Quote from: CoinCarrie on June 16, 2016, 06:14:26 PM

Quote from: NUFCrichard on June 16, 2016, 05:49:31 PM

Surely an exchange is just a trading platform provided to allow buyers to buy from sellers who want to sell...
They don't need any Bitcoins themselves, they just need to have enough sellers so that the buyers can always buy.

If someone wants to buy a very large amount that can't be satisfied by the sellers, then an unfulfilled order will be left over. Or the price gets pushed up until it is fulfilled. Due to arbitrage between exchanges, increases in price in one exchange will either be brought back down, or other exchanges will follow higher.

If I understood the question correctly!

Yes, that was the question. Everyone seems to be in agreement too. I also agree as all of the replies make sense - ty

I said something different to what all of the other post above me did. They all implied that an exchange needs to be an early adopter or hve lots of bitcoins, I said that they don't, they are merely a platform.

It's the same as Betfair compared to a Bookmaker, Betfair is an exchange and only acts as a platform, a bookmaker has to have lots of funds to cover losses.