Bitcoin Forum

http://altcoinpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/jon_matonis-728x410.jpg

For those of you that don’t eat, breathe, and sleep cryptocurrency, you might not have been aware that Bitcoin was (until today) thought to have a hard cap on the total number of coins that could be generated.

According to the official Bitcoin Wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#How_long_will_it_take_to_generate_all_the_coins.3F), Satoshi’s original plan called for the last Bitcoin to be mined around the year 2140, which would stop production at just under 21,000,00 bitcoins.


But according to a tweet today (https://twitter.com/jonmatonis/status/611844197331693568) by former Bitcoin Foundation Director, Jon Matonis, it’s not a matter of “if” an increase will occur – but “when”.

The main question that arises when pondering this “inevitable” change is, “how will increasing the total supply affect the Bitcoin price?” One could speculate that increasing the cap to 42,000,000 for example would cut the BTC price in half.

Full Story: http://altcoinpress.com/2015/06/bitcoin-executive-says-21-million-cap-increase-inevitable/

Jon Matonis is not saying that we should increase the 21M cap. He's saying that at some point in the future, someone will try and increase it. As many have pointed out - if this ever happens successfully, the value of bitcoin will be significantly destroyed. Jon Matonis is an early adopter and holds a large % of his wealth in bitcoin, so he is obviously opposed to increasing the size. Please understand the context of his words before making a premature judgement on what he means.

Read through all of his tweets from today ...


https://twitter.com/jonmatonis/status/611844197331693568

Interesting. Anyone who proposes this is out of their mind. We've already argued in the past the there are enough coins because they can be divide.
If the supply ever changes even to 22 Million, we could almost safely say that Bitcoin would die afterwards. I'm not sure how other holders feel but if this ever happens I'm jumping ship and never coming back (I think that this is one of the rare scenarios in which I would do that).

Here's another article on the matter for those interested:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/jon-matonis-believes-increased-bitcoin-block-size-will-lead-increased-mining-reward/

Someone should really think about inventing a calculator or some other method for division of units.

Seriously, only governments taking control would think about doing such stupid things.

http://puu.sh/ivrUW/794fa4f287.png

This is what John Matonis said, "Block size hard fork debate is instructive because it's precursor to inevitable fork revising block reward that increases 21m cap."

I don't see the point in pretending he didn't say something he said. :)

At the end of the article, it asks "Do you think Jon Matonis has flipped his wig?"

I say: ABSOLUTELY.  
 
The blocksize increase is necessary to deal
with bandwidth RIGHT NOW.

There's absolutely no reason to increase the monetary supply,
at least not for a very very long time, if EVER.

Conceivably in the future, it could be determined that a pure
deflationary currency has problems, but Bitcoin would have to be
mighty huge to uncover that truth.

If anyone tried to force such a change without very good reason,
i'm almost 100% sure Bitcoin would fork.  I know which fork I
would support.

I think it might even be crucial for bitcoin to increase the cap. psychology of having 0.000000000000001 of a coin aside, there's a very real problem with compensation for miners. Will there really be enough transaction volume to cover mining expenses? By the time the mining rewards become insignificant, the infrastructure around bitcoin will probably be a lot better, and there will be companies like coinbase and xapo that will have bitcoin transactions within its own environment and off chain, to allow micro transactions (so that a 1000 satoshi payment won't require 10000 satoshi transaction fees for example) and to simply save on transaction fees. We don't know how many transactions will actually be done on the blockchain.


If the miner rewards are too low at that time, the bitcoin network will not have enough security and there will inevitably be people who want to destroy it given the chance.

He was being sarcastic...?  Is Jon Matonis against the hard fork?  If he is, he's trying to say Gavin's move is a precursor to a shit storm coming in BTC land.

If XT succeeds, increasing the 21m cap would not seem farfetched.  At least in his eyes.

I don't think that the miners that mined coins with 21M cap would be happy if the maximum number of coins increases(if I was a miner I would not be happy)

And Bitcoin barely can hold the price above the 200 level, if the block reward don't get halved we are going nowhere but down. Increase the maximum number of Bitcoins would be bad right now, even without considering the other effects that would affect the price

the price will collapse as people realize bitcoin is just like fiat.

The 21 Mn cap on bitcoins is what attracted a lot of libertarians to Bitcoin.
I, for one, would be disappointed if this does happen.
Very soon, you could have governments saying that they should decide the cap on number of bitcoins.

How, exactly, would such a change roll out? There is actually no point in the code (that I could find) that specifically imposes such a cap. The only thing that this cap comes from is the method which the block reward comes from, simply dividing by two. There is a point where the rounding used in the code simply returned zero, and that was when the block reward went to zero. This just so happens to be just under 21 million Bitcoin, which is likely just a coincidence, not a specifically hard coded thing.

You all understand that the OP is invested in an alt coin and is a gold bug. This is simple FUD.

thought so.  knew there had to be a simple explanation.

It will depend on some factors such as mining reward, bitcoin price, hashing power, bitcoin adoption etc before the end of bitcoin mining. No one knows it yet! But IMO it is a crazy ideal, which definitely will crash the price. One day bitcoin is popular and the number of it in the circulation cant meet the reqirement of our need, and it falls in to deep deflation. We might need to increase the 21m cap. But who knows now?

The idea of users paying anything but the most trivial of fees for the (fairly amazing) service seems like garlic to a vampire to an interesting set of the 'thought leaders' in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Alternative sources of infrastructure funding would be to have permanent inflation which seems to be what Matonis is alluding to and is wildly popular in mainstream monetary systems these days, or to have costs subsidized in exchange for user exploitation much like certain industry players do with e-mail, cloud storage, etc.

Pick your poison.  Actually, never mind.  Various others have a plan for you.

the source of the article is altcoinpress.com. While I am not familiar with this news service, I think their domain should be a pretty good indicator of their ability to be fair and balanced to Bitcoin. (Note that I have pretty much zero interest in reading the article nor did I)

In others words, there is nothing to see here and you can move along.

first xt now this.  take it how you will.  the propaganda test campaigns have begun.

it could be considered a good thing, only if a very big amount of bitcoin wiill be lost in the future, due to incompetence of major online wallet companies

and the value of bitcoin will not increase too much for compensating the lost coins

OP: just look at the blocksize debate....

good luck with increasing the 21mio cap - that will never happen ;D

It's not really permanent inflation if the inflation is low enough that it will just barely cover for lost coins. Kind of like having lost coins funding for the blockchain's security, rather than to make other people's coins worth more.

I highly doubt anyone with a sizeable stake in bitcoin would want to 21 million cap to be increased.

That's exactly what Matonis' tweet suggested: "[...] fork revising block reward that increases 21m cap." It's the block reward that would be increased, and in turn this would increase the total supply.

Not sure if he was being sarcastic or making a point, but I suggest reading his tweets directly and not the press articles.

IMHO raising the cap of bitcoin will lead to it being no different than fiat. Guess it will depend on how this is done and in which quantities and over which time period it's done.

If it's a matter of 'just' doubling the number of coins then bitcoin, again imo, is no different than fiat.

Alternative currencies are VITAL to pointing out flaws and improving upon Satoshi's design. Burying your head in the sand is probably not useful.

Your statement is insane, noone is burrying their head in the sand, it's just that this whole thread is misleading people with low quality content that has zero chances of being valid.
Bitcoin will not increase it's max. of 21 million, and Jon Matonis is an idiot if he believes that is to happen.
BTW your thread title is wrong on so many levels, pure FUD.



Agreed.

Precisely.
It is suicide and everyone knows it.

Yeah, thinking the same.

It's highly unlikely that such a cap increase would take place without a fork and two competing chains. But even though it's clear that I would never support a cap-increased fork, the consequences would still be disastrous because of the loss of trust.

The same is true (albeit to a lesser degree) if we see a Bitcoin-fork because of the blocksize-drama. While it's clear that I will never support a Hearndresen-Coin, a lot of trust and value will be lost in the process - even on the surviving Bitcoin-chain.

ya.ya.yo!

I stopped reading at "Bitcoin Foundation". They can say whatever they want about Bitcoin, as they have nothing to lose... If he thinks the coin cap will be raised, he's out of his mind.

I really doubt that anyone wants the limit raised.  No one will benefit from this, not even new adopters.  There might be a pshychological disadvantage to using satoshis, but to me this is an interesting part of bitcoins.  The currency has its own flavor and does not need to pretend to be fiat in order to have success.  As the usa continues to print money and give out freebees to banks, i can see the average person slowly beginning to see the advantage of a 21 mil cap.

21 million cap increase would be a good idea, a good idea to kill Bitcoin. No one will support such a fork. The headline on that website is out of context as usual so is the subject in this thread.
Also chuckled at "Bitcoin executive".

If there's a fork, the traditional 21 million cap fork will continue to exist. Likely supported by all the biggest holders who will be able to establish their own mining operations to secure it. The new fork will just be an altcoin. They may even change the name of it. All of us will have coins on both forks. That hardcap fork will only happen once. So we'll deal with the pain and move on. From then on, you can choose whether you want a hardcap or no hard cap. Each fork will have a different hash rate and a different market value.

Thanks for this, I too found it weird why he would want the cap raised.

Jon Matonis is a former Bitcoin Foundation director, which makes his opinion even more worthless than the current director's. Since Bruce Fenton proposed removing Satoshi from the founding members the whole organization has become a liability to Bitcoin. Bitcoin would be better off without the Bitcoin Foundation and the stupid proposals of it's directors.

Actually, by doing it via the block reward they could possibly get miners to sign on.  If the miners support it, then such a fork should be possible.  Still hate the idea.

The largest BTC holders have millions of dollars worth of bitcoin. They will pay to make sure that the 21 million cap version of bitcoin is mined. Then you will have a rich holder-supported hard cap fork and a rich miner-supported no-cap fork. They will both fight for users, developers, and legitimacy. And both will bleed heavily in the process.

The rich miners will have an advantage because they can mine both forks. But the rich holders have an advantage because most users, developers, and services will probably use the classic 21 million cap version. Everyone will get coins on both forks. It should be a lot of fun.

Miners are not dumb, they know how block reward increase would do nothing  other than decrease value per bitcoin.. And why would they support that move? They wouldn't.
The idea is disgraceful and idiotic to any true bitcoin supporter, and i believe such fud is only being spread either by those who want to decrease bitcoin price, or damage bitcoin community.

cheers

I don't like the idea, not at all, but I was under the impression that many miners, especially the ones in China, dump their bitcoins pretty much as soon as they get them, witness the slow price erosion over the last year or so.  Anyway, if they have dumped all their prior coins, they would be happy to see the block reward increased and not care that the overall number of coins is increased as that loss would not be felt by them.

jehst makes an interesting point, I wonder if there are enough rich bitcon holders to make enough side payments to miners.  I think it would be a very short run type thing but agree it would be bad for everyone.

I don't like this idea, I hope this is fud and there is some source that says such a hard fork cannot be done, but I think we have to admit the possibility of it.

What is it that you don't get? If the mining reward increases for let's say double, it is clear that the price will correct itself accordingly, so even the miners that would be receiving double
the amount of coins would still make the same cash as they do now. 25 * 250 = 50 * 125

Also, the far more destructive side fact would be the loss of trust in bitcoin and it's rules, because if you have one case of changing payout size, there's good chance it wouldn't stop at only that change,
few years after, there would be another idiot wanting another block payout increase.

cheers

Miners only care about the marginal bitcoin they mine.  The loss in value is borne by all the holders of bitcoin, which may not be very many miners at all.  So the miners gain proportionally - assuming perfect price correction their income stays the same, everyone else's value drops.

It's just like fiat money, if you don't have any money to begin with, you don't really get all bent about inflation and this is obviously inflationary.

Yep, agree that doing this is bad for long term health of bitcoin.

Bitcoin Executive?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

It will be like Fed is printing new dollars lol
There will not be bitcoin anymore.
Stupid idea period!

and if bitcoin does not become a preferred method of transfer p2p between individuals by 2024, 95% of all coins will have been mined.

Who will buy into a commodity where 95% has been mined if there isnt a legacy rail, such as NASDAQ, built into the bitcoin blockchain?

When exactly is he suggesting this might happen? I doubt anyone would support this in the next 10/20 years this seems like something that could be attempted by gov intervention later on down the line if the world has converted to bitcoin.

it does look like a ghood troll attempt from the beginning, no one in his right mind would be pro to this, it would not benefit anyone, to have the supply limit increase

the whole point is to have it as a low as possible and this is basically going in the opposite direction

The people who wants this to happen, will not use the Bitcoin protocol to do this.

The banks already said, they are VERY interested in the Blockchain technology. They will employ the best Bitcoin engineers out there to develop a Blockchain type technology that would suite all their requirements. {Even the ability to increase the so-called capped coin limit}

They will mimic the current fiat model and decide when and how this limit would be changed in small increments. {Giving them the ability to create money out of thin air, like they do with fiat money today}

I am not worried about Bitcoin... I am worried about what Banks are cooking up. {The digital equivalent of fiat} Adoption would not be a problem, because it would be backed and forced by the governments. 

my second job is vice president of internet and I have to confirm, what bitcoin executive said. :P :P :P

It is not like coin value halves on the news that the potential cap 200 years from now is doubled... Value is based on what is currently available and the rate on how it becomes available.. Not some magical number it might one time be.. Imagine they did this with fiat. In 100 years we will have 10 times the amount of fiat in circulation. WTF? My fiat is now suddenly and magically worth 1/10 of before this news???

What a joke, you increase supply if you want to destroy bitcoin. Good luck with that, btw its divisble to Bits.

If the limit is changed, that would totally removed the purpose and objective on what bitcoin is about in the first place. I don't understand why we need to come to that, fact is at current scenario with supply slightly above 14 million, it is already more than enough to meeting existing demands, not to mention that we still have further small divisible number as a backup plan. If the demands scale accordingly and there's a need for liquidity, we always have an option. That is already built into bitcoin.

Seems like it was just his sarcastic / roundabout way of saying that increasing the block size is equivalent to block reward increase (btw, a statement which I do not agree with): "Preventing the Bitcoin block reward from halving in July 2016 is the evil twin of a block size increase." - @jonmatonis

You're getting it wrong; op is full of bs, as is his source for this "news". He took statement from Jon Matonis and misrepresented it as hot but fake news.

Jon Matonis ‏@jonmatonis  Jun 19
.@CoinSlumIt If two people can easily propagate a Bitcoin XT code version to increase block size, couldn't it also be done for block reward?

Note from the above tweet that he's only saying it would be possible, not that anyone in his sane mind would agree to such a thing, i know i wouldn't.
Pure bs news and thread, and making the thread title ".. bitcoin  executive .." where the truth is that he is only Bitcoin Foundation Director, and a former one to be exact.

cheers

All the people who think that increasing the limit is against the "purpose and objective" of bitcoin and will make everyone completely lose confidence in it has no idea what bitcoin is about in the first place.


Bitcoin is not about having 0 adaptability and flexibility, eventually becoming unsuitable since society is always changing. Bitcoin is about programmable money; it's about having the flexibility to change and make it adapt to changing conditions, to add functionality that previous generations have not thought of before. That's where it beats out inflexible and unchanging government money. And that's what makes bitcoin valuable.


There's no reason having a set schedule of some small amount of emissions every block after 2140 would completely destroy the price. Such an update will only be made if it's near certain that it is required to keep the blockchain alive, probably because miner fees are simply not sufficient to keep the blockchain secure enough.


Perhaps there will be a small segment in the population who will be against such an increase. They can have their original fork. But those people would only be a small fraction of bitcoin users; probably only a fraction of the users today. They might have their 1 billion market cap, while the new chain can have a trillion dollar market cap.

Figured as much. The sad thing is that a lot of new bitcoin users come to forum to learn more about it, only to find such FUD threads and claims, and they can't tell weather its bull or not.
btc i see that you placed this member on your personal radar, love the commitment  :-*

cheers

Guys, please explain exactly where is all this FUD you're talking about? I think it's important to talk about these issues, not pretend like they don't exist. We don't need another reddit.com/r/bitcoin where critical (or satirical) commentary is practically banned.

... and I'm not anti-bitcoin!!!

I don't agree that only a small segment will be against an increase.  Why would that be the case since everyone (not just early adopters) would suffer from inflation?

Also, regarding if transaction fees alone will be able to secure the network, consider the average
daily transaction volume is already $50M USD.  https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd.  Say in the future this only becomes $200M usd.  Then you could still raise $500,000 in transaction fees using a quarter of one percent transaction fee.  I think anyway you slice it, transaction fees will be adequate in all but the most bleak of scenarios.

You should read the entire Twitter conversation (https://twitter.com/jonmatonis/status/611844197331693568). He's simply putting "food for thought" out there and fueling this important discussion.

http://puu.sh/ixZHC/5a50228688.png

Quit making FUD = Facts U Don't like! (Using words like FUD, TROLL, and SCAM, are intellectual escapes, ways of dodging discussion)

There is no discussion to be made about the 21M limit. Consensus will never be reached, not even close. End of story.

Discussing about this is a big waste of time.

Look at base voters in the united states and ask yourself how many people want welfare, food stamps, and free public services. I think the block reward increase is only a matter of time unless some mechanism is built to make that increase impossible. Maybe some kind of charter or constitution would be helpful.

Not sure if this executive is stupid or just trolling. If the 21 million cap was ever lifted or raised or changed in anyway you would see a huge run out the floods gates myself included. His post doesn't make any sense. The 21 million cap has been in place since the inception. The 1MB cap was a temporary cap that was intended to be removed later. His post may as well say "Block size fork will lead to one mysql database keeping track of coins instead of decentralized blockchain". It's just pure idiocy.

What do welfare and food stamps users, aswell as free public services have to do with bitcoin? Will they  cast a majority vote regarding block reward, or 51% the network from their trailer park ?
btw..
Bitcoin Executive is fictional character/title, it's something that doesn't exist, so you might as well say "Daffy Duck Says 21 Million Cap Increase Inevitable"
And then say you are not spreading, and also creating  FUD..

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mac3x3mzkj1ruj2iwo1_400.gif

cheers

Would someone who was once the Director of the Bitcoin Foundation really think that the two are even remotely comparable? Because the differences between the two proposals are enormous. Satoshi always intended for the block size limit to be increased at some point in the future. That was always part of Bitcoin's design and it was never a question of "if" but "when". That the majority of miners would someday support a hard fork that aims to increase the max block size is to be expected:


Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09964.html

Arbitrarily increasing the total number of coins changes a fundamental aspect of what Bitcoin is and Satoshi's comments make it clear that such a thing would be very undesirable. Even if there is no centralized party trying to enforce a fork, I find it unlikely that miners would accept the latter or even equate the two proposals as being anything remotely similar.


It would be a hard fork that involves a change in the coin emission algorithm. You're correct that there is nowhere in the code that specifically calls for a max cap of 21 million coins. However, this number can be deduced by looking at the emission rate (50 BTC blocks every 10 minutes with a halving every ~4 years). Changing the specifics of the emission algorithm would change the maximum number of coins but to do so would require a hard fork.

Acceptance of the hard fork can be measured by looking at the proportion of miners who switch to the new chain. Most likely the chain would bifurcate since any proposal to change the maximum number of coins would be very controversial (to put it lightly), and you would have two chains on either side that exist independently of the other.

That fork will never gain support. Sure the someone might make the code change, but there would be no support of that code.

The only ones who would benefit would be one or two mega miners. No merchant, full node operator or normal bitcoiner would run it.

I agree, bitcoin needs to remove the hardcap on its controlled supply.



SOmetime very soon, e.g. 2020-2024, 90%+ of bitcoins will have been mined. At that point, one can easily argue that through lost coins + satoshi's coins that bitcoin will become deflationary: the block reward (3.25) will not be able to usurp what is being or has been lost from the network.

That will cause bitcoin to become a deflationary commodity.

Since the block reward cannot defeat what is being lost on the network, bitcoin's value will rise due to its pure scarcity. This will absolutely create a bubble, but one that cannot ever be re-flated... this would be an endgame bubble. If you are looking to exchange fiat into bitcoin somewhere between 2020-2024, you will be faced with a reality where 95% of all bitcoins will already have been mined and its monetary base will decline forever into the year 2100. Also one has to consider that if bitcoin does ever reach a deflationary state, you may also see transactions decrease because people are discincentivized to spend bitcoin when its value is increasing. If that occurs, miners will lose fees, and bitcoin's network security will suffer because the block reward will be negligible.

This is of course assuming that in 2020 bitcoin will be worth more than it is today. This also does not make any assumptions as to what blockstream can accomplish, or bitcoin 2.0.

There's no doubt in my mind that for bitcoin to truly succeed, it's monetary base needs to be expanded.

because where we are today in terms of development is far behind where bitcoin is as a finite commodity (that has been mined 66% already).

The fact is, bitcoin would have taken over the world already if normal people think like you guys do. But they don't. They aren't deathly afraid of the government or government money. They don't think USD is a scam. They're completely fine with it. They'll be completely fine with increasing bitcoin emissions too, when the time comes.

increasing emissions won't destroy bitcoin's price if there is a clear purpose for it, as opposed to simply enriching the miners. Not increasing emissions could destroy the price, if it becomes a necessary thing to do. We can't really predict or know what will happen in the future, we'll have to see. But there needs to be a flexibility to deal with changes in society and the addition of new knowledge and technology. If bitcoin can't adapt, something else will simply take over its place.

Also, as I've said before, transcation volume doesn't matter if most of that volume is off-chain and made within companies like coinbase or xapo.

Pretty sure that in nearly all scenarios increasing supply will see a fall in price unless you have an appropriate increase in demand to maintain that price level. Contrary to your point, I simply cannot see a scenario where raising the limit is actually necessary - given bitcoin is divisible down to the satoshi you don't actually need to go any further unless you run out of units to state. And that'll only happen if a single person for some reason needs to hold less than a single satoshi (i.e. a single satoshi has a significant value).

It's not about rising the limit. It's about giving enough incentive to miners so that the network is secure enough. That said, there is a psychological problem with having 0.00000000000000000000001 units of a currency, it's very real. Saying that you can keep dividing it isn't necessarily the best solution. In the first place, allowing finer divisions would require a fork, anyway. Perhaps at that time a better solution will have been discovered. And perhaps that involves increasing emissions.

you are assuming that removing the supply limit would just mean keep mining a small % of coin that will not influence the final deflationary nature of bitcoin, but this only if it is around the 3.25 coin per block as you have described, or less

but actually i cannot see any reason why miners should mine everything above a small value the one from fees, if the price will skyrocket, and if not their tech would be so advanced that consumption will be non existing,

and with the fact that, they will probably roi'd on every equipments, they will have no reason to stop mining, so miners don't need other incentive to keep mining

I think his point was that people want/like free money.
But there is no free money giveaway here.
Even if the block rewards increase, you still have to mine it.

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file:///D:/Users/ncuz/Documents/Lightshot/Screenshot_14.png
first ph mmm global 

If the block reward is maintained at 1 Satoshi after 2140, the value of BTC will not drop. These extra Bitcoin (0.0005256 bitcoin) shall only be enough to account for the lost coin every year.

LOL, what the hell is a "bitcoin executive".  :D

The chance of that changing is 0.00000000000000000000000000000001% Give me a break.  ::)

Agreed.  ;)

maybe should buy gold and silver!

Why?
And why would the price drop anyway?

I believe that the reward from the transaction fees will be more than enough.
No new Bitcoins needed.

The price of a BTC in 2140 will be in the billions, of course the small % one will get from running a node will be enough. Mining and then procesing transactions will always be a profitable business for someone out there.

You BELIEVE. But that's not necessarily what will happen. It could be that it won't be nearly enough.

To decide now that bitcoin will NEVER need a better emissions schedule is just silly.

first,

humans have been mining gold for probably well over 4000 years.

We will mine 95% of all bitcoins inside of 20.


Depending on who you believe, there is most likely more than tens of thousands of tons of gold to be mined on earth. We don't know what the gold market looks like at 95% mined, or the oil market, or any other commodity market.

Your chart is not very analogous for not only those reasons, but also because USD and basically every currency in the world has been devalued tremendously over the course of that chart. Gold today for all intents and purposes is not used as barter or trade or exchange of value.

you are right, :D its exactly opposite that FUD topic title
shame on you topic author

This would be fatal for BTC.

You really have a way with words.  :P

This is all quite ho hum.

I'm not sure a fork for more than 21M is inevitable, but I regard it as very likely.

So what?

That fork will be NotBitcoin. Bitcoin will continue unaffected.

You wanna use NotBitcoin? Be my guest. I believe the vast majority will prefer to use good ol' Bitcoin - capped at ever-so-slightly-less than 21M units.

The 'problem' corrects itself.

Yur doin' it wrung

another idfference is that gold total supply is unknown, bitcoin instead not so much and it should remain at 21M

i'm starting to think that satoshi mined 1M+ coins(i don't he dumped his coin), to help reduce it even further and to increase the possible price of it faster

If someone tries to raise the effective cap people will not join the new fork.
Unless there were compelling circumstances to evolve bitcoin.
That said I do expect people to try hard to increase it someday in the future but in the end it's the clients and community that will make that decision if we ever need to approach that question in the future.

This would kill the value of bitcoin, and people would dump this puppy down to under $100 if this happened! Mr M needs to cool it.

You know if someone says that the 21M should be raised, they have no idea how Bitcoin works.
Bitcoin is multiplied by division.
There will come a time when people will no longer think in Bitcoin as whole numbers. At that stage Bitcoin will be infinitely divisible, the difference being that those who invests early enough to have whole bitcoins will have their quota go up in value, rather than lose value simply because people want more bitcoin.

Mercia will fight(literally.. murder many people) in attemtps to gain control of the supply of BTC.

The nice thing about bitcoin is so will other countries which will prevent one(for awhile) from taking control.


NEVER underestimate what a politician will do to gain power over something.

Typically those suggesting to raise the 21 million cap dont understand that the decimals on bitcoins can be changed to anything needed. So its impossible to say something like "there will be too few bitcoins for everyone in the world". The thing is that we dont need to give everyone a bitcoin. There are already enough smaller units millibitcoin, satoshies and so on. The simple solution, that was implemented by satoshie, is that the decimals can be made even more.

So i dont see why anyone should demand raising the 21 million cap.

It will never happen, never. Everyone on Bitcoin knows it would be the death of it, developers know it, miners know it, users know it.
Attackers with a goal to destroy Bitcoin know that to reach the consensus for the limit to be raised would require such a big amount of resources that it would be pointless.
We are safe against stuff like that.

Somebody go ahead and fork it - get it over with. Let's learn empirically how absolutely worthless NotBitcoin is.

It's such a perfect thing we have going on, but some many people want to screw with it its becoming "inevitable" odds are a fork, or an increase is bound to happen. Ppl can't just leave things they way they are.

Well now we have to deal with this bitcoin executives we didnt ask for talking about adding more cap, i would consider to add the coin that are confirm that to be recover, just by adding 5 to 10m btc price would go down so much just based on speculation.

Whenever I see debate over sig campaigns and wether they should be banned from the forums here it brings to mind threads like these. People posting whatever unfounded FUD and disinformation to bolster their post count. Notice how many posters in this thread have ads in their sigs?

Notice the ad in my sig? It takes one to know one! Doesn't mean this thread is any less crap or OP any less a fa9907