I know it's impractical and can't be done within probably even a day nor a week, but what would happen if someone very rich would like to spend ~1 billion on bitcoins and buy it all?
At first glance looks like it would be the end. Thinking a bit more it suggests that the later bitcoins would be so expensive that even he couldn't afford it, but he would have so much that could make a huge profit out of it.
If there's someone more literate than me in economics, I'd love a detailed and argumented response.
This has bee discussed before.
1) you go bankrupt as did the Hunt brothers - in there attempt to monopolise silver.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Bunker_Hunt2) an amazing feature of Bitcoin not often discussed is if you have them all they become worthless.
So in conclusion even if you think you have the means you don't, and if you were successful you have gained nothing.
They didn't go bankrupt "because they tried to monopolise silver", they went bankrupt because COMEX changed the rules of the game.
You don't buy *all* the bitcoin, you would just buy enough of it.
You are the US govt. You have infinite money. You buy anything below market price, and put it back up for sale at some percentage higher. The market will trened higher, and you will gradually accumulate bitcoin all of which was bougth for less then the market price.
The more you own the more scarce a commodity it becomes and this is what will support the price. You do it throughout the inflationary period of bitcoin. At which point bitcoin has replaced dollar, you as the govt own most of it, all the while you have also been cornering the block chain by ramping up govt controlled cpu power. You then set your miners to ignore zero fee / low fee, thus effectively enforcing a minimum price for transactions that have any need to go through quickly. Now you are taxing the world. Welcome to The New New Order!