1BR: Should the block reward be 50 BTC for ages?

[Come-from-Beyond]

I don't know why Satoshi decided to limit total qty of bitcoins to 21'000'000 coins. I suspect he made it to tempt early adopters with possibility to become very rich ppl. Now Bitcoin doesn't need such a trick and WE could change the plan. Bitcoin network exists due to hard work of miners and I dislike the idea to halve their reward in the nearest future. Of coz a lot of ppl will be against keeping the reward unchanged. But if these ppl r NOT miners then miners don't need to pay much attention to them. Miners r those who rule Bitcoin.

I suggest other plan. We'll know how many ppl support the idea to keep 50 BTC forever. We'll change the algo in the bitcoin client. When the time for 25 BTC reward comes we'll see which part of the network becomes the winner.

It's time for 1st Bitcoin Revolution...

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[HostFat]

lol, good luck

[justusranvier]

If you don't like Bitcoin's inflation algorithm you can always start using one of the other cryptocurrencies which have different policies.

[Come-from-Beyond]

If you don't like Bitcoin's inflation algorithm you can always start using one of the other cryptocurrencies which have different policies.

I like it. But I don't think that we MUST follow the plan for 100%. I doubt that Satoshi was so genius.

[totaleclipseofthebank]

If you don't like Bitcoin's inflation algorithm you can always start using one of the other cryptocurrencies which have different policies.

I like it. But I don't think that we MUST follow the plan for 100%. I doubt that Satoshi was so genius.

BTC21 million isnt cool. You know whats cool? BTC21 billion

[thezerg]

The block reward halving is irrelevant since its a state of perfect competition.

If the miners can't make $, they will stop mining, difficulty will decrease until whoever is left will make just enough $ to continue mining.  If we left the block reward at 50, the number of miners would increase until they make just enough $ to continue mining.

[jwzguy]

I don't think it was a necessary feature to make Bitcoin a successful currency.  I think a fixed and guaranteed rate of production will accomplish the goal. But for people who have not spent time studying economics and are just tired of having their currency constantly hyperinflated, it's an excellent selling point. Notice it is one of the first thing any news story mentions. People instinctively know why it is a valuable feature.

But regardless of your opinion it won't  be changing. Your best option is to support or create an alt chain without the hard cap.

[Stephen Gornick]

We'll change the algo in the bitcoin client. When the time for 25 BTC reward comes we'll see which part of the network becomes the winner.

And who do you suppose, other than some miners who are ignorant of the term "economic majority", would use this modified client?

[Come-from-Beyond]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99928.0

Haven't seen this poll. Thx for the link.

[SgtSpike]

Many people are holding on to Bitcoins BECAUSE they don't inflate.  If you introduce infinite inflation, expect people to drop them like hot potatoes, and the value of them to drop equally fast.

Miners would actually make much less per block in terms of dollars if the block reward was sustained at 50 BTC indefinitely, because the price of BTC would drop so much once people knew they would be inflated forever.

[Come-from-Beyond]

And who do you suppose, other than some miners who are ignorant of the term "economic majority", would use this modified client?

If miners modify the algo then the others have to do the same.

[Come-from-Beyond]

...the price of BTC would drop so much once people knew they would be inflated forever.

Every single day inflation rate will go down in this case, so it's like it is now but without capped grand total.

[SgtSpike]

And who do you suppose, other than some miners who are ignorant of the term "economic majority", would use this modified client?

If miners modify the algo then the others have to do the same.

No they don't.

Say you did fork Bitcoin, and 95% of miners moved over to this new blockchain so they could be paid 50 BTC forever.

Now, 95% of non-miners stay with the real Bitcoin blockchain, and 5% of miners.

So 95% of miners are now mining this worthless fork that no one is actually using for transactions, because non-miners are still using the real Bitcoin blockchain instead.  The price drops on said worthless fork because no one is using it, and therefore no one wants it.  It starts to see values along the lines of Solidcoin when compared with real Bitcoins.

Meanwhile, the 5% of miners who stayed with the original Bitcoin blockchain are still happily mining along and keeping transactions moving along, the currency still has value, and people are still making transactions with it.

There's no requirement for everyone to follow suit if a new version of Bitcoin is released.

[SgtSpike]

...the price of BTC would drop so much once people knew they would be inflated forever.

Every single day inflation rate will go down in this case, so it's like it is now but without capped grand total.

I understand that, but as far as a store of value, it would never compete with Bitcoin, which doesn't inflate at all.  And if people aren't using it as a store of value, they aren't holding it.  And if people aren't holding it, they don't use it.  And if people don't hold or use it, it becomes worthless.

[Come-from-Beyond]

If miners modify the algo then the others have to do the same.

No they don't.

Say you did fork Bitcoin, and 95% of miners moved over to this new blockchain so they could be paid 50 BTC forever.

Now, 95% of non-miners stay with the real Bitcoin blockchain, and 5% of miners.

So 95% of miners are now mining this worthless fork that no one is actually using for transactions, because non-miners are still using the real Bitcoin blockchain instead.  The price drops on said worthless fork because no one is using it, and therefore no one wants it.  It starts to see values along the lines of Solidcoin when compared with real Bitcoins.

Meanwhile, the 5% of miners who stayed with the original Bitcoin blockchain are still happily mining along and keeping transactions moving along, the currency still has value, and people are still making transactions with it.

It seems to me that u r right. So there is no way to change Bitcoin. Any changes will likely lead to a fork.

[FreeMoney]

If miners modify the algo then the others have to do the same.

No they don't.

Say you did fork Bitcoin, and 95% of miners moved over to this new blockchain so they could be paid 50 BTC forever.

Now, 95% of non-miners stay with the real Bitcoin blockchain, and 5% of miners.

So 95% of miners are now mining this worthless fork that no one is actually using for transactions, because non-miners are still using the real Bitcoin blockchain instead.  The price drops on said worthless fork because no one is using it, and therefore no one wants it.  It starts to see values along the lines of Solidcoin when compared with real Bitcoins.

Meanwhile, the 5% of miners who stayed with the original Bitcoin blockchain are still happily mining along and keeping transactions moving along, the currency still has value, and people are still making transactions with it.

It seems to me that u r right. So there is no way to change Bitcoin. Any changes will likely lead to a fork.

If the people who supply the value (merchants not miners) want different money they can get it whether they want EUR, Bitcoin, or modified Bitcoin. The people who mint the coins do it for us because we pay them to.

[swissmate]

People who are afraid of the reward halving don't really technically know how all the system works and why it's necessary to decrease the reward.

[DeathAndTaxes]

But regardless of your opinion it won't  be changing. Your best option is to support or create an alt chain without the hard cap.

This.  Good, bad, or ugly you will never get the kind of consensus necessary to make just a drastic change to the Bitcoin network.  To even have a shot at it you would need to convince the developers of all the major wallets, a super majority of miners, a super majority of merchants, essentially all major exchanges, and convince at least a significant fraction of normal users.

It simply will never happen.  Every couple week/months/years someone will say "what if we x?" you never will be able to.  The current protocol has momentum and any miners of an alt-fork runs the very real risk they end up with lots of completely worthless coins while miners who stay on the current fork will see their difficulty fall and their revenue rise.

An alt-chain is possible.  I would also point out that an alt-chain doesn't need to start at a genesis block of 0.  You could for example take the current Bitcoin balances at block 210,000 and make your alt-coin start with that.  However changing something are core as the minting rate simply isn't going to happen so those who want it to  should start an alt-coin.

The only scenarios I see a permanent hard fork being plausible would be:
a) to replace ECDSA based addresses because they are cryptographically flawed.
b) to extend the number of digits because 1 satoshi is worth more than $0.10 USD in buying power (or equivalent).
c) to change the hashing algorithm because SHA-256 is cryptographically flawed.
d) to incorporate post-quantum cryptography because QC presents a credible risk.
e) some other catastrophic flaw in the protocol which simply must be changed to avoid the entire system failing

[hazek]

And who do you suppose, other than some miners who are ignorant of the term "economic majority", would use this modified client?

If miners modify the algo then the others have to do the same.

No one has to do anything in Bitcoin. If miners start using another algo that wouldn't be Bitcoin anymore and they'd simply make a hard fork. Who ever is left would continue using Bitcoin as if nothing happened.

[hazek]

If miners modify the algo then the others have to do the same.

No they don't.

Say you did fork Bitcoin, and 95% of miners moved over to this new blockchain so they could be paid 50 BTC forever.

Now, 95% of non-miners stay with the real Bitcoin blockchain, and 5% of miners.

So 95% of miners are now mining this worthless fork that no one is actually using for transactions, because non-miners are still using the real Bitcoin blockchain instead.  The price drops on said worthless fork because no one is using it, and therefore no one wants it.  It starts to see values along the lines of Solidcoin when compared with real Bitcoins.

Meanwhile, the 5% of miners who stayed with the original Bitcoin blockchain are still happily mining along and keeping transactions moving along, the currency still has value, and people are still making transactions with it.

It seems to me that u r right. So there is no way to change Bitcoin. Any changes will likely lead to a fork.

Precisely.