Bitcoin Forum

All they would have to do is persuade the Core Developers, The Miners, and the general Bitcoin Users that increasing the 21 million Bitcoin cap is a good thing and perhaps the only solution to some problem.

The only argument I ever hear for increasing the cap (and I hear it far to often!) is that mining bitcoin will not be profitable enough for the miners to continue to do it, therefore we should increase the 21 million cap so we can pay the miners more. THIS IS A HORRIBLE ARGUMENT!!!!

It is a matter of basic supply vs demand. If the supply of bitcoin is less than the demand, the price of bitcoin must necessarily go up. So after a halving and the supply of bitcoin is contained, miners selling bitcoin will be asking for higher prices to keep their profits up, and the supply being so low, buyers will have no choice but to pay the higher price for bitcoin if they want some. So miners will remain profitable because the market will correct itself to make the lower amount of bitcoin still profitable for the miners by becoming more expensive.

The more bitcoins there are, the less valuable the become. If you increase the supply of bitcoin, the price of bitcoin goes down! Now who here wants to see the price of bitcoin going down?? If you want a inflationary currency just stick with the us dollar, they print that by the trillions! If you want the bitcoin price to go up, then the 21 million cap must remain!

If the argument is that mining will no longer be profitable, that is the worst argument ever. If the demand for bitcoin remains at least what is today, then the price will go up when the supply is decreased and the miners will remain profitable. IF the demand increases, even more so. That is the design that satoshi nakamot implemented into bitcoin and we should stick to it.

If the demand is not enough to justify a price that makes mining profitable, then the miners can mine for other crypto currencies and the remaining miners would get a higher percentage of the rewards.

We must NEVER let anyone convince us to change the 21 million limit! If we do that, we remove the TRUST in bit coin's limited supply. ONce you change the limit once, you can change again and again and again and people will see it as just another fiat with an unlimited supply. All trust will be lost, the masses with shout SCAM! and I for one will selloff all my bitcoins and move into another crypto currency that I can trust will not inflate.

The bankers may very well try something like this. So we must be on our guard!

So all they have to do is convince all of us to change the protocol? Sounds fair to me. There is more chance of the Sun exploding tomorrow than convincing me.

Miners are only part of the equation. Not everything turns around them... If they get too little reward, hashrate will drop and mining will become more profitable again. It will be self sustaining..

I agree not to increase the cap though, that would be bad.

They are historically masters at persuasion when it comes to things like this. REmember they employ the most persuasive team of lobbyists in the world and they also own the press and the media….

As long as there is bitcoin, there will be miners. profitable or not.  When their multi million dollar mining farm become un-profitable, and the hash rate drops it will be time again for me and many other to fire up some miners.

I'm sure your right about having good people. But it is fair if they want to lobby the bitcoin using public to go with a fork. That gives them no more control than you have, and you have convinced me not to increase the total. So you won and they have already lost. Good job!
 :D

Core Devs, among many other people, have a lot to lose if Bitcoin starts going in a different direction. That's why we have all this friction regarding block size changes. Devs are afraid that the core essence of Bitcoin is changed and this whole thing fails. I don't see them being easily manipulated.

Even if they were manipulated, some of them might resist, and if all of them were manipulated, they would probably be forking to a government run chain, used by nobody :D

op, I agree but I think no one would agree to changing supply.  if some people did, it would necessarily be a fork and the inflation coin would lose.  it's such a core part of Bitcoin that I think you don't have to worry.

In fact, it might be even good to reduce the supply making Bitcoin more scarce. At least for those who are holding them :)

This would never work, it would be the ultimate betrayal. I think if the core devs sell themselves at that level ruining Bitcoin, they would be at danger by some mad cryproanarchists , don't wanna piss them off.
In any case, I think someone would start a fork to try to counteract that.

It is not as simple as that fortunately.

Miners don't set the price (exchange rate) for Bitcoin. It's really the other way around: The Bitcoin price determines the number of miners.

They wouldn't wanna destroy BTC. It's too valuable a commodity for any one to want rid of it.

Unless bankers become miners, and get over 51% of all mining activity, there is absolutely zero chance that this will ever happen. Worse than that, if bankers effectively become miners, they will make money, which will make them think like the other miners...

not exactly.  you need virtually 100% of network participants (miners, consumers, investors, and merchants) to avoid a fork.  all the miners could switch but if they have no one to accept and buy their new coin, it's worthless.

that is correct, why? because the only ability (as far as i know) to change this supply and control them is to do the 51% attacks, without this kind of control, it will be when pigs fly to control the bitcoin network. i am dead with banks, i am gonna put more money onto bitcoin.

Bankers from different countries have different political view and priorities. Banks operating at multiple countries might be more interested in using bitcoin instead of stopping it

I heard a rumor that BRICS wants to start another currency based on the Bitcoin technology, so this statement isn't false, to my knowledge.

I'm curious as to what gov'ts and various powers see as valuable in the Bitcoin manifest, the only benefits I can see them using is the cash-less aspect of it, and not a whole lot else.

More misinformation.

51% attack doesn't let you rewrite any protocol rules such as changing the supply.

However, a 51% attack is still very bad, because if it is an ongoing attack, it could be used
to establish a mining monopoly, which if malicious, can stop transactions from getting into blocks.

Why would banks destroy it? if anything it would be the feds

How will banks influence thousands of people, who has a vested interest in keeping the value of Bitcoin to increase the cap and to run the new changes on the protocol? Nobody in their right mind would sabotage

their own investment like that. The problem with many of the Alt coins is, that their total Cap of coins is way to large to sustain a high price. If you look at these stats  http://coinmarketcap.com/ you could see

why some coins will never have a huge value per coin... There is simply too much of it availlable and it will never be rare enough to reach Bitcoin's price level.

A real competitor to Bitcoin will have a low amount of coins that would ever be released to increase it's value, with all the other things that influence it's demand.  ;)

the feds are not that much againsat bitcoin, maybe because they do not think it is a threat for now, and because in the case it will be they can always tax the shit out of it

i think that many banks believe that bitcoin is done after the 1200 crush, they are not bothering with it so much

If the bankers really wanted to kill it, they would refuse to do business with the exchanges. They refuse customers and clients all the time.
If there was no speculation on BTC, no cash to drive its usage. It wouldn't be good for very much. Expensive pizzas and alpaca socks maybe, but every other retailer who accepts it today would have never arrived here.
I like to believe BTC could replace cash. If you could get every thing you can get with money, with BTC, and no exceptions, it would simply be a transition, but there is this transitional phase we are in now, where cash and BTC are inextricably linked... I suppose it's necessary to get to BTC ubiquity, but by removing the cash part from the equation at this early point, would be the end.

How many here would be so excited about BTC if there were no way to buy or sell them? I'm sure there would be a few crypto-stalwarts but that would be it. People need buying power, failing that, they need value exchange for something that does, like cash

These are frustrating times, but imagine a future where you pay and get paid in BTC. Universally. No more third party banks.
BTC is good for them too, obviously.

Unless there is business related with Bitcoin then some bankers will continue to use it. I am not afraid that someone will have such power and convice all miners. This is just an theory.

Thanks for the clickbait title.

Maybe a stupid question but after the cap is reached, would it be profitable to mine for the fees?
Would the default fee be set higher than it is now?

I do not believe that banks CAN kill bitcoin. I still have never seen a viable plan to destroy the bitcoin protocol. A 51% attack to forge counterfeit coins is not viable, for example. It would cost many millions to buy all the hash power. At that point you would have to throw away all the profits you are making from mining and throw away all your hardware. All you get in return is bitcoin 2.0.

Yes If the 21 million market cap of bitcoin is increased then whole user base will not trust Bitcoin anymore.
So if Bitcoin have to sustain, then developers can change or fork anything but not play with the 21 million limit of bitcoins.

Same

rofl mao  ;D

I have 2 problems with your argument...

First, banks could never convince devs, miners, etc to devalue the worth of bitcoin. That would be financial suicide for the bitcoin infrastructure.

Secondly, why even choose that route when all banks have to do is keep forcing financial regulators to give more onerous and stifling regulations on bitcoin exchanges and merchants? That's already having major effect on bitcoins acceptance, and is co-opting it's original intent of decentralization and anonymity.

if a bankers wants to destroy bitcoin, surely the bitcoin users will be very angry   >:(