Bitcoin Forum

Excuse me guys . I just wanted to take s discussing what bitcoin this
as we know bitcoin only made +- 22 million. whether this will be incremented bitcoin? do you guys who love the bitcoin have plans to develop or increase the number of supply bitcoin.
I just want to know how the senior respond ?

No, the total supply of Bitcoins is capped at slightly less than 21 million by design.  If that parameter were to be changed then it would create a new alt coin and it would not be Bitcoin by definition.

The 21 million cap will never be changed.

Never, is a BIG word. Yes, the 21 million cap might not change, but we dealing with a piece of code. Some parameters might change in the

future to bypass that restriction... It might still generate 21 million coins, but those coins might be altered in some kind of way to increase the

cap. It is highly unlikely.... but not impossible that someone might come up with a piece of code that would "increase" the cap, even after it

was mined. { within a off-chain or something }

You are correct.  Anyone can take the Bitcoin code and change it.  Many have.  This creates an alt coin.  The coin cap is a fundamental parameter.  Changing it would just create another alt.   The coin cap parameter can be changed but coins created under the changed protocol are not Bitcoins.  The inability to change fundamental parameters of the Bitcoin protocol without creating an alt coin is what makes Bitcoin the powerful protocol we all know and love.

What I always wondered is.. say you took the code and only changed 21.000.000 to be the maximum amount of coins that will ever exist to 21.000.001 and let everything else unchanged.... Would the coin still be called Bitcoin and function exactly like it, and generare the same kind of addresses and private keys? I am not a programmer so I never studied about altcoins creation process.

Hypothetically if we had finished off the 21 million coin production (in about 2140) and then someone came along and changed their code to add one more Bitcoin then that one more Bitcoin would be rejected by the rest of the network.  It would go nowhere - it would be invalid.  It would be like if you spent some Bitcoins (transferred them to someone else) and they tried to spend the same coins again.  This second spend would be rejected by every node as invalid and would go nowhere.

But is it possible to happen? I mean, if the code would be changed like I mentioned, will it still work just like Bitcoin? What if someone does that and more and more people would start to use it? As far as I know, the slightest change turns it, theoretically, in an Altcoin. But what if the same name is kept? What if this new Altcoin creates the same type of addresses and private keys? Will it even work?

Go back and read this entire thread I moderated a while back:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=352734.0

After you read and understand it I think it will answer your questions.

Note:  You can replace the change described in the thread (changing the block reward) with any other fundamental change (block size for example) and the same scenario will happen.  Thus the great "forking" debate over BU, Segwit, etc.

Notice that back when I moderated the thread most people said "fantasy" etc. but now people are actually proposing to fork Bitcoin into BTCA and BTCB just as described in the thread, but based on block size rather than block reward.

Also note that the scenario you propose is more like a fork where 99.9999% are BTCB and 0.0001% are BTCA.

Please carefully read that thread.

According to this wiki page, lifting/changing 21m cap is theoretically possible (and practically impossible):

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Prohibited_changes


But of course it could be done by the vast majority of users/businesses/hashpower. Yes, technically they would create an altcoin, but would likely be successful in 'hijacking' the "Bitcoin" name (unless legally prevented in major countries, but doubt this is the case).

= impossible

As I said.

Yup, impossible if you wanted to do it the right way. Possible when done as per 2nd part of my post.

The 2nd part of your post is just defining exactly what is practically impossible.

How so? Imagine you had 10%-20% of individual users against lifting 21m cap and all the rest (including all miners and exchanges) in favour of it. The cap gets lifted.

You could shout "it's not a real Bitcoin" all day long, but it wouldn't change anything.

My point is that will never happen.  Never.  So I do not need to imagine it or discuss it - that is a waste of time.  If it happens then you can come back here and tell me I was wrong.  If it never happens I will come back here and tell you that you were wrong.  ;)

It will never happen.

Don't wait for it. If 21m is lifted (by adding more fixed block subsidies etc) I'll likely quit Bitcoin altogether (incl this forum) and jump on to something else.


I never said it will happen, just pointing out the possibility.


ps. Where do you stand on concept of 'millisatoshis' (aka adding 3 more decimals to increase divisibility) discussed a bit here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1695559.msg17018293#msg17018293)? It's essentially lifting the hard cap by x1000 of base units (satoshis) and redefining the number of base units per 1 bitcoin. Still a "Bitcoin" or an altcoin?

Raising the cap on the total number of Bitcoins (changing the halving schedule, etc.) will never happen.  However increasing the resolution has a slightly better chance of happening.  It really does not change the total number of Bitcoins and can probably be agreed to at some point.  I do not consider the resolution to be a fundamental parameter.

The technical issues of changing the resolution would be tricky.