
Ask HN: How liquid is Bitcoin? - AznHisoka
Let&#x27;s say I have $1 million in Bitcoin? How easy would it be for me to sell it all in 1 day and get $1 million in cold, hard cash back?<p>If it&#x27;s not feasible in 1 day, how many days roughly would it take to sell it all?
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adrianmacneil
$1MM is nothing. At current prices that is ~500 BTC. Looking at _just_ the
Bitfinex order book[1], you could sell this in one trade with <5% slippage. If
you split it out in say 10 trades over 24 hours you would probably not move
the market at all.

Most other exchanges also publish their complete order book so you can fairly
easily view their liquidity and answer this question.

[1] [https://www.bitfinex.com/order_book](https://www.bitfinex.com/order_book)

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TylerE
Umm, isn't it impossible to actually cash out of Bitfinex?

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ty_a
If it is, use a different exchange there are lots of them.

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TylerE
Based on history I wouldn't trust any of 'em with $1,000, much less a million.

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endlessvoid94
Why not?

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rosege
they collapse and quite possibly the person operating it nicks off with all
the btc [https://cointelegraph.com/news/polands-bitcoin-exchange-
bitc...](https://cointelegraph.com/news/polands-bitcoin-exchange-bitcurex-
disappears-in-mtgox-fashion)

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Veratyr
Because nobody else has asked, when you say "cold, hard cash", do you mean
that literally? As in a case full of physical greenback?

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RickS
The literalness of "cold hard cash" is going to be very important here.

Into a digital account somewhere as USD? Fairly easy. As a million bucks in
literal physical cash? something tells me that would be an absolute shitshow,
since 10k cash withdrawl is enough to trigger special processes at most
institutions.

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andai
You could arrange something in person, but you'd probably better bring those
machines that check for fake money.

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erikb
And a few guns, that are held by people who can use them.

~~~
easilyBored
Yeah really. A Craigslist post to do such a transaction at some back alley
isn't going work; they'll wipe your entire family for $1 million. If you get
ripped off, probably can't even complain, I'm sure cash transactions above a
certain amount are illegal in many countries.

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Meekro
Yes, it is feasible to sell $1 million in BTC (444 BTC at present) in one day.
Assuming you're in the U.S., my recommendation is to signup for a Gemini
account and read about their daily auctions. They do more than enough volume
to fetch you a good price. They're also a highly trusted and very
professionally run exchange. I can't recommend them highly enough.

If that doesn't work for you for whatever reason, Bitstamp and Coinbase are
both good options. Both have the daily volume to give you a good price on your
444 BTC. Coinbase has pretty strict daily withdrawal limits ($10k per day by
default) whereas Bitstamp does not, so I'd try Bitstamp before Coinbase.
However, Coinbase can increase those limits if you ask nicely.

Whatever you do, stay away from Bitfinex. They're currently not letting anyone
withdraw money.

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aminorex
The last point is not true. Bitfinex withdrawals in btc, xmr, eur, hkd all
work just fine. USD is the only unusable currency.

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wmf
You could easily sell $1M in one day (e.g. in the Gemini auction) but you'd
lose money due to slippage.

There are brokers and dark pools that could handle $1M without slippage.

~~~
yownie
Gemini specifically auctions to avoid slippage.

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wc-
Given the proper completion of AML / KYC processes liquidating 1m and
withdrawing is pretty painless (although I wouldn't recommend a single market
sell) on the major US exchanges.

If the cryptocurrency markets interest anyone here, we are hiring for full
time and contract positions for software engineers with python and go
experience for market entry/exit algo dev, backoffice P and L dev, and more as
well as data science / quant roles. Currently in stealth mode but should be
public soon.

Reach out to me at supersquare (at) protonmail.com for more information

------
drewblaisdell
Follow-up: the same question, but for $1m in index funds through Vanguard.

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Veratyr
Held as ETFs? Assuming it's in big ones like VOO, they can see $400M turnover
in a business day, so if you're not picky about getting the best fill price
and just sell at the bid, you should be able to do it within a minute or two.
You can then call your broker for a wire transfer and have it in your bank
account within the same day.

~~~
aminorex
Or ask for a Bitcoin transfer and have it in seconds.

~~~
robk
Well 45 min to 1050 min actually [https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-
confirmation-time](https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time)

~~~
aminorex
Confirmations are optional.

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xmodem
[https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/volume/24-hour/](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/volume/24-hour/)

Trading volume on Bitfinex is in the 100s of million, and in the 10s of
millions on most of the other exchanges.

You could do it in a day but it's probably the upper end of what you could
trade without risking having an impact on the price. You'd want to be careful
not to dump it all in one transaction.

~~~
davidgerard
In-exchange volume indicates _nothing_ about actual US dollar liquidity.

That and the fact that you can't get actual US dollars out of Bitfinex. (Which
is what triggered the present bubble - unable to withdraw their USD, people
bought more cryptos with them because there was literally nothing else they
could use them for.)

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RustyRussell
There are private brokers who will facilitate trades larger than this, and I
know Xapo does (did?) as well. Transferring the money back to you may be the
more difficult part, depending on where you are.

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davidgerard
Order books are often disconcertingly thin. When GDAX restarted with a
configuration error only allowing sells, the price went from $1184 to 6 cents
in about 100 BTC of trades. This quickly recovered of course, but that's how
thin it is. [http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/04/16/gdax-bitcoin-price-
briefly...](http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/04/16/gdax-bitcoin-price-briefly-
crashes-us0-06-system-maintenance/)

Large sales frequently cause $20-30 dips. [http://www.coindesk.com/high-seas-
bitcoin-trading-whales-sti...](http://www.coindesk.com/high-seas-bitcoin-
trading-whales-still-make-waves/)

So you'll want to take it slowly, and across multiple exchanges if you can.
Check Reddit that a given exchange isn't having (what's the phrase) "problems
with the traditional banking system", i.e. you can get ActualMoney out.

Also, don't go within a mile of Bitfinex - users _still_ can't get hard
currency out without a local Taiwan bank account (if even that still works).

~~~
fivestar
Wow, this all sounds...sketchy.

~~~
davidgerard
Everything about Bitcoin, from the original software up, is built by amateurs
from gaffer tape and string. (Bitcoinica->Bitfinex and Mt. Gox were literally
"I know PHP, how hard can writing an exchange be?") It's reiterating the
history of financial systems as well as financial regulation, in fast forward.

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yial
So, and this doesn't answer the one million dollar question.

I recently liquidated a much smaller amount (in the thousands ) of Bitcoin.

Using Kraken (no affliation) it probably took me about a month from
transferring my btc from My private wallet to them, to having the ability to
finally transfer to my bank account. This was largely due to the verification
time, and some issues with the verification photo.

Once it was all setup the process was quick and painless.

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socialist_coder
probably a question better suited to r/bitcoin or some similar subreddit

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csomar
If you want to sell and not incur slippage, bitfinex has an OTC market and
Gemini has an auction market. Millions are changing hand everyday.

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noway421
Depends on whether you want to hide the fact of the transactions. Going the
legit way, suppose you don't

Then it is the matter of registering on an exchange and buying out all the
bids. With 1m even now, you'll make a whole lot of turbulence in the market.
After that just withdraw it to your bank accounts, you might have to have a
chat with your exchange before that though

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max_
Aabout 1 billion dollars of trade volume per day.

[http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets](http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets)

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meric
If you had existing accounts with all the exchanges then yes you could do it
in a couple of days. A lot of them have $10k or $20k limits. Also it can take
some days to verify your account, which needs to be done for most exchanges.

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jjawssd
1e6 USD / (1e4 USD / account) = 100 bitcoin exchange accounts

Any other solutions?

~~~
wc-
If you open an account with Gemini (large, legitimate US-based exchange) and
go through their standard AML / KYC processes they will do unlimited USD wire
transfers, both incoming and outgoing, for either personal or institutional
accounts.

If you go through the standard AML / KYC processes at any of the other US-
based exchanges the wire withdrawal limits go up significantly (hundreds of
thousands) and there are similar upgrades in withdrawal limits across the
major euro exchanges.

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acarrera
Cumberland mining, itbit otc, gemini daily auction. You could sell them easily
with a typical 0.1% cost. Silbert's otc division probably (never traded with
them though). $1mm is a pretty common trade nowadays.

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homero
Barry silbert can do it privately but any exchange can handle it

