A flaw in bitcoin, if it became widely adopted 21m bitcoins, 7b people on planet

[jonald_fyookball]

21 million bitcoins. Would mean that if it became widespread no one human could ever have a 'full' coin but it could be spent in smaller denominations.
Jacob

That's the whole point of why it might be very smart to buy one now while a whole BTC is attainable.  The fixed supply is part of what makes it an attractive investment.

[DarkHyudrA]

The only real problem is that with miner fees.
If we have mass adoption, rise in price, what will happen to the fees and output priority?

[ranochigo]

If it later feels like its too less.. its no problem at all to split satoshis into 0.1 and 0.01 more..

This would require a hard fork. Also if 1 satoshi would be worth something significant we might also consider changing mining schedule to go beyond 2140 - that is make the block reward keep halving into fractional satoshis. This would effect how the last few satoshis are mined, but would have no significant impact on the ~21 million total BTC.

Are you sure it would need a fork? I would think that all it would need would be that everyone update his Bitcoin client.

I'm not a technical person. However, if the denominations start to go below satoshi, the new client would implement this and if miners mine the blocks with transactions below satoshi, it would create a fork. The newer clients will agree and the older client would disagree. This would create a fork.

The only real problem is that with miner fees.
If we have mass adoption, rise in price, what will happen to the fees and output priority?

The relay fees would probably decrease. The transaction fee the miners want to accept is totally up to them. I would imagine that the transaction priority relaying limit would decrease and the block size would increase in the near future. The blocks can then have more free transactions.

[fastdice_alchemist]

Well currently, money/currency is not evenly distributed at all. If we were to evenly distribute 21m bitcoins to 7b people it would around 0.003 each, but thats never going to happen because no one has the same amount of currency.


But it will be looooongggg before we reach 21m bitcoins.

[BADecker]

If it later feels like its too less.. its no problem at all to split satoshis into 0.1 and 0.01 more..

This would require a hard fork. Also if 1 satoshi would be worth something significant we might also consider changing mining schedule to go beyond 2140 - that is make the block reward keep halving into fractional satoshis. This would effect how the last few satoshis are mined, but would have no significant impact on the ~21 million total BTC.

Are you sure it would need a fork? I would think that all it would need would be that everyone update his Bitcoin client.

I'm not a technical person. However, if the denominations start to go below satoshi, the new client would implement this and if miners mine the blocks with transactions below satoshi, it would create a fork. The newer clients will agree and the older client would disagree. This would create a fork.

The only real problem is that with miner fees.
If we have mass adoption, rise in price, what will happen to the fees and output priority?

The relay fees would probably decrease. The transaction fee the miners want to accept is totally up to them. I would imagine that the transaction priority relaying limit would decrease and the block size would increase in the near future. The blocks can then have more free transactions.

Changes in the client would be small.

The miners would be the first ones to upgrade their clients, because they are on the cutting edge, so to speak.

People who didn't upgrade simply wouldn't have their wallets updated when they received transactions smaller than their clients could handle... at least until the combined amounts for any single address reached 1 satoshi or more. And they wouldn't be able to send smaller amounts than 1 satoshi.

The latest Bitcoin core clients look for the best chain. They would still do this, even if they couldn't update the blocks with fractions of a satoshi. Why? Because the miners would still be using updated clients that would be indicating the best chain.

I, like you, can see that there might be problems. They should be able to be solved. If in the future, when miners were down to mining only 2 or 3 bitcoins per block, or if the whole block size process is going to be changed like Gavin wants, by then everyone will be using an updated client. Are there people who still use version 0.2.0 (we are a 0.11.2 right now)?

[piloder]

Well currently, money/currency is not evenly distributed at all. If we were to evenly distribute 21m bitcoins to 7b people it would around 0.003 each, but thats never going to happen because no one has the same amount of currency.


But it will be looooongggg before we reach 21m bitcoins.

By the time of all the bitcoins are mined, there will be loss of many coins. We shall have around $16 million in 2140.

[Jet Cash]

Maybe they will introduce Bytecoin to cope with 8 times the volume.

[lumeire]

Well currently, money/currency is not evenly distributed at all. If we were to evenly distribute 21m bitcoins to 7b people it would around 0.003 each, but thats never going to happen because no one has the same amount of currency.


But it will be looooongggg before we reach 21m bitcoins.

By the time of all the bitcoins are mined, there will be loss of many coins. We shall have around $16 million in 2140.

We won't even be around when that happens.

@ontopic, it's not much of our concern really. The BTC economy would fix itself, and adjust accordingly. It's supply and demand.

[Patatas]

When I started with bitcoins I used to think the same but never thought of asking anyone since it would make look stupid.But after searching for a while on google,I'm convinced there is no limit as to the number of bitcoins available right now are sufficient to give everybody few satohsi's.Also not everybody needs 1 btc.

[TibanneCat]

As most has said, it is not an issue
several places already show values in mBtc and as the price goes up, soon enough we will be calculating in satoshis as opposed to full BTCs

Think of commodities, aluminium is priced in tons but gold is priced in grams

[Soros Shorts]

If it later feels like its too less.. its no problem at all to split satoshis into 0.1 and 0.01 more..

This would require a hard fork. Also if 1 satoshi would be worth something significant we might also consider changing mining schedule to go beyond 2140 - that is make the block reward keep halving into fractional satoshis. This would effect how the last few satoshis are mined, but would have no significant impact on the ~21 million total BTC.

Are you sure it would need a fork? I would think that all it would need would be that everyone update his Bitcoin client.

I'm not a technical person. However, if the denominations start to go below satoshi, the new client would implement this and if miners mine the blocks with transactions below satoshi, it would create a fork. The newer clients will agree and the older client would disagree. This would create a fork.

The only real problem is that with miner fees.
If we have mass adoption, rise in price, what will happen to the fees and output priority?

The relay fees would probably decrease. The transaction fee the miners want to accept is totally up to them. I would imagine that the transaction priority relaying limit would decrease and the block size would increase in the near future. The blocks can then have more free transactions.

Changes in the client would be small.

The miners would be the first ones to upgrade their clients, because they are on the cutting edge, so to speak.

People who didn't upgrade simply wouldn't have their wallets updated when they received transactions smaller than their clients could handle... at least until the combined amounts for any single address reached 1 satoshi or more. And they wouldn't be able to send smaller amounts than 1 satoshi.

The latest Bitcoin core clients look for the best chain. They would still do this, even if they couldn't update the blocks with fractions of a satoshi. Why? Because the miners would still be using updated clients that would be indicating the best chain.

I, like you, can see that there might be problems. They should be able to be solved. If in the future, when miners were down to mining only 2 or 3 bitcoins per block, or if the whole block size process is going to be changed like Gavin wants, by then everyone will be using an updated client. Are there people who still use version 0.2.0 (we are a 0.11.2 right now)?

Please explain how you can accomplish this with just small changes to the client when you need to redefine the representation of the value field of the TxOut data structure.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction#general_format_.28inside_a_block.29_of_each_input_of_a_transaction_-_Txin

Currently value is a 32-bit field and the smallest bit represents 1 Satoshi. If you add more bits to this field or modify it in any other way (to create a high resolution value with sub-Satoshi precision) you will change entire fabric of the Bitcoin network. If this is done in an uncoordinated way nodes/clients that only recognize the old 32-bit value would reject the new high resolution value.

[BitUsher]

Actually the fact that all bitcoins fit within 2**53 is quite a happy accident. It means that integer-satoshi amounts can be represented exactly by the IEEE decimal64 type, which provides one route towards practically infinite divisibility by using exact arbitrary-precision rational arithmetic and decimal64 for serialization.

Freicoin already implements arbitrary-precision internal arithmetic, and decimal64 support could be added by a new transaction serialization version. As others have mentioned though, there's not really a need until sub-satoshi amounts have any real-world value.

[NorrisK]

Even if there were enough bitcoins around to hand everybody 1 bitcoin, that would not be how bitcoins would be distributed. Some people will be accumulating just like with fiat, while others end up holding nothing.

It's human nature that some people find a way to gain a lot of something, while others find a way to get rid of everything. We should accept that this can never be changed.

[arthurminton]

you are getting the wrong idea dude, make bitcoin popular does not mean that everyone has to own a bitcoin. it means that everyone must know about bitcoin and if some problem occurs to them regarding transactions then they know about a reliable source such as bitcoin. the goal of the developer of bitcoin might not have been to remove bitcoin but to spread bitcoin as gold, gold is also limited but many people who can afford gold have gold in some form and even the elder illiterates know about gold. i might be wrong but this is what I thing bitcoin was invented for.

[piloder]

you are getting the wrong idea dude, make bitcoin popular does not mean that everyone has to own a bitcoin. it means that everyone must know about bitcoin and if some problem occurs to them regarding transactions then they know about a reliable source such as bitcoin. the goal of the developer of bitcoin might not have been to remove bitcoin but to spread bitcoin as gold, gold is also limited but many people who can afford gold have gold in some form and even the elder illiterates know about gold. i might be wrong but this is what I thing bitcoin was invented for.

That is the point. Many people do not own gold, but they know what the gold is. When crisis hit, they can buy gold.

[Phil Astley]

A quick calculation shows that if in 2140 all the btc is mined and the population sticks to the current 7bil then everyone on the planet would need 0.003btc for them to e evenly distributed; of course some people will have none and some will hold many and some will have a few, just enough to be considered wealthy.

I have 0.1btc right now and intend to get more, so I guess that would put me in the 1% in 2140?

Of course then you also have the lower value coins that people will have accrued including Dogecoin that apparently has no limits so there will likely be trillions of those floating around the internet and stuffed on antique quantum computers...

[owm123]

Not everyone will be able to have 1 bitcoin. Even these days just 1 bitcoin is a goal for many, and its difficult to achieve with current prices.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

There are a maximum of 2,099,999,997,690,000 Bitcoin elements (called satoshis), which are currently most commonly measured in units of 100,000,000 known as BTC.

I think there are plenty of units to go around.

^^^^

/thread

[YoonYeonghwa]

You do know that not everyone is going to own 1 whole Bitcoin. You can own parts of Bitcoin as well. Maybe you didn't know that.

[countryfree]

This isn't a problem at all. BTC is just like everything else. Some people own 10 houses, but millions are homeless. Jay Leno owns more than 100 cars, while millions don't have any. This is the world we live in. BTC will change how we handle money, but it won't change the world.