Owning bitcoins: does it really make one rich or not?

Question

I have been thinking about this question for years without really understanding it.

Let's say Bob invested a small amount of money, some amount around 100 dollars, in 2013, and now it would become like 90000 dollars, which is a pretty big rise. And he can comfortably trade it out on coinbase for example to get the cash in his real bank.

However in a situation that if Bob invested 1,000,000 dollars in bitcoin in 2013, now he would theoretically have like 900,000,000 dollars. However when he tries to sell those coins to get the real money, I would imagine it can be pretty hard to find someone that is willing to pay 900,000,000 dollars to buy his coins. Also I am pretty certain coinbase and any other trading platform wouldn't allow him to sell that much coin.

In this sense, he does not really have 900,000,000 dollars and is not really that rich. So the question now becomes how much money does he really have, in the sense that he can get the cash immediately by selling the coins he have.

Answer 1

If Bob tried to sell all of his $900,000,000 worth of bitcoin in one big market order, it would probably take a long time for his order to get filled and he may significantly move the market. If he used a limit-order with a fixed price instead, it would create a sell wall, much like during the fabled "Slaying of the BearWhale" on 2014-10-06 when an individual put up a sell offer for ₿30,000 at $300/₿ on Bitstamp. The price had been around $350 that day, which was subsequently suppressed to $300 for around 6 hours until the order was filled.

^{via ShapeShift’s "Slaying of Bearwhale" commemoration page found on archive.fo.}

So, while I would consider it accurate to say that Bob’s current networth is $900,000,000, this figure would of course be subject to the exchange rate of Bitcoin and he certainly does not have access to the equivalent amount in a different currency instantaneously. As you already suggest in your question, it would be silly for Bob to try and trade his entire position in one swoop on an exchange. Instead he could sell smaller amounts at regular intervals, negotiate an over-the-counter deal with a large buyer such as e.g. an ETF, or simply use Bitcoin as the digital cash it is and directly pay with his bitcoins.

Answer 2

In this sense, he does not really have 900,000,000 dollars and is not really that rich.

This would be the sense in which someone with 14 tonnes of gold does not have 900,000,000 dollars and is not really that rich.

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So the question now becomes how much money does he really have, in the sense that he can get the cash immediately by selling the coins he have.

No need for Bob to "get the cash", Bob already has cash. Bitcoin is cash.