Bitcoin Forum

Have you ever thought about bitcoin market cap of 21 million to change after this have been completely mined? Then I think this thread is for you because you're going to get unfolded of the mystery behind why we have the 21 million bitcoin market cap and why this is not going to have a possible change now and thereafter, so I want to join in the contribution on why others should know more about bitcoin market cap and why it is limited to 21 million.

It is important for us to study and know the reason behind every protocols upon
Which the creator of bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto intends for the existence and sustainability of the use of bitcoin to the entire world and why it should not only serve a short time benefit, but an alternative digital currency for the entire world to use and depend on, so we are going to be focusing on all the conditions that comes along with the 21 million bitcoin and why it cannot be extended beyond this coverage.

Let's take a look at what hard cap is from below

What is Hard Cap

From this explanation we can see that bitcoin is not possible to change it total supply of 21 million and this has already been coded to reach the side certain limits from the program, I don't like when some will be using hard fork as an excuse for this, if you want to know more about hard fork, I recommend you to read https://www.investopedia.com/tech/history-bitcoin-hard-forks/ while if you're so interested in learning how bitcoin hard fork claiming and services are, read on this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2836875.0

Guide to why or how Satoshi comes about 21 million bitcoin

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/09/26/UQvn4Z.jpeg

We enjoy the bitcoin hard cap for the benefit of it scarcity, thereby increasing it value at the long time, which is why we can still find bitcoin being a good store of value, currently, about 19.8 million bitcoin already mined while we are left with about 1.2 million the chart below explains further about the market total supply.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/09/26/UQklo5.jpeg

Reasons to why we can't have Bitcoin Cap Changed

• Nodes Consensus: everything about bitcoin has been embedded to work in accordance to the nodes, which may not align in consensus if increased base on the protocols on ground
• Market Reaction: definitely the market will react to this and it may result to a massive fall, which may render the trust questionable to whether it is being manipulated or less trusted the same way we see altcoins
• Miners Agreement: this was the right and first intention of its creator Satoshi, anything changing may lose the trust on all that had been said concerning bitcoin and the white paper
• Issues with Hard fork and Network Split: we know if these in the past how some made the proposal for bitcoin cash and others and what has come up with everyone splitting out.
  
• Developers and Community Supports: definitely, most of the devs may not support for this and same applies to our community here.

• Loss of Trust and Credibility on Bitcoin: some may sincerely lose trust on bitcoin because one of the benefits we have been always enjoying is about it's consistency, should anything changed, the trust in using it also may be changed.

Hear this last aspect am going  to quote and drop your opinion or contribution

The major reason bitcoin maximum supply can not be altered is because everyone knows that if it is altered, which is to increase the supply, it will have bad effect on bitcoin price. No one that bought bitcoin or that is mining bitcoin will want that. Everybody wants the price to continue to increase but altering the max supply will do the opposite and makes it inflationary.

No I have not.


And it's not marketcap but total (maximum) supply. Market capitalisation is total supply multiplied by the current price.
It's an Hardfork.
If any of its core principles are changed then it stops being Bitcoin.
And even if it's supply is reduced. It still seize being Bitcoin and wouldn't even improve its worth
But rather decrease how true it keeps to its principles .

21 million BTC is capped to ensure scarcity, mimic gold-like properties, and maintain long-term value key to Bitcoin’s monetary design.

It will also destroy a core principle to BTC as a whole: which would be like a domino effect in the long run.

It's theoretically possible to change the Bitcoin limit, but did you know why Satoshi has maintained the original concept to this day? His reasoning is to prevent manipulation and increase user confidence in Bitcoin as a stable and reliable digital currency. The extremely limited supply of Bitcoin allows its value to increase as demand continues to grow, making it an attractive investment for those seeking a rare and valuable asset. If there is a change in the supply amount then Bitcoin is no different from other coins, so as the most popular crypto asset it must maintain the features that have been designed as an initial concept to make it a unique digital asset.

It will become as any other coin where the supply may be changed, in fact, if needed.

And we want our BTC to stay true to its core values :P

This is not new and there are many documents on it so I believe that you would have been ready to read some more documents on this topic. These documents are helpful for your own learning and for this thread if you want to improve it quality.

How is the 21 million Bitcoin cap defined and enforced? (https://blog.lopp.net/how-is-the-21-million-bitcoin-cap-defined-and-enforced/)
Bitcoin's Controlled Supply. (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply)
Bitcoin Equivalent Network Time. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5331087)
Can Bitcoin's hard cap of 21 millions be changed? (https://river.com/learn/can-bitcoins-hard-cap-of-21-million-be-changed/)

Yes, technically a lot is possible but practically impossible, LOL. The 21 million cap is hard coded into Bitcoins rules & almost 19.8 million have already been mined. So any change would require a controversial hard fork that would have to be accepted by all users, nodes, exchanges &  miners, otherwise you would just create a rival chain like BCH shit, which almost certainly wont inherit Bitcoins trust or liquidity. So yeah, don’t expect that to happen, lmao.

Who want a coin with bigger total supply than what Bitcoin total supply has, they are scammers.

If any hardfork happens in the future, the blockchain with 21M total supply is Bitcoin, the another or the others are altcoins. It's like how many Bitcoin forks have appeared since 2017 Segwit, and they are altcoins or if you want say more accurately, they are scam altcoins.

How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There? You will be surprised!!! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221882.0)

We want Bitcoin and bitcoins, not scam altcoins as Bitcoin forks.

From the principle behind block halving it is evident that bitcoin will maintain its total supply of 21 million because 50 BTC halving occurs in every 210,000 blocks which mathematically sums up to around 21 million.

Consider this scenario, Gold is a highly valuable asset right? Because it is scarce and been trusted over the years as exchange. Just Imagine if Gold was as common as other fiat that can be printed at anytime, then its value would have been same or similar to fiats. Thesame applies to bitcoin, if the total supply increases then value also decreases.

We value bitcoin today as a digital asset (digital gold) because it possess similar characteristics as gold, if this is altered in anyway then I don't see any reason to hodl because the value will keep depreciating over time.

bitcoin crashes at 21 million btc. no one more generate btc, pigs who not sell btc lost all what they are invest. Game over after 21 mnl btc.

It won't crash at 21 million bitcoins and Bitcoin miners will continue their mining works as their mining revenue will be from Bitcoin transaction fees after 21M bitcoins exist.

Fear like you had or FUD you wanted to spread out, has been existing for many years since 2009 but Bitcoin has continued its growth from adoption to price. It won't stop the upward trend till 2140 and even long future after 2140.

There was a reason why Satoshi had decided to create the maximum supply of bitcoin as 21 million.
Yes, everyone wants a piece of bitcoin but that doesn't require for the supply to be increased.
We can simply buy a fraction of bitcoin whatever we can afford while maintaining its scarcity.
Hence, nobody would agree to increase the supply of bitcoin because that would break the trust of bitcoin believers.

If you are curious about the reason why Satoshi Nakamoto did this, you can explore it with Satoshi email to Mike Hearn.
https://plan99.net/~mike/satoshi-emails/thread1.html

It is not a mystery but some people still wonder what will happen after 21 million bitcoins are mined? (https://decrypt.co/33124/what-will-happen-to-bitcoin-after-all-21-million-are-mined?) This article has good information for clearing their doubt.

Many newbies create topics to ask about this from time to time and hopefully this post introduced this article can help them.

I appreciate your input on this, we learn altogether and the more regarding this.


Maybe you should get to know that the game has just begun by then, bitcoin does not end when the maximum supply is reached, instead another phase just begun to have more increase in it's value as it has always been