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Comment by dmitrygr | Hacker News Reader

> liquid capital in the form of Bitcoin, Ether

Not sure that you're using the word "liquid" properly. Show me how you can convert $50M USD's worth of BTC or ETH into USD in three business days or less.

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It's a great question. Most exchanges like Gemini have OTC desks that are highly liquid. We have a direct point of contact at Gemini, and can convert as much as we want.

Gemini also has daily auctions where you can move a ton of crypto.

There's also other well-known OTC desks like Cumberland Mining

Umm, at any major exchange?

The initial setup, of linking your identity to an account would take a long time I INITIALLY, but after coinbase knows what your identity is, has informed the IRS, and the government knows that you are not engaging in money laundering, it is quite quick.

50 million is easy, and markets trade that amount every day. Current volume is something like 400 million dollars of Bitcoin in the last 24 hours.

You can do that pretty easily on any of the major exchanges.

oh? Last i checked they all had $10k/day limits or less. Can you cite one that can give me $50M REAL USD in a REAL bank account in USA for that much BTC, today?

The $10k limit is generally for ACH withdrawals. Wire transfers tend to have higher limits.

Gemini has no limit on wire transfers: https://gemini24.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/209113906-Wha...

Straw man.

Can you cite self service online stock trading platform that can give me $50M REAL USD in a REAL bank account in USA for that much stock, today? (No, even if one wanted to, the USD doesn't move fast enough)

Coinbase daily limits can go up to $100k or $250k I think. Most financial transactions in excess of those amounts (in Bitcoin or any other asset class) probably involve an amount of personal service and a dialog between the two parties.

Morgan Stanley. Charles Schwab. Chase.

You can't create an account with them, transfer in $50M worth of stock, and transfer out the USD all in the same day.

Frankly, I'd be fairly surprised if you could even transfer $50M into a self-serve account the same day your account is created - likely some compliance and human-intervention guardrails would slow this further than transferring several thousands of dollars worth of stock. But even so, USD transfer is going to take at least a day.

Transfers between accounts != liquidity. Liquidity is selling an asset without moving the price. If you sell $50m of AAPL, a highly liquid stock, the price may move a bit, but not a ton. If you actually sold $50m of bitcoin, you would probably have trouble getting the buyers AND the price would fall.

Bitcoin is certainly much less liquid than AAPL, but thats somewhat off topic.

Person I was replying to was talking about daily transaction limits, not liquidity. My point was that the standard he proposed is not even met by the biggest online stock exchange platforms.

According to the current orderbook on GDAX, you can market sell $50M of BTC, and the price would drop to a little above $7000 (on GDAX). So, no, you wouldn't have trouble getting the buyers since they are right there on the order books, but yes, the price would fall. You'd still get your $50M.

Can you? Someone's selling the MtGox bitcoins, $400m worth, and this halved the market price: https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-trustee-sells-400-million-bi...

Most volume on most exchanges is fake "wash trading". https://medium.com/@sylvainartplayribes/chasing-fake-volume-...

That's because they sold it with large market sells, stupidly. People also knew they were selling. I can't speak to OkEx, but at least two of the major top ten exchanges i'm reasonably confident have volume at least in the range of what they claim.

Yeah, but...then it isn't liquid. CEOs of big companies pre-announce stock sales all the time, and prices don't often move >5%. An announced sale of bitcoins shouldn't move the prices in a liquid market. It suggests a buyer/seller mismatch.

Announced sales of company stock absolutely move (and absolutely should move) the price of a company's stock.

>halved the market price

https://cryptowat.ch/markets/bitfinex/btc/usd/2h

where are you getting halve?

From the market peak, not a 2h graph.

look at the x axis. it goes back to feb21.

This is a classic "after it, therefore because of it" fallacy. $400M over a few months is a drop in the ocean in the bitcoin world.

Bitcoin daily (!) trading volume is $6.1 billion today.

Is that money in and out of exchanges? Or day trading volume? And how can we trust that figure?

Wash trading probably

Very easy, just buy USDT and then Bitfinex will gladly allow you, institutional investor, a cash out ;) . /s

Yeah, definitely wrong terminology. ETH isn't liquid at all, it's gas.

ETH and BTC are highly liquid these days. You may be saying that ETH's "intent" is to serve as "gas" but irregardless the markets are highly liquid and the order books are deep.

I think they were just making a pun.

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