user332: I am curious about how to acquire a lot of bitcoins (or similarly move a lot of bitcoins) without hitting the bid/ask
I don't care about blockexplorer, I am just curious about price discovery
are there any darkpools? could I just use an illiquid exchange and personally contact the counterparty and have them take the trade
options would be good too, this would make acquiring bitcoins at a certain strike easier as this is already a negotiation between the person on the other side of the contract

user27: As David mentioned, the market price will be influenced regardless. If you would like to potentially minimize / delay your transaction's impact on the market, I can think of a few methods. 
I think the best way to obscure your buy would be to find someone in the #bitcoin-otc who is interested is selling a large quantity. You could then arrange some deal to not speak publicly about the transaction.
I think this might be what you are looking to do.
I could be wrong about this minimizing impact on the market price, David surely knows more about the economics end than I do.

user323: To accomplish that you would have to find a person who would be willing to sell you a big amount of Bitcoins outside of the market. This would be hard, because a lot of people are afraid of scams, but it is certainly feasible. Still, the best bet to get a lot of Bitcoins without influencing their price (or at least not bringing the exchange rate down) would be to invest in large scale mining rigs. This approach is slower, but attracts less attention. Moreover, since the difficulty would increase due to your mining, it might positively influence the exchange rate (harder to earn coins => they are more valuable).

user461: Any large enough transaction should move the price, even if it is somehow "off the grid" though in that case it may move the price later. This would also apply with any other forex trade the difference is that the amount of liquidity in the bitcoin market is by comparison very small. To buy $100,000 in bitcoin would probably be a very large part of a day's trading, while in a market like say EURUSD you could trade $100,000,000 without it being a particularly huge transaction. It is just about the ratio of the size of the trade vs the entire market.

user4070: We do this all the time in the financial industry. It's called iceberging:

Some markets allow dark liquidity to be posted inside the existing limit order book alongside public liquidity, usually through the use of iceberg orders. Iceberg orders generally specify an additional "display quantity"—i.e., smaller than the overall order quantity. The order is queued along with other orders but only the display quantity is printed to the market depth. When the order reaches the front of its price queue, only the display quantity is filled before the order is automatically put at the back of the queue and must wait for its next chance to get a fill. Such orders will, therefore, get filled less quickly than the fully public equivalent, and they often carry an explicit cost penalty in the form of a larger execution cost charged by the market. Iceberg orders are not truly dark either, as the trade is usually visible after the fact in the market's public trade feed.

Source

user81: There is a way to acquire a lot of bitcoins without immediately affecting the price, and that is to buy mining equipment or contracts. Depending on the value of bitcoin and the cost of your contract, you may be able to acquire bitcoins for about the same amount as you would if you bought them on the open market, however, you would not acquire them instantly.
There are obviously other factors to consider when using this strategy.

user85: It won't work, no matter how you do it. If you acquire a lot of Bitcoins, that will mean that a lot of people who wanted to get rid of their Bitcoins no longer want to get rid of their Bitcoins. Thus, they will stop supplying them. The reduction in supply will move the bid/ask prices. It's fundamental economics and you can't change it.

332: <p>I am curious about how to acquire a lot of bitcoins (or similarly move a lot of bitcoins) without hitting the bid/ask</p>

<p>I don't care about blockexplorer, I am just curious about price discovery</p>

<p>are there any darkpools? could I just use an illiquid exchange and personally contact the counterparty and have them take the trade</p>

<p>options would be good too, this would make acquiring bitcoins at a certain strike easier as this is already a negotiation between the person on the other side of the contract</p>
 27: <p>As David mentioned, the market price will be influenced regardless. If you would like to potentially minimize / delay your transaction's impact on the market, I can think of a few methods. </p>

<p>I think the best way to obscure your buy would be to find someone in the #bitcoin-otc who is interested is selling a large quantity. You could then arrange some deal to not speak publicly about the transaction.</p>

<p>I think this might be what you are looking to do.</p>

<p>I could be wrong about this minimizing impact on the market price, David surely knows more about the economics end than I do.</p>
 323: <p>To accomplish that you would have to find a person who would be willing to sell you a big amount of Bitcoins outside of the market. This would be hard, because a lot of people are afraid of scams, but it is certainly feasible. Still, the best bet to get a lot of Bitcoins without influencing their price (or at least not bringing the exchange rate down) would be to invest in large scale mining rigs. This approach is slower, but attracts less attention. Moreover, since the difficulty would increase due to your mining, it might positively influence the exchange rate (harder to earn coins => they are more valuable).</p>
 461: <p>Any large enough transaction should move the price, even if it is somehow "off the grid" though in that case it may move the price later. This would also apply with any other forex trade the difference is that the amount of liquidity in the bitcoin market is by comparison very small. To buy $100,000 in bitcoin would probably be a very large part of a day's trading, while in a market like say EURUSD you could trade $100,000,000 without it being a particularly huge transaction. It is just about the ratio of the size of the trade vs the entire market.</p>
 4070: <p>We do this all the time in the financial industry. It's called iceberging:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Some markets allow dark liquidity to be posted inside the existing limit order book alongside public liquidity, usually through the use of iceberg orders. Iceberg orders generally specify an additional "display quantity"—i.e., smaller than the overall order quantity. The order is queued along with other orders but only the display quantity is printed to the market depth. When the order reaches the front of its price queue, only the display quantity is filled before the order is automatically put at the back of the queue and must wait for its next chance to get a fill. Such orders will, therefore, get filled less quickly than the fully public equivalent, and they often carry an explicit cost penalty in the form of a larger execution cost charged by the market. Iceberg orders are not truly dark either, as the trade is usually visible after the fact in the market's public trade feed.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_liquidity#Iceberg_orders" rel="nofollow">Source</a></p>
 81: <p>There is a way to acquire a lot of bitcoins without immediately affecting the price, and that is to buy mining equipment or contracts. Depending on the value of bitcoin and the cost of your contract, you may be able to acquire bitcoins for about the same amount as you would if you bought them on the open market, however, you would not acquire them instantly.</p>

<p>There are obviously other factors to consider when using this strategy.</p>
 85: <p>It won't work, no matter how you do it. If you acquire a lot of Bitcoins, that will mean that a lot of people who wanted to get rid of their Bitcoins no longer want to get rid of their Bitcoins. Thus, they will stop supplying them. The reduction in supply will move the bid/ask prices. It's fundamental economics and you can't change it.</p>
