Bitcoin devs can undo 21M supply cap but can’t force changes

[franky1]

value stored in byte form on the blockchain is measured in sats..
yep the blockchain does not understand what a BTC is
btc however is just a GUI expression (just math multiplication at display level of software)
expressing sats amounts in a more compact way for visual ease of user experience

the REAL RULES of bitcoin is actually
starting from 5000000000 units awarded per block, where rewards half every 210,000 blocks

without breaking any code of unit audit rules of the blockchain. coalitions of economic nodes(merchant services/exchanges), devs and mining pool nodes can simply decide that a btc is not sats/100m but sats/1m where by someone with legacy 0.5btc now has 50btc in new math and there being 2.1b btc total eventual circulation, and would not break the unit logic of blockchain data to cause more units. thus no need to even need hardforks or breaking of blockchain logic

EG gold exchanges changing from "gold"=1kg to "gold"=1 ounce to "gold"=10grams.. without having to find/mine more actual gold

..
devs can also break the blockchain logic rules. to cause more units to be produced per block in multiple ways. such as not half every 210,000 block. but this would require majority consensus (again though mainly just the devs, economic nodes and mining pool nodes), where by users nodes would just update blindly to stay in communication and in sync with the services of the network

[ABCbits]

It would be interesting to read what a developer thinks is or is not possible about altering the supply cap.

we are a very tiny minority (here on this forum) of all the people using bitcoin. the more popular bitcoin becomes, the more tiny we get. and the public at large wouldn't even know anything about how bitcoin works. so if that's the type of audience that the core devs have to work with then they might be able to sneak in a max supply increase. it wouldn't really affect them (the public) anyway to the extent that they would really notice (not at first!). if the government can print money out of thin air then i guess bitcoin can too.

There'll be always technical people and group who watch Bitcoin Core development though. It's also worth to mention such change can't be done stealthily since not everyone use Bitcoin Core.

not to get too far OT but isn't that what all this Bitcoin ETF is about, pretending like you're buying bitcoin on a stock exchange but in reality no one really knows if that bitcoin really exists...so in a sense, there's some overinflation possibility already. but its fake overinflation but that can still hurt people.

Yeah, but such problem is outside of Bitcoin network. Although people who buy Bitcoin through ETF wouldn't even think about it.

[boumalo]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-devs-can-undo-21-million-cap-but-cannot-force-changes

Bitcoin developers can theoretically remove the 21-million-Bitcoin supply limit from the source code, but miners are unlikely to accept such a change, according to one analyst.

I'm sure this comes as a huge relief for all of you guys.

Then they go on to say this:

Like most other codes, Bitcoin’s source code can be modified, meaning the 21-million limit is theoretically changeable. However, such a change will have to be accepted by miners to be effective, according to Josef Tětek, a Bitcoin analyst at the hardware wallet firm Trezor.

The more people write about how the 21 million limit can be changed, the more its going to get into peoples' heads that maybe it should be changed. That way they could own more bitcoin and get richer. That's how they would think about it.

It's scary to think that if miners and devs are from a same group that want to make a huge change like increasing the 21-million limit, it could happen in the future. It's unlikely though bc they don't have the incentive to do it yet.

[larry_vw_1955]

value stored in byte form on the blockchain is measured in sats..
yep the blockchain does not understand what a BTC is

you're right after all. BTC is just an informal definition for "100 million satoshis". satoshis have a meaning. you can't make more of them. their supply is fixed.

without breaking any code of unit audit rules of the blockchain. coalitions of economic nodes(merchant services/exchanges), devs and mining pool nodes can simply decide that a btc is not sats/100m but sats/1m where by someone with legacy 0.5btc now has 50btc in new math and there being 2.1b btc total eventual circulation, and would not break the unit logic of blockchain data to cause more units. thus no need to even need hardforks or breaking of blockchain logic

the problem with that is it doesn't really increase the supply. everyone still has the same percentage ownership of the blockchain as they did before you redenominated what a bitcoin is.

pretend like all the bitcoins have been mined. then you have x% ownership of that total. no matter how you rename a bitcoin or anything. contrast that with if the block reward did not go to zero and there was no max supply then that x% ownership would become less and less over time. no matter how you define a bitcoin or anything.

EG gold exchanges changing from "gold"=1kg to "gold"=1 ounce to "gold"=10grams.. without having to find/mine more actual gold

but no one is going to pay more for "gold" than they did before you renamed 1kg to only 1 ounce unless they like giving money away. their lifetime savings at that.

devs can also break the blockchain logic rules. to cause more units to be produced per block in multiple ways. such as not half every 210,000 block. but this would require majority consensus (again though mainly just the devs, economic nodes and mining pool nodes),

but doesn't that take us back to a "hard fork"? but they wouldn't spin it like that they would say it is necessary for bitcoin. and say satoshi's million bitcoin or however many he has are gone forever so we might as well recover those by introducing an inflating supply to counteract people like satoshi who lose their bitcoin or never use it. 21 million in active circulation is different than just 21 million issued. so i kind of can understand why it would be good to have 21 million in active circulation if the goal is for bitcoin to be used worldwide in as many ways as possible by as many people as possible...

where by users nodes would just update blindly to stay in communication and in sync with the services of the network

that's why i think something like that could happen. so many people just blindly go along with whatever the download on bitcoin.org is. they don't question anything. they just want to run bitcoin.

[bobbybkk]

value stored in byte form on the blockchain is measured in sats..
yep the blockchain does not understand what a BTC is

you're right after all. BTC is just an informal definition for "100 million satoshis". satoshis have a meaning. you can't make more of them. their supply is fixed.

If you view Bitcoin as having "only" 21 million "Bitcoins", that sounds like a kind of very limited number of coins you can buy.

If you view Bitcoin as having 21 million x 100 million Satoshis, that sounds like an pretty high number of units.

Good luck to explain to someone that an idiotic high amount if units (Satoshis), that can be sold individually, are a sure bet to increase in value.....

Just saying....

[MusaMohamed]

If you view Bitcoin as having "only" 21 million "Bitcoins", that sounds like a kind of very limited number of coins you can buy.

If you view Bitcoin as having 21 million x 100 million Satoshis, that sounds like an pretty high number of units.

Good luck to explain to someone that an idiotic high amount if units (Satoshis), that can be sold individually, are a sure bet to increase in value.....

When it is time for people to consider how many satoshis they can buy with capital they have, it will be a time for very lucrative value of Bitcoin.

Satoshi per dollar is an interesting chart and today we will get about 2,500 satoshi per dollar. I believe Bitcoin will continue to grow in its value so the possible bought satoshi with one dollar will decrease and become smaller than 2,500 satoshi/ dollar.

[larry_vw_1955]

If you view Bitcoin as having "only" 21 million "Bitcoins", that sounds like a kind of very limited number of coins you can buy.

that's because it is.

If you view Bitcoin as having 21 million x 100 million Satoshis, that sounds like an pretty high number of units.

that's because it is!

Good luck to explain to someone that an idiotic high amount if units (Satoshis), that can be sold individually, are a sure bet to increase in value.....

Just saying....

you can't do anything with an individual satoshi. that's one of the scams in bitcoin is having small amounts trapped in a wallet that you can't spend unless you put more money in. ever heard of that game throw good money after bad?   but if you're going to be in the bitcoin game you have to accept some things. one of those being that a certain amount of satoshis might be worthless...

https://thebitcoinmanual.com/articles/what-bitcoin-dust/

Dust is merely a term for small amounts of bitcoin; you have it in your wallet; it’s yours as those funds are attributed to your private key. However, the value is so tiny it’s currently unusable and unspendable.


as an example: you want to pay for a cup of coffee with your shiny new bitcoin wallet. the problem is, it only has $3 worth of bitcoin in it. but the transaction fee is $10. you're better off carrying cash.

[franky1]

value stored in byte form on the blockchain is measured in sats..
yep the blockchain does not understand what a BTC is

you're right after all. BTC is just an informal definition for "100 million satoshis". satoshis have a meaning. you can't make more of them. their supply is fixed.

If you view Bitcoin as having "only" 21 million "Bitcoins", that sounds like a kind of very limited number of coins you can buy.

If you view Bitcoin as having 21 million x 100 million Satoshis, that sounds like an pretty high number of units.

Good luck to explain to someone that an idiotic high amount if units (Satoshis), that can be sold individually, are a sure bet to increase in value.....

Just saying....

average joe cant handle large numbers like receiving 625000000 sats, they prefer 2 decimal numbers
and the stupid part of mass psychology of economics is people also dont like to receive 0.78125, as it feels small..  so in 8 years we will start to see people want to shift the decimal when explaining whole block coin rewards
there have been many discussions as to no longer want to talk about whole btc and instead use mbtc where 0.78125 btc is the same as 781.25mbtc
or even jump straight to ubtc aka bits(100sat) where in 8 years, 0.78125000 may be called  781250.00bits

but then there has been a tribe of people screaming that if we start measuring in mbtc or ubtc, by calling new names like "bits" that people will be confused thinking it breaks or deletes or isnt bitcoin any more but some other altcoin. so they want to name mbtc or ubtc as "bitcoin" by them saying that instead of saying 1KG of gold was just "gold". and 1 ounce of gold is now "gold"
where they rename 781250.00bits to be 781250.00 "bitcoin"

[bobbybkk]

average joe cant handle large numbers like receiving 625000000 sats, they prefer 2 decimal numbers
and the stupid part of mass psychology of economics is people also dont like to receive 0.78125, as it feels small..  so in 8 years we will start to see people want to shift the decimal when explaining whole block coin rewards
there have been many discussions as to no longer want to talk about whole btc and instead use mbtc where 0.78125 btc is the same as 781.25mbtc
or even jump straight to ubtc aka bits(100sat) where in 8 years, 0.78125000 may be called  781250.00bits

but then there has been a tribe of people screaming that if we start measuring in mbtc or ubtc, by calling new names like "bits" that people will be confused thinking it breaks or deletes or isnt bitcoin any more but some other altcoin. so they want to name mbtc or ubtc as "bitcoin" by them saying that instead of saying 1KG of gold was just "gold". and 1 ounce of gold is now "gold"
where they rename 781250.00bits to be 781250.00 "bitcoin"

OK.... I just try to understand the implications of these unit seizes.....

Satoshi tried to make sure that there are enough units when he created Bitcoin. Because the plan was to make it impossible to inflate the total amount of units. So in case Bitcoin goes to the masses there are no shortages in suppy. Kind of like IP addresses. In a closed system all fine.

But Bitcoin is interacting with fiat currencies and has a kind of dynamic exchange rate, currently about 45 000 USD per Bitcoin or maybe 2,500 satoshi/ dollar.
Now imagine a point in the future where the rate is 100 satoshi / dollar. This would make current Bitcoin holder very rich, 1 million USD per Bitcoin.

What happens if developer come up with an offer with similar options as Bitcoin, maybe called Titcoin and lower transcation fees and people start using Titcoin, that would mean Bitcoin would become kind of worthless, as there would be no buyer, because they can get the same or better functionality from Titcoins.......

And then the cycle starts again......

[franky1]

OK.... I just try to understand the implications of these unit seizes.....

Satoshi tried to make sure that there are enough units when he created Bitcoin. Because the plan was to make it impossible to inflate the total amount of units. So in case Bitcoin goes to the masses there are no shortages in suppy. Kind of like IP addresses. In a closed system all fine.

But Bitcoin is interacting with fiat currencies and has a kind of dynamic exchange rate, currently about 45 000 USD per Bitcoin or maybe 2,500 satoshi/ dollar.
Now imagine a point in the future where the rate is 100 satoshi / dollar. This would make current Bitcoin holder very rich, 1 million USD per Bitcoin.

What happens if developer come up with an offer with similar options as Bitcoin, maybe called Titcoin and lower transcation fees and people start using Titcoin, that would mean Bitcoin would become kind of worthless, as there would be no buyer, because they can get the same or better functionality from Titcoins.......

And then the cycle starts again......

lets forget about the creator coming back.. there is no back door take-over secret key. so lets abolish that narrative

however
if core devs and their sponsors seen that people wont buy whole bitcoins due to deflation making bitcoin a large lump of fiat to buy 1btc and also due to bitcoin network fee's cant trade single sat denominations.. this causes a small window of utility of 0.0x -> # <- 0.00005xxx where people can function inbetween
so the devs and sponsors made a subnetwork they want to push people onto. which had some new currency unit the bitcoin network did not understand which is called 'msat' which is
1sat=100000msat
or also
1btc=10000000000000msat
(reminder/emphasis: the bitcoin network does not understand msat and would need to break all blockchain audit logic and value understanding to make it understand msat)
so these msats are not bitcoin network understood units, but units created in the subnetwork to peg at a 1sat=100000msat IOU rate

where the idea is that they want the bitcoin network to be kinda useless, expensive, annoying to average joe,
annoying to use and a slim window of sats utility people can function within, where the hope is people abandon using bitcoin and lock bitcoin value to then use pegged IOU's valued in msats which they will never get to settle/claim back to bitcoin(due to closing session fee's) and instead spend away their value to institutions within the subnetwork, who when all value is spent by the user, the institution on the other side of the subnetwork channel then settles back to claim the bitcoin sats as their hoard

..
now welcome to the real conversations of real things happening right now.. instead of the FUD religious rhetoric of satoshi resurrections

[larry_vw_1955]

average joe cant handle large numbers like receiving 625000000 sats, they prefer 2 decimal numbers

i prefer no decimal places or at most two. and the reason is, for the us dollar nothing goes below the 2nd decimal place. that's the penny. it doesn't get any smaller than a penny. there is no unit of physical currency smaller than the penny. and a penny is usable. you can use it as a part of a transaction. take it from anywhere and throw it in a transaction. if someone sets a low enough price you can even buy something with that penny not even using anything else. unlike bitcoin. a satoshi is worthless by itself. you can't use a single satoshi. that's one thing i find unattractive about bitcoin is that dust limit thing. very confusing and i'm sure there's millions of dollars of "dust" that is lost forever. 

[bobbybkk]

average joe cant handle large numbers like receiving 625000000 sats, they prefer 2 decimal numbers

i prefer no decimal places or at most two. and the reason is, for the us dollar nothing goes below the 2nd decimal place. that's the penny. it doesn't get any smaller than a penny. there is no unit of physical currency smaller than the penny. and a penny is usable. you can use it as a part of a transaction. take it from anywhere and throw it in a transaction. if someone sets a low enough price you can even buy something with that penny not even using anything else. unlike bitcoin. a satoshi is worthless by itself. you can't use a single satoshi. that's one thing i find unattractive about bitcoin is that dust limit thing. very confusing and i'm sure there's millions of dollars of "dust" that is lost forever. 

You never know the future. Not so long ago some people were thinking the same of a single Bitcoin, now they are digging up landfills to find an old Harddrive with a couple of Bitcoins on it...

[larry_vw_1955]

You never know the future. Not so long ago some people were thinking the same of a single Bitcoin, now they are digging up landfills to find an old Harddrive with a couple of Bitcoins on it...

Bitcoin would have to skyrocket in price for a single satoshi to be worth picking up off the ground I would think. In other words, skyrocket way higher than to 1BTC=$1,000,000. Because even if bitcoin was worth that much which it might never be, a satoshi wouldn't even be worth a single penny. imagine that.

[reagansimms]

If their mindset is like that, then what about the basic principle of Bitcoin that only 21 million Bitcoins are available.

The 21-million hard limit of Bitcoin is one of the fundamental principles of the Bitcoin network, which is designed to provide scarcity — the gap between limited resources and unlimited wants.

Developers have access to introduce whatever they want, including canceling the 21 million Bitcoin supply limit, but they cannot force changes on anyone.
In theory, if they change the fixed supply of Bitcoin, it will only increase the number of Bitcoins for them, but financially they suffer huge losses because the price of Bitcoin continues to fall due to the increasing supply.

[Darker45]

Bitcoin's code is available for everybody to play with. It is public. So, anybody can change the codes as they deem perfect. No need for any permission. And then they can run their own version, too. That's it. Anybody who wishes to change the total supply of Bitcoin can download the software, tinker on the part about supply cap, and voila! You now have your own version of Bitcoin that has 1 trillion in supply limit. Enjoy your version!

By the way, the title is wrong. Undo is a wrong term. Redo might be more apt.