Bitcoin Forum

It's the year 2020. Bitcoin has gained major traction.

Less than a tenth of a percent of the world's population holds 90% of all available Bitcoins.

A democratic vote is made across all Bitcoin adopters and they vote to bring the total number of mineable Bitcoins to 900 million.

Your options are to let them fork and be done with them or simply go along with it, knowing you're going to be diluted to a fraction of your previous value.

I see this as a very real possibility, especially once a large country decides to get the hump that it's not calling the shots and will start it's own alternative e-currency which can be easily (no artificial barriers here) converted from their own issued fiat and all under their own control.

It won't be bitcoin if it's not 21 mil.

Under what circumstances do you think you'd get a majority? And how is such a vote going to be managed with full security? Not going to happen.

Let's say it'll be called USCoin but the protocol will allow 900M coins - update your clients now!

When the majority of users have fractions of a coin and they hear that the playing field will be 'levelled' with the adoption of the new protocol.

mob rule?

Mob rule, democracy by majority, 5 wolves and 1 sheep voting on what to have for dinner... call it what you will but if enough people like the idea of Bitcoin but feel they've missed out because they weren't early adopters/are jealous etc., that's pretty good motivation for them to start their own blockchain.

Just imagine a room of 100 people. They all like the idea of Bitcoin. 10 people hold 90% of the wealth. Why wouldn't the other 90 people start their own blockchain and conduct business amongst themselves?

They see it's a good idea. They know they're screwing the other 10 early adopters but hey, the vast majority benefit themselves. They'd probably see it as fair because the majority benefit.

I can't see that happening. Holders of 90% of bitcoins would manage to control >>50% votes and I doubt they'd vote that way.

I think I missed out on Gold.

How about we hold a democratic Vote to melt down all Gold an mix it up with 90% plumb to increase the supply? I would be all for it.

No, seriously, I can't Imagine that would be accepted by a majority of Bitcoiners and all that would disagree would simply not update their client. Therefore you would have a new coin. That's basically the same as starting a new coin right now.

How would they control 50% of the vote if one person gets one vote (through the use of a particular client)?

Perhaps I wasn't very clear in my initial post.

People would either fork or start their own blockchain.

So in that sense, the analogy would be to standardise on Bitcoinium instead of gold. You'd be left to trade with gold whilst everyone else starts up with Bitcoinium.

(Or it would be like everyone agreeing to bring down a giant gold asteroid and adding it to the existing gold supply but everyone would get a shot at mining that thing).

The vote power in bitcoinland is proportional to the mining power. If the majority of the miners want to stay with 21 m cap, bitcoin remains bitcoin.

And how would you identify an actual person? Would you require me to identify myself with some govt-issued ID?

My theoretical situation is the bulk of people are unhappy with the fact that early adopters own the bulk of the currency.

In this scenario, they own the bulk of hashing power (let's say by 10%) and even if they don't, as a majority, they could create their own e-currency now that it's been proven to be useful/necessary.

I don't mean a balloted vote. I mean by your adoption of their client and thus your hashing power. Run 10 clients on 10 pcs if you like but you're limited by your total hash rate.

Oh let them create an alternate currency. I can assure you that bitcoin isn't the last cryptocurrency the world will use.

That won't happen overnight though and bitcoin owners could take positions in that new currency once it's starting to raise significance. Just like with bitcoin - big USD holders could buy into BTC if their eyes were open wide enough.

I believe this is certainly possible. It essentially comes down to the question whether future miners and users could always be trusted to maintain the initial Bitcoin protocol rules. I can imagine a future where there is enough political power to create a fork with different rules and force businesses by law only to accept the new, diluted bitcoins.
 
A blockchain with the old rules would probably still be maintained, but these coins would undoubtedly lose their value to some extent. I do not know if this scenario is very likely, because we have to account for the way some future population looks at Bitcoin and the rules in the protocol. But, as Bitcoin is build on consensus, technically it would definitely be possible.

Ultimately it's based on what the people people want to pay will accept as money. This is probably a point in favour of the 21 m cap sticking, because miners would have a strong economic incentive to vote to print themselves a load more money, especially when the block rewards dry up.

Existing stakeholders will obviously want to keep the status quo.

Late adopters, especially those with money to effect change, will undoubtedly want to level the playing field (until they have a sizeable stake) at which point it's time to make alt currencies illegal.

If people start messing with the original Bitcoin protocol then people are going to abandon it and go to the many alternate currencies that will be out there.

Don't you think that is the truth even now for fiat with unlimited amount of fiat printing ?

Bitcoin holders would never agree to that  :D

Inflatacoin fork troll thread ... how original  ::)

.... must have just had another wave of later adopters arrive

You don't think that if a large portion of a sizeable country, e.g. the US were to get interested in Bitcoin, it wouldn't be in their own self interest to start a new blockchain for themselves under the guise of 'fairness', 'patriotism', etc?

Edit: This is nothing to do with inflation btw - sure, inflation occurs but my point is the self interest of a larger body of people than the current Bitcoin population.

I think what you're trying to point out is even though bitcoin is based upon irrefutable mathematics people are still stupid, if in 2020 the widespread leftist feminism will take hold of earth and most people will update their clients to heavily tax the rich (because the rich will be even richer by then and the poor will be even poorer)

Something like that ;)

... leftist feminists don't operate mining rigs as far as I can tell  ;) ;)

stop attempting to get some baseless FUD going ... or better yet start your own inflatacoin crypto-currency, show us what you really got.

Communicoin, every coin you buy is evenly divided across the network, for everyone according to his need!

What FUD?

It's not inconceivable after all, the Bitcoin population will currently be tiny compared to the a country the size of the US.

5% of miners won't go with the new rules. There will be a hard fork, with the original Bitcoin (Bitcoin 1.0) and the new one (Bitcoin 2.0). Some people will run to buy or obtain 2.0, but over time, the value of 2.0 will be diluted. People will look around for a non-inflationary store of value, something like gold, but digital, with scarcity built in. Someone will say "hey, there's this Bitcoin 1.0 thingie"... rinse, lather, repeat.

Here's the thing, there is no vote.  Mining doesn't matter.

Any block that exceeds the generation curve in the software is rejected.  Doesn't matter if 99.9% of the world population want it, the blocks are still not valid.  Doesn't matter if 99.9% of the hashing power on the planet wants it, the blocks are still not valid.

There may be a new thing, a thing that is not-bitcoin, and people may use it.  But bitcoin blocks will continue to follow the original generation rate, forever.

This new thing, say it were to be exactly like Bitcoin but it were to have a limit of 900 million and mining was set to start on a set date so 'everyone' could get in on the action. I could see the late adopters going for that instead. I would appear to give them the same opportunity as the early adopters of Bitcoin but in reality, the ones with money will have the most hashing power.

I doubt this will ever happen. If scarcity becomes a problem then another cryptocurrency will step up, but to dramatically inflate Bitcoin overnight would be an insane hit for its young economy. Merchants would not be able to take Bitcoin seriously anymore if this were to happen, since, who knows when the community will vote again to drive up or down its value?

Bitcoin is not a method for redistirbution of wealth. It never has been, and never will be. It was designed to be a better way to store wealth and to send irrefutable transactions across the world. Bitcoin is an economy that you choose to join. The entry cost is a variable price. If people don't like it, they can leave anytime and start their inflatacoin. It's already happened at least a half dozen times. Litecoin, PPCoin, BBQCoin, etc. They aren't designed to redristribute wealther either.

Lemme see... The vote count is 2, with Ben Bernanke and Angela Merkel both voting yes, right? :)

Not gonna happen.

From the numbers of 'not gonna happen's, I'm guessing I've worded my post badly.

I just wanted to know how people would feel if a bunch of late adopters upped sticks and started their own thing having had us Bitcoiners pioneer e-currencies.

It wasn't about inflation or voting rights.

They can fork bitcoin or make their own, but they don't, no matter how they vote get to take the value that we have put into the system over the years.  If their new system is useful, it will begin to gather value for itself.

This experiment has been done lots and lots of times already.  Bitcoin is the most valuable not because it was the first, but because it is the best.  A vote will not change that any more than a vote could make gravity reverse itself.

Just seems goofy to lie around in bed in the wee hours of the mornin contemplating odd fantasies like this.

It wouldn't be in the best interest of the rich or poor to vote to increase to 900M.  If anything, it would be worse for the poor because the rich can probably afford better mining equipment to scoop up all the new coins further increasing the gap.

Even if a large country tried to start their own alt chain, it would still have to compete with bitcoin.  And if the only difference was an increase in the cap, I doubt it'd gain many followers.  Why chose something not as widely accepted & inflating at a higher rate with less users?  I guess they could attempt to require users to use it, but I question how successful that would be. 

I personally believe cryptocurrencies will make large governments extinct.  Not many people are willing to pay for space shuttles, tanks, and other people's healthcare & retirement instead of their own food & shelter.  And a cyrptocurrency is a lot easier to move around & hide than fiat & gold.

+1

a wise man on thse forums once said "Democracy is the original 51% attack."

Not going to happen because...

1) people that are holding won't allow the value of their wealth decrease
2) people that are holding have the majority vote

You wouldn't need to actively choose.  If there is a fork your old coins are on both forks.  Then you can spend them on the original fork AND the new fork assuming both forks have users.

The fork could be called BernankeCoin, and I will stick with the original bitcoin for sure !
I think this possibility is very very thin..  Before going there, we will already been using Satoshi, and I'll not care at all if x% of the BTC owner own 90% of the coins..

I dont see a problem here..  And I wish I'll be in the "x%" ;)

I do care if x% of the BTC owners own 90% of the coins. I do see a problem here. And I don't wish to be in the "x%". I'm glad u and me will be in completely different forks.

They may only be 21Million bitcoins but how many Satoshi's are they plus extra zeros can be added when needed.

This still does NOT change "x%" ratio.

this

Imagine someone forked Bitcoin by changing only the rule for Subsidy. And now any value less or equal 50 BTC is allowed. Those who own coins in legacy Bitcoin now have them in Bitcoin++ too. They run bitcoind and bitcoinppd, just in case. What will happen in a year? I think userbase of Bitcoin++ will be higher than Bitcoin, coz newbies will likely join Bitcoin++.

You, like most people, overlook the fact that the amount of money is the world is a tiny fraction of the amount of wealth.

Let's imagine that 1% of the people in the U.S. own 90% of the dollars in the world. If you were in that 1%, you would have about $1 million in cash (1% of 300 million people owning $3 trillion dollars). While that is a lot of money, I bet it is a lot less than you expected.

Good point. I'll think about it.

I think there is a massive misunderstanding about how Bitcoin works.   You can't change Bitcoin.  Ever.  All you can do is fork it.  As long as single user is running the current Bitcoin code the network will still exist.  So the best you can hope is that such a massive supermajority of USERS (not miners but users, exchanges, merchants, bitcoin holders, developers, service providers, etc) jump to your fork that the existing fork simply dies off.

There is no voting.  There is no mechanism to halt the existing (current) fork.  There is nothing miners can do to fork the current blockchain to stop.  So Bitcoin as it exists today will always exist if people want to use it.  Now could a fork of Bitcoin becomes more popular than Bitcoin well it certainly is possible but it would have to compete on its own merits not through some dubious "democratic" process or by decree from a cartel of miners.  If Bitcoin2 is superior then it may replace Bitcoin, if it isn't then it likely will die out.


As an example say you think blocks should have a reward of 100 BTC and never decline to expand the monetary base.  You can change this TODAY (this very second).  No you don't need anyone permission, no you don't need to hold a global vote, no you don't need 51% (or 66% or 99.9%) of miners.   Fork the project, distribute your new client and start mining.  Your "newBitcoin" is now incompatible with the rest of the network.  If you send some "newBitcoin" coins generated from future blocks to MtGox, MtGox won't "see" them.  That is because they are looking at the current fork.  Convince MtGox to use your fork and they will see them.

TL/DR
You can't change Bitcoin.  Not today, not ever.  All you can do is fork it.
When you fork Bitcoin the current Bitcoin will exist. 
People are free to use either fork.
You can't force the existing/current fork to stop. 
Unless your fork has overwhelming support it is unlikely it will get any traction over the existing and well implemented current fork.

Make another cryptocurrency. This is the bitcoin forum.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. Thank god its not. There are already alternatives to BTC that offer larger caps and lower difficulty. take your pick.

This is a highly improbable scenario.
It is the same if you would ask depositors in a country if they wish a 900/20=45 fold inflation and they would vote yes.

It's year 2013, USD has gained world wide traction

Less than 1% of the world's population holds 90% of all available USD

A democratic vote is made across world and they vote to inflate the total amount of USD in existence to reduce the early adopter's wealth

FED started to print USD like crazy, unfortunately those printed money just went into commercial banks' pocket ::) ::)

Not true, litecoin has much less mining power than bitcoin but it exists. Lifting the limit would be a hard fork, so it will be like Bitcoin2. Totally unrelated with bitcoin. Exactly like litecoin is unrelated with bitcoin.

didn't democracy go out of style sometime during the Nixon administration?

Stopped reading here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth)

Even under the insanely centralized, old boys club, centuries-institutionalized monopoly fiat money system in the United States, the top **1%** (let alone the top 0.1%) control only 35% of the wealth. Under Bitcoin this distribution will be far flatter, especially without monopoly privilege to print money granted to wealthy dynasties that control other power centers like government, education, and the media, that would allow them to keep the money rather than lose most of it as they spend it on luxuries.

This is a completely unrealistic scenario.

I would feel similarly to the way I'd feel when in order to be a 'peer' in the 'peer2peer' solution one need a computer cluster, specially provisioned network connectivity, and datacenter resources.  Both are 'democracy' though, and there is a limit to the amount of bitching I'm willing to do about that form of decision making.

Being the type who tries to look some distance into the future, I've pretty much given up hope on Bitcoin itself achieving anything particularly world-changing beyond demonstrating a proof of concept.  A secondary fall-back hope of mine has always been that there is an outside possibility that they'll make me rich though, and this is more promising than ever.

We know.  You mention this in every thread.

Do you think, instead of this defeatist monologue, you might want to actually do anything to change this outcome?

Well I guess it's on my mind a lot these days.  It's a minority viewpoint and as such sometimes has some positive cancellation effect in an echo chamber.  Back in late 2011 I also had a minority opinion that Bitcoin was not necessarily dead and had some real potential.  I spoke up then as well, and it is possible that I influenced some people and they ended up being happy for it.

A 'democratic vote' doesn't have much weight in creating successful hard forks.   

Even if the majority of casual users update their client to Bitcoin900M, what use is it to them if the major merchants don't accept coins from that branch?

It's only the 'economic majority' that has this kind of weight.

But why should major merchants and stakeholders support a protocol change that devalues their savings?

Bitcoin=rule by hashrate, number of nodes/users doesn't matter.

Nothing like bitcoin has ever existed before. Satoshi was a genius and his idea is so far bullet-proof. The network already created, while this is in beta, is already more powerful than any super computer. You, and the rest of us, can therefore have a little more hope.

how can we expect media to take us seriously if even we don't believe this. no wonder they think we will change the rules to benefit some. who are we the federal reserve?

+1

lol at how pathetic the bolded is

Early adopters(and I am not one of them unfortunately for me), will always be rewarded ahead of those who wait(like me) because they take on extra risk.  The bitcoin system of miners, venders, users and speculators isn't something that has sprung forth overnight, it's taken many years to get to the point where it's at now and we're no where near the finish line for a fully functional global currency.   To replace it will take much more then a bunch of jealous late adopters.   As many have said, you think you can do better?  Do it.

OK. So let me get this straight:

1. As long as one person is using the current client, Bitcoin as we know it, with its 21m limit, will always exist in its current form. Theree is no vote.
2. If tomorrow, the Bitcoin Foundation had a collective stroke and released an updated client that increased the limit to 900m only a fork would form.
3. Legacy bitcoins (Bitcoin 1.0) could be spent on both forks so current bitcoin holders won't be shafted.

4. Question: People refer to "hard" forks. What is the definition of a "hard" fork and how does it differ from a "soft" fork? ELI5

I'll add a question to the sentence I bolded. If I make a transaction on the newly created fork-chain, wouldn't this be a legitimate transaction on the bitcoin chain as well? Meaning if someone relays transactions between chains you can't really spend coins from one chain only. Is there a good way to fork the chain without this happening?

I'm just sort of guesstimating (this not being a tech thread), but it seems to me that the best way to do this would be to manipulate the address format in backward-ish compatible way such that a spend would be invalid on fork and honored on another.

edit:  I should mention that I own http://bitcoin-legacy.org (http://bitcoin-legacy.org) and have put a tiny amount of thought into such things between other more pressing projects.

My big question is if that is even possible in a backward compatible way. If not a majority vote fork could possibly be quite disruptive as all their fork-transactions would likely find their way into bitcoin somehow as well. I'm really not sure of the consequences here but think it could need some thought.

So the idea is to create a fork where one of the fundamental design principles of Bitcoin is broken. Yeah that sounds like a winner to me.  ::)

totally agree with you]

What if we decided that every one dollar USD bill that we cut up into confetti is worth one dollar for each piece of confetti?

Let's say that the 'real' Bitcoin is called fork-A.  In the case that a person wanted pre-fork coins to be spendable on fork-B, just modify the software such that it would accept both pre-fork keys and a special modification of keys which 'real' Bitcoin does not allow.  Just generate new non-realbitcoin-legal keys if you don't want transactions to be able to be replayed on the 'real' fork-A.  Should be pretty easy I would think.

Interestingly, transactions from the 'real' Bitcoin could be re-played in the 'B' chain.  This would be an easy way to create even more 'deflation' or 'distribution' (or 'theft') or whatever.

Of course there would be nothing to stop 'real' Bitcoin from eventually making 'bitcoin-b' keys legal as well.  But once the blockchians diverge even a little it would probably result in nothing but a giant mess.

As long as 'real' Bitcoin remains vaguely competitive on an operational level, my sense is that it would have nothing to 'fear' from out-of-band sister efforts of the nature described above.