual monetary gain would be much less and Bitcoin itself might not survive such an event.

You could of course trade those coins over the counter, just sell the private keys or another method of an off-chain transaction but that still leaves the issue on how to cash out eventually?

Ok - so I know nothing about investing, so genuine question: isn't that the time to buy?

The amount of dormant coins is not that large anymore. I read somewhere it's on the order of 30%. If they enter all at once the pool it would be a significant haircut for everyone else, but not the end. More significant risks are an 51% attack, a bug in the protocol, a bug in the implementation of a widely used client, or a major government making it illegal to trade them.

define early adoption? I would say where I live (Denver), less than 1% of people own or have owned bitcoins. Also, why wouldn't BTC Nakamoto have already liquidated his or her position if that was the end goal?

As someone who follows cryptocurrencies from a distance, I like to put relatively small amounts, say $100, into Coinbase, then use that to do regular small purchases (leaving only $100 in Coinbase). I've been using it to make domain renewal purchases on sites like Gandi.net. As far as I know, in my circles, that's what most people do (anecdotal, I know).

Although seeing the impact of Alphabay (market) adopting ETH, there seems to be a huge market for cryptocurrencies and it probably won't go away until governments start legalizing/regulating harder drugs.