Bitcoin Executive Says 21 Million Cap Increase Inevitable

[knight22]

There is no discussion to be made about the 21M limit. Consensus will never be reached, not even close. End of story.

Discussing about this is a big waste of time.

[MicroGuy]

There is no discussion to be made about the 21M limit. Consensus will never be reached, not even close. End of story.

Discussing about this is a big waste of time.

Look at base voters in the united states and ask yourself how many people want welfare, food stamps, and free public services. I think the block reward increase is only a matter of time unless some mechanism is built to make that increase impossible. Maybe some kind of charter or constitution would be helpful.

[coinableS]

Not sure if this executive is stupid or just trolling. If the 21 million cap was ever lifted or raised or changed in anyway you would see a huge run out the floods gates myself included. His post doesn't make any sense. The 21 million cap has been in place since the inception. The 1MB cap was a temporary cap that was intended to be removed later. His post may as well say "Block size fork will lead to one mysql database keeping track of coins instead of decentralized blockchain". It's just pure idiocy.

[ajareselde]

There is no discussion to be made about the 21M limit. Consensus will never be reached, not even close. End of story.

Discussing about this is a big waste of time.

Look at base voters in the united states and ask yourself how many people want welfare, food stamps, and free public services. I think the block reward increase is only a matter of time unless some mechanism is built to make that increase impossible. Maybe some kind of charter or constitution would be helpful.

What do welfare and food stamps users, aswell as free public services have to do with bitcoin? Will they  cast a majority vote regarding block reward, or 51% the network from their trailer park ?
btw..
Bitcoin Executive is fictional character/title, it's something that doesn't exist, so you might as well say "Daffy Duck Says 21 Million Cap Increase Inevitable"
And then say you are not spreading, and also creating  FUD..



cheers

[Bizmark13]

He was being sarcastic...?  Is Jon Matonis against the hard fork?  If he is, he's trying to say Gavin's move is a precursor to a shit storm coming in BTC land.

If XT succeeds, increasing the 21m cap would not seem farfetched.  At least in his eyes.

Would someone who was once the Director of the Bitcoin Foundation really think that the two are even remotely comparable? Because the differences between the two proposals are enormous. Satoshi always intended for the block size limit to be increased at some point in the future. That was always part of Bitcoin's design and it was never a question of "if" but "when". That the majority of miners would someday support a hard fork that aims to increase the max block size is to be expected:

The bandwidth might not be as prohibitive as you think. A typical transaction would be about 400 bytes (ECC is nicely compact). Each transaction has to be broadcast twice, so lets say 1KB per transaction. Visa processed 37 billion transactions in FY2008, or an average of 100 million transactions per day. That many transactions would take 100GB of bandwidth, or the size of 12 DVD or 2 HD quality movies, or about $18 worth of bandwidth at current prices.

Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09964.html

Arbitrarily increasing the total number of coins changes a fundamental aspect of what Bitcoin is and Satoshi's comments make it clear that such a thing would be very undesirable. Even if there is no centralized party trying to enforce a fork, I find it unlikely that miners would accept the latter or even equate the two proposals as being anything remotely similar.

How, exactly, would such a change roll out? There is actually no point in the code (that I could find) that specifically imposes such a cap. The only thing that this cap comes from is the method which the block reward comes from, simply dividing by two. There is a point where the rounding used in the code simply returned zero, and that was when the block reward went to zero. This just so happens to be just under 21 million Bitcoin, which is likely just a coincidence, not a specifically hard coded thing.

It would be a hard fork that involves a change in the coin emission algorithm. You're correct that there is nowhere in the code that specifically calls for a max cap of 21 million coins. However, this number can be deduced by looking at the emission rate (50 BTC blocks every 10 minutes with a halving every ~4 years). Changing the specifics of the emission algorithm would change the maximum number of coins but to do so would require a hard fork.

Acceptance of the hard fork can be measured by looking at the proportion of miners who switch to the new chain. Most likely the chain would bifurcate since any proposal to change the maximum number of coins would be very controversial (to put it lightly), and you would have two chains on either side that exist independently of the other.

[Realpra]

That fork will never gain support. Sure the someone might make the code change, but there would be no support of that code.

The only ones who would benefit would be one or two mega miners. No merchant, full node operator or normal bitcoiner would run it.

[electerium]

I agree, bitcoin needs to remove the hardcap on its controlled supply.



SOmetime very soon, e.g. 2020-2024, 90%+ of bitcoins will have been mined. At that point, one can easily argue that through lost coins + satoshi's coins that bitcoin will become deflationary: the block reward (3.25) will not be able to usurp what is being or has been lost from the network.

That will cause bitcoin to become a deflationary commodity.

Since the block reward cannot defeat what is being lost on the network, bitcoin's value will rise due to its pure scarcity. This will absolutely create a bubble, but one that cannot ever be re-flated... this would be an endgame bubble. If you are looking to exchange fiat into bitcoin somewhere between 2020-2024, you will be faced with a reality where 95% of all bitcoins will already have been mined and its monetary base will decline forever into the year 2100. Also one has to consider that if bitcoin does ever reach a deflationary state, you may also see transactions decrease because people are discincentivized to spend bitcoin when its value is increasing. If that occurs, miners will lose fees, and bitcoin's network security will suffer because the block reward will be negligible.

This is of course assuming that in 2020 bitcoin will be worth more than it is today. This also does not make any assumptions as to what blockstream can accomplish, or bitcoin 2.0.

There's no doubt in my mind that for bitcoin to truly succeed, it's monetary base needs to be expanded.

because where we are today in terms of development is far behind where bitcoin is as a finite commodity (that has been mined 66% already).

[futureofbitcoin]

All the people who think that increasing the limit is against the "purpose and objective" of bitcoin and will make everyone completely lose confidence in it has no idea what bitcoin is about in the first place.


Bitcoin is not about having 0 adaptability and flexibility, eventually becoming unsuitable since society is always changing. Bitcoin is about programmable money; it's about having the flexibility to change and make it adapt to changing conditions, to add functionality that previous generations have not thought of before. That's where it beats out inflexible and unchanging government money. And that's what makes bitcoin valuable.


There's no reason having a set schedule of some small amount of emissions every block after 2140 would completely destroy the price. Such an update will only be made if it's near certain that it is required to keep the blockchain alive, probably because miner fees are simply not sufficient to keep the blockchain secure enough.


Perhaps there will be a small segment in the population who will be against such an increase. They can have their original fork. But those people would only be a small fraction of bitcoin users; probably only a fraction of the users today. They might have their 1 billion market cap, while the new chain can have a trillion dollar market cap.

I don't agree that only a small segment will be against an increase.  Why would that be the case since everyone (not just early adopters) would suffer from inflation?

Also, regarding if transaction fees alone will be able to secure the network, consider the average
daily transaction volume is already $50M USD.  https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd.  Say in the future this only becomes $200M usd.  Then you could still raise $500,000 in transaction fees using a quarter of one percent transaction fee.  I think anyway you slice it, transaction fees will be adequate in all but the most bleak of scenarios.

The fact is, bitcoin would have taken over the world already if normal people think like you guys do. But they don't. They aren't deathly afraid of the government or government money. They don't think USD is a scam. They're completely fine with it. They'll be completely fine with increasing bitcoin emissions too, when the time comes.

increasing emissions won't destroy bitcoin's price if there is a clear purpose for it, as opposed to simply enriching the miners. Not increasing emissions could destroy the price, if it becomes a necessary thing to do. We can't really predict or know what will happen in the future, we'll have to see. But there needs to be a flexibility to deal with changes in society and the addition of new knowledge and technology. If bitcoin can't adapt, something else will simply take over its place.

Also, as I've said before, transcation volume doesn't matter if most of that volume is off-chain and made within companies like coinbase or xapo.

[Light]

increasing emissions won't destroy bitcoin's price if there is a clear purpose for it, as opposed to simply enriching the miners. Not increasing emissions could destroy the price, if it becomes a necessary thing to do. We can't really predict or know what will happen in the future, we'll have to see. But there needs to be a flexibility to deal with changes in society and the addition of new knowledge and technology. If bitcoin can't adapt, something else will simply take over its place.

Pretty sure that in nearly all scenarios increasing supply will see a fall in price unless you have an appropriate increase in demand to maintain that price level. Contrary to your point, I simply cannot see a scenario where raising the limit is actually necessary - given bitcoin is divisible down to the satoshi you don't actually need to go any further unless you run out of units to state. And that'll only happen if a single person for some reason needs to hold less than a single satoshi (i.e. a single satoshi has a significant value).

[futureofbitcoin]

increasing emissions won't destroy bitcoin's price if there is a clear purpose for it, as opposed to simply enriching the miners. Not increasing emissions could destroy the price, if it becomes a necessary thing to do. We can't really predict or know what will happen in the future, we'll have to see. But there needs to be a flexibility to deal with changes in society and the addition of new knowledge and technology. If bitcoin can't adapt, something else will simply take over its place.

Pretty sure that in nearly all scenarios increasing supply will see a fall in price unless you have an appropriate increase in demand to maintain that price level. Contrary to your point, I simply cannot see a scenario where raising the limit is actually necessary - given bitcoin is divisible down to the satoshi you don't actually need to go any further unless you run out of units to state. And that'll only happen if a single person for some reason needs to hold less than a single satoshi (i.e. a single satoshi has a significant value).

It's not about rising the limit. It's about giving enough incentive to miners so that the network is secure enough. That said, there is a psychological problem with having 0.00000000000000000000001 units of a currency, it's very real. Saying that you can keep dividing it isn't necessarily the best solution. In the first place, allowing finer divisions would require a fork, anyway. Perhaps at that time a better solution will have been discovered. And perhaps that involves increasing emissions.

[Amph]

I agree, bitcoin needs to remove the hardcap on its controlled supply.



SOmetime very soon, e.g. 2020-2024, 90%+ of bitcoins will have been mined. At that point, one can easily argue that through lost coins + satoshi's coins that bitcoin will become deflationary: the block reward (3.25) will not be able to usurp what is being or has been lost from the network.

That will cause bitcoin to become a deflationary commodity.

Since the block reward cannot defeat what is being lost on the network, bitcoin's value will rise due to its pure scarcity. This will absolutely create a bubble, but one that cannot ever be re-flated... this would be an endgame bubble. If you are looking to exchange fiat into bitcoin somewhere between 2020-2024, you will be faced with a reality where 95% of all bitcoins will already have been mined and its monetary base will decline forever into the year 2100. Also one has to consider that if bitcoin does ever reach a deflationary state, you may also see transactions decrease because people are discincentivized to spend bitcoin when its value is increasing. If that occurs, miners will lose fees, and bitcoin's network security will suffer because the block reward will be negligible.

This is of course assuming that in 2020 bitcoin will be worth more than it is today. This also does not make any assumptions as to what blockstream can accomplish, or bitcoin 2.0.

There's no doubt in my mind that for bitcoin to truly succeed, it's monetary base needs to be expanded.

because where we are today in terms of development is far behind where bitcoin is as a finite commodity (that has been mined 66% already).

you are assuming that removing the supply limit would just mean keep mining a small % of coin that will not influence the final deflationary nature of bitcoin, but this only if it is around the 3.25 coin per block as you have described, or less

but actually i cannot see any reason why miners should mine everything above a small value the one from fees, if the price will skyrocket, and if not their tech would be so advanced that consumption will be non existing,

and with the fact that, they will probably roi'd on every equipments, they will have no reason to stop mining, so miners don't need other incentive to keep mining

[S4VV4S]

There is no discussion to be made about the 21M limit. Consensus will never be reached, not even close. End of story.

Discussing about this is a big waste of time.

Look at base voters in the united states and ask yourself how many people want welfare, food stamps, and free public services. I think the block reward increase is only a matter of time unless some mechanism is built to make that increase impossible. Maybe some kind of charter or constitution would be helpful.

What do welfare and food stamps users, aswell as free public services have to do with bitcoin? Will they  cast a majority vote regarding block reward, or 51% the network from their trailer park ?
btw..
Bitcoin Executive is fictional character/title, it's something that doesn't exist, so you might as well say "Daffy Duck Says 21 Million Cap Increase Inevitable"
And then say you are not spreading, and also creating  FUD..



cheers

I think his point was that people want/like free money.
But there is no free money giveaway here.
Even if the block rewards increase, you still have to mine it.

[agusrohana]

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[agusrohana]

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[OrientA]

If the block reward is maintained at 1 Satoshi after 2140, the value of BTC will not drop. These extra Bitcoin (0.0005256 bitcoin) shall only be enough to account for the lost coin every year.

[RodeoX]

LOL, what the hell is a "bitcoin executive". 

The chance of that changing is 0.00000000000000000000000000000001% Give me a break. 

[LiteCoinGuy]

the source of the article is altcoinpress.com. While I am not familiar with this news service, I think their domain should be a pretty good indicator of their ability to be fair and balanced to Bitcoin. (Note that I have pretty much zero interest in reading the article nor did I)

In others words, there is nothing to see here and you can move along.

Alternative currencies are VITAL to pointing out flaws and improving upon Satoshi's design. Burying your head in the sand is probably not useful.

Your statement is insane, noone is burrying their head in the sand, it's just that this whole thread is misleading people with low quality content that has zero chances of being valid.
Bitcoin will not increase it's max. of 21 million, and Jon Matonis is an idiot if he believes that is to happen.
BTW your thread title is wrong on so many levels, pure FUD.

This thread is misrepresenting the Truth
Be Careful

Agreed.

Agreed. 

[aztecminer]

Interesting. Anyone who proposes this is out of their mind. We've already argued in the past the there are enough coins because they can be divide.
If the supply ever changes even to 22 Million, we could almost safely say that Bitcoin would die afterwards. I'm not sure how other holders feel but if this ever happens I'm jumping ship and never coming back (I think that this is one of the rare scenarios in which I would do that).

maybe should buy gold and silver!

[S4VV4S]

If the block reward is maintained at 1 Satoshi after 2140, the value of BTC will not drop. These extra Bitcoin (0.0005256 bitcoin) shall only be enough to account for the lost coin every year.

Why?
And why would the price drop anyway?

I believe that the reward from the transaction fees will be more than enough.
No new Bitcoins needed.

[manselr]

If the block reward is maintained at 1 Satoshi after 2140, the value of BTC will not drop. These extra Bitcoin (0.0005256 bitcoin) shall only be enough to account for the lost coin every year.

Why?
And why would the price drop anyway?

I believe that the reward from the transaction fees will be more than enough.
No new Bitcoins needed.

The price of a BTC in 2140 will be in the billions, of course the small % one will get from running a node will be enough. Mining and then procesing transactions will always be a profitable business for someone out there.