Holding a internet worth of nigh $140 billion, Jeff Bezos could theoretically afford to buy all the Bitcoin (BTC) in circulation. What would happen if he tried? Genesis Mining's head of mining operations, Philip Salter, weighed in on the thing.

"Of form he could simply buy the liquid BTC on exchanges, massively driving upwardly prices in the process," Salter told Cointelegraph in an email.

Bitcoin only has so many coins available for immediate buy

Bitcoin has a current circulating supply of 18,339,687, only over the years, industry participants gauge at least some of this supply has been lost by early adopters and miners who no longer are able to admission their original stashes.

Additionally, the BTC which is currently for sale on exchanges, also called liquid Bitcoin, is only a small fraction of the coins in apportionment. "It'south hard to say how many coins are up for sale right now and at what price level investors would stop hodling to sell their coins," Salter said.

"I don't recall he could to buy a large pct of all BTC this way, because when the toll starts going up, people will terminate selling their coins, assuming there is a new spike approaching and wanting to turn a profit from that," he added.

Bezos would eat up all available liquidity

If Bezos flooded the BTC markets with buy orders, all the liquidity would quickly disappear, with surging prices blocking out further buying, Salter explained.

"Salter mentioned other alternative purchase methods, such as over-the-counter, or OTC buying, likewise as picking up stacks of the coin from miners. "Maybe he could pull off a big purchase without increasing the price immediately by making several deals like this at the same time," he said.

Salter did make sure to notation that his comments are speculative, however, every bit he is not currently on meridian of exchange liquidity levels, or those property stockpiles of BTC.

At a press time cost near $vii,115, Bitcoin's entire market cap sits at $130,483,137,741. At his current net worth, Bezos could theoretically afford all BTC, and still have nigh $10 billion to spare.