Ask HN: Are There Any Bitcoin Billionaires Yet? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are There Any Bitcoin Billionaires Yet?

15 points11thEarlOfMar10 comments

Just a trivia question, but are there any persons who hold US$1,000,000,000 in bitcoin yet? According to CoinDesk[0], the total value of all bitcoin has just passed $40,000,000,000. So it's certainly possible. At the current value of bitcoin (2,546.85) that's a mere Ƀ392,641.89.

[0] http://www.coindesk.com/data/bitcoin-market-capitalization/

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It would be psychologically very hard to do.

Most people would sell at least part of their holdings after they made $1million.

Those could qualify:

  - Satoshi Nakamoto (bitcoin creator(s) ~1.5M btc = $3.5B today)
  - Roger Ver (reportedly bought >$1M of btc in ~2010)
  - Winklevii (reportedly owned ~1% of all btc in 2013 = ~$2B now)
  - Ethereum funder(s) (bought >$1M of ether at 2014 crowd-sale @ $0.25, today @ ~$200/eth)
  - Chinese btc/eth mining farm owner(s)

I don't understand why people buy into Bitcoin. If I want to be part of an economic scheme where 1% of the people hold 90% of the wealth, I already have the current global economy for that. I do have a very simplistic understanding of economics but to me Bitcoin seems like all about speculation (so those that bought into it trying to make their "tokens" have any value at the expense of late suckers).

The trading aspect is speculation. It has real value though, for example as a common black market currency.

Bitcoin's price is two parts, one part is the fact that you are owning a digital asset that was guaranteed to be generated by burning power, in the form of electricity, the same way as working for a paycheck while the second part is speculation.

I buy Bitcoin when the price is stable and there's no ridiculous bubbles. I sell when the bubbles are one-two weeks in because that's when every Joe Schmuck wants into Bitcoin.

You just answered your own question - because they want the opportunity to get rich.

Satoshi Nakamoto likely. I doubt that any Bitcoin Billionaires would announce themselves, though.

The Winklevoss twin brothers?

Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't exist, it is a cover up.

I imagine some of the theives e.g. mtgox hackers might be.

Satoshi Nakamoto

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