Bitcoin Forum

Afternoon Gents,

This is my first post on here so please be kind  :)

Crypto currencies are completely new to me but i'm fascinated by them and not just for monetary reasons!

A few people have said that the total amount of Bitcoins that can ever be mined is fixed to 21 Million.

The question I have is: Is it theoretically possible to increase the supply of Bitcoins that could be mined using a soft-fork? I know with the up-coming 2X hard fork you would have double your bitcoins (Bitcoin and B2X).

But with regards to the original (call it Classic Bitcoin), provided that the core developers/miners completely agree to it, is it possible to increase the supply of Bitcoins?

The reason I ask is that this would dictate the valuation of Bitcoins compared to other commodities to me.

Many Thanks,
Laz

As far as I know the maximum supply is set to 21 million only. Lets see what others reply.

Well its fixed to 21 million but who knows some fork may increase it further more.

If the supply is increased it would have a negative affect on the price of bitcoin. When we see coins like doge that have a very high supply we see that the price is reflected by that.

It is very possible to increase the amount of Bitcoin.We all know that bitcoin is a profitable business. Bitcoin is now world's most known crypto currency. It is very popular. It's price is increasing day by day.Before some days,it has low price but now it's price is high and probably it's price will increase.

Increase the bitcoin count and this is what happens. Yup, all the prices for bitcoin will go down because in relation to availability of the coins the market capitalism for the bitcoin will drop heavily. The supply would be a lot even thought the demand increases which mean price will be less. This is also reason why we see the prices very high at current movement, there is more demand and however total circulating supply of bitcoin is very less. So surely we don't want that negative impact and it would be better no developer agrees to introduce more and take out the fun from the story.

There are several ways to boost your bitcoin amount in numbers. You can wait for next hard and soft forks, you can make trade, you can make lending. But lending is risky, so pass it. Altcoin trade is amazing to increase the bitcoin number for yourself.

there must be several ways to increase the amount of your bitcoin in a large and profitable amount. You can wait for the next hard and soft fork, you can trade, you can lend. But the loan is risky, so pay. The Altcoin trade is great for increasing the amount of bitcoin

Sorry for the collection of morons before me.
No.  Increasing the supply would involve a hard fork and therefore Bitcoin users would have to choose a client which supports the new fork.

Considering how deeply ingrained the 21 million limit is in most BTC users' heads, it's very unlikely that the hard fork would garner much support.
Not really.  You would have two separate chains, both of which call themselves Bitcoin, but you wouldn't really have two coins because they're not the same.
It would be a new chain.  In my view, most users would continue to use the old one in the unlikely scenario that this ever happened.  Even if they didn't, you could freely continue to support a chain with 21 million coins.

I think they way Bitcoin is designed is to make it a hard cap.  So no, it is not possible to increase the cap.  Assuming The inventor(s) didn't put any back door sort of configuration in there, it seems it would be pretty hard to actually increase the cap. 

As a few others said on here, it would have a huge negative impact on the value of Bitcoin. 

No need to increase the maximum amount of bitcoin that could be mined since the BTC is in fact unlimited by definition!
Let's see : 1 BTC = 100,000,000 Satoshi   for example, you can count how much satoshi we have (change satoshi with bits...etc).
We can even make a new subunit of satoshi and so on.  ;)

I think after the amount of bitcoin has run out by 21 million then there will be no more bitcoin burning, with bitcoin depletion the bitcoin becomes increasingly rare and will have a very high price impact, and that's what many people will later do, and maybe we're not can see bitcoin in the ending supply of bitcoin that is estimated to be decades away.

Mathematically and technically installed in such a way that Bitcoin can only be mined 21 million, and no more. All this talk about how to increase its number by any means is insolvent. By holding the forks, you can get another bitcoin in a different amount. However, in this coin, only the name has something in common with bitcoin. However, this is absolutely another coin, not Bitcoin. The original Bitcoin can be produced only in the amount of 21 million.

Despite the fact that bitcoin has been fixed to 21 million, i feel it can still be altered later in future if the need be.

As far as I know it is possible, but the question is why would anyone do it? The bitcoin protocol is open, so you can change the code and create a fork to change things. Two coins will be created and people can choose which way to go. If such a fork would occur, I don't think anyone would follow that new coin. Bitcoin price is defined by supply and demand, so if you increase it's supply it's price will drop, so no point in doing that.

If amount i think no one can add amount of bitcoins
Only the owner satoshi nakamoto can add the amount of bitcoin
But if the amount of price of bitcoin time will tel how much will increase the amount of bitcoin

Not at the moment but from my understanding this could be a thing that is changed in a hard fork? Which closer to the limit the community might favor.

Fascinating responses guys really appreciate your input.

I agree with most of you who say that increasing the supply would devalue the price of Bitcoin.

My concern was how easy it would be to increase the supply as this "could" devalue the price. But from the replies it looks like it would require a hard-fork and an agreed consensus to continue with the alt coin, so this is more reassuring.

It's not possible to increase the total supply.
Bitcoin is developed to half the block reward every 200.000 blocks with a starting reward of 50 BTC.
So an amount of more than 21 million coins can never be reached.
The hardfork that will happen this month is a different thing, it will not increase the supply but create a new thing.
Because it is a fork, the coin won't start from the beginning with a fresh blockchain but instead with an copy of the current blockchain.
The copy of the blockchain will split then after the hardfork happened, so every transaction that will made after that time won't interact with the other blockchain.

There's no way to increase the supply of bitcoin, it is what it is. And what you've understand with bitcoin that it has 21 Million supply, yes it will be staying at that supply. Even after these hard forks, the coin will be doubled into another coin but it won't be adding some more supply. Hard forks are more of duplicating the chain of bitcoin but it will never increase it's supply (Classic Bitcoin). And this is the reason why many are staying with bitcoin, getting two coins at the same time while their plan of holding for a long time they get another coin.

It is not possible with a soft fork. It is possible with a hard fork, but I doubt many people would accept your new fork. Your fork would probably drop in value very quickly. Who wants an inflationary version of Bitcoin when we already have fiat?

A very key and vital component of Bitcoin is that its maximum supply is set at 21 million.  This eliminates the possibility of currency devaluation that accompanies any currency that can continue to be created ad infinitum.  And since it's divisible down to the satoshi, 21 million will be plenty.

@Aura

Thanks that cleared alot up for me regarding the 2X hard-fork and the blockchain copy makes sense.

I don't see any need for unlimited supply ( because it would affect BTC price negatively ) , and what I understood from your post : you wonder if coins released after the fork will rise the supply ; I think they won't because these coins aren't really bitcoin but they are altcoins deriving their name from BTC so they can't increase BTC supply

@EpicFail

Given the decentralized nature of Bitcoin I think it would be near impossible to get a hard-fork alt coin with the majority support.

I think maybe, but as far as I know bitcoin is set to 2 million for now but who knows maybe someday the amount increase because bitcoin is a well known crytocurencies so let us not lose hope either by soft or hard fork as long as there are still others that uses bitcoin and believe in it.

I think this could have happened if Mr. Satoshi had made an increase in the number of bitcoins by his algorithm. Currently, the number of bitcoins is very small so I think it is important to increase the amount of bitcoin in circulation. This can be fun news for many investors.

@setifien19

No sorry my mention of the up-coming 2X hard-fork may have confused things.

I wanted to know if it was possible in the future that a soft-fork (provided everyone agreed, which I know is a crazy suggestion!) could increase the supply of Bitcoins.

Following this it appears that a few people believe it's possible with a hard-fork but this would require an alt coin (not classic Bitcoin) which would become the dominant coin, but it sounds like this would be extremely unlikely to happen.

@tigervn

Now that's a very interesting comment! Given the multiple disciplines Satoshi had to undertake to create the blockchain, the limited supply of (21 million) compared to the total global asset class ($100T) in todays market, he must have known that this could be an issue in the future.

Btw at this current time i'd call them speculators not investors  ;)

Well, technically the amount of bitcoin i.e. it quantity cannot be increased. But it can easily be regulated with increase in its user base. For reference, as we today see that we can buy even a fraction of bitcoins, and its not mandatory to by bitcoins in whole number. So this fraction can be increased and relaxed further in future if the user base demands it. There may be introduction of several decimals for ease of transactions with increase in its value and doing so will also eliminate the need of new bitcoins in the system.

Yes of course it has, as of now bitcoin value is still increasing day by day so many of us are happy and hoping that it will not decrease. Their is no possible thing if bitcoin still increase just put patience, time and hard wok in what we are doing and sure nothing is impossible. If there is a life keep hoping for a better life in future.

We know that bitcoin has been created by Satoshi I think that it is already fixed. The mining will end when the last bitcoin has been mined.
Though comparing it to the real world, mining can end when gold rich areas are already emptied. Like so, for bitcoin. I don't know if someone can actually extend it. But if it becomes infinite I think prices would not be this high in the first place.

The one of reason why the prices bitcoin continue to increase because bitcoin have limit.. so, I don't think bitcoin can be more than 21 million, Mr. Satoshi Made itu fixed only 21 million. If Satoshi create bitcoin more than amount fixed, that can interfere stability of bitcoin

in my own opinion, bitcoin supply is only fixed into 21million and there is no probability to increase or double your bitcoin by this upcoming fork or B2X youve mentioned, the "classic bitcoin" you mentioning above is the original bitcoin and has a own blockchain were circulating worldwide. so the soft fork you telling to double your bitcoin is not the same, they are all separated "bitcoin" and "bitcoin2x" so how the fork can increase the amount of bitcoin if they are in separated server.?

this is what makes bitcoin stability, even after the miners stepped on the almost limit limit, this will be one of the good effects for us bitcoin users, and segwit is one of the best options for crypto users to stay active. in doing each transaction

the thing about bitcoin is that you can change anything you want about it. and i am saying "you" meaning anybody not just certain people since bitcoin is decentralized. the maximum limit, the decimal, block size, mining algorithm,.... and literary anything else. some will require hard fork some soft fork.

but what makes bitcoin, bitcoin is the majority support. if you can get enough support of the whole network then what you propose becomes bitcoin.
now the question is can you get majority support for your proposal (whatever it is)?

One reason way bitcoin is very popular is that it is scarce; as more and more bitcoins are generated the higher the value. If you keep generating newer coins than already set 21 mil you are making it cheaper to own.

I draw a parallel with the usual money. Just imagine that the state will constantly print money as long as it pleases. Presented what will happen? Inflation. Since money must be reinforced. I think that the number of created bitcoins has a definite reason. And if there are more and more of them, it is unlikely that something good will come out.

I do think that bitcoins number can be increased but only through Hard fork.But i don't see any benefits in increasing the number of bitcoins as being limited is it's one of the advantages because if it is not limited the bitcoins won't be unique and prices of bitcoin will fall quite a much.I think that if bitcoin's number is increased now it would definitely have a deep impact on bitcoins most likely a negative one.

Well the amount of bitcoin availabe can never be changed and if it can they should never do that otherwise its high value will go down, most poeple are now rushing to get the most of it because one day they will be nothing left to mine, and you can see the blockchain developpers despretly trying to make poeple mine it less by creating bitcoin gold and bitcoin cash and encourging poeple to mine them, becuase they know that if things stay the way they are with people constantly mining bitcoin it will reduce its value and if they try to inrease it it will lose its value, because its rarity is what makes it strong and expensive.

No there is no possibilities that the number of bitcoin can be increased this is the reason why they need to create different alts so that the market can be divert and because we cannot help but grow by the number of people looking for bitcoin the solutions to make bitcoin available to everyone is by increasing its value. This is just my point of view I also thinks that the fork is somehow part of this strategy

Technically, it is possible to increase the number of bitcoin but why would we do that? There's no need to increase the number of bitcoins. If we did that, Bitcoin value would decline for sure. As far as I know, increasing number of bitcoins is one of the changes which would make Bitcoin no longer "the real" Bitcoin. However, we are allowed to increase the number of decimal places.