Stupid but very important question

[ssoonnss]

Hello,

I need a bit of help with a question that's been haunting me for the last couple of weeks

First of all , I started investing ...(or buying) bitcoin during last December and not one or two but lots of them.
I was scared of the huge raise and I did sell at 130-190 but since then I rebought most of them.

Currently I have all the money back , some xxx xxx euro profit and almost 60 000 bitcoins at various exchangers.

And now , I feel just stupid after reading a bit through the news and articles about bitcoin.
Never in my life have I invested such a huge sum without doing a really major research on the subject.Just the fact that I opened an account in some forum and asking stranges for info was something unthinkable a few month ago.

But , before I proceed with bitcoins I need to have a clear answer on something.
All my forum searches haven't really responded to my question , just talking around. Eevn contacting people who are doing projects designed for bitcoin didn't quite help.
I don't need a barinwashed bitcoinfan answer , because most are so enthusiast about the idea they fail to think clear.

----------------------------------------------------------------
The 21m bitcoin limit is something than can be changed or can't?
----------------------------------------------------------------

Before even considering answering...
- there is a limit to the level of some characters in games, but that only till the developers  release a patch
- there is a limit on how much data you can store on a 16GB stick , no matter what you try.

If the limit can be changed , who can do this? (I have a bad or very bad feeling about this).

[Birdy]

From what I know everyone can change the parameters to this, because it's open source.
The problem is that all others can deny your change by not using it.
Because nobody would want a change that will lose him a lot of money (and raising the limit would do this for everyone having Bitcoins), it will never go through.

What I'm not exactly sure about is how much influence miners have on this or if it's only concerning the majority of users running the clients.
(Miners could be the ones interested in having more Coins)

[superkawaii]

you have bought 60 000 btc before ?

:S


isnt that like 6 000 000 usd


:S

[Surpbitcoin]

60000 bitcoins my ASS!

[pyra-proxy]

Hello,

I need a bit of help with a question that's been haunting me for the last couple of weeks

First of all , I started investing ...(or buying) bitcoin during last December and not one or two but lots of them.
I was scared of the huge raise and I did sell at 130-190 but since then I rebought most of them.

Currently I have all the money back , some xxx xxx euro profit and almost 60 000 bitcoins at various exchangers.

And now , I feel just stupid after reading a bit through the news and articles about bitcoin.
Never in my life have I invested such a huge sum without doing a really major research on the subject.Just the fact that I opened an account in some forum and asking stranges for info was something unthinkable a few month ago.

But , before I proceed with bitcoins I need to have a clear answer on something.
All my forum searches haven't really responded to my question , just talking around. Eevn contacting people who are doing projects designed for bitcoin didn't quite help.
I don't need a barinwashed bitcoinfan answer , because most are so enthusiast about the idea they fail to think clear.

----------------------------------------------------------------
The 21m bitcoin limit is something than can be changed or can't?
----------------------------------------------------------------

Before even considering answering...
- there is a limit to the level of some characters in games, but that only till the developers  release a patch
- there is a limit on how much data you can store on a 16GB stick , no matter what you try.

If the limit can be changed , who can do this? (I have a bad or very bad feeling about this).

It could be changed with a patch but the more likely change is a shift in smallest divisible amount currently at 0.00000001 it is more likely that this goes to 0.0000000000000001 than we go from 21 to say 42 million coins but note this is just here say on my part based on the opinions and responses I typically see.  Both changes merely need a software patch that is generally accepted by the wider community.

[ssoonnss]

Just because some people have 100x more money to invest in something than you have on all your saving doesn't mean they don't have it.

Please stick to the question.

[Birdy]

It could be changed with a patch but the more likely change is a shift in smallest divisible amount currently at 0.00000001 it is more likely that this goes to 0.0000000000000001 than we go from 21 to say 42 million coins but note this is just here say on my part based on the opinions and responses I typically see.  Both changes merely need a software patch that is generally accepted by the wider community.

I guess he meant a change that would devalue all current coins (-> like printing new coins)
There is no way users would support such a patch, but I would also like to know, if the miners could do anything in this regard.

[DannyHamilton]

----------------------------------------------------------------
The 21m bitcoin limit is something than can be changed or can't?
----------------------------------------------------------------

Before even considering answering...
- there is a limit to the level of some characters in games, but that only till the developers  release a patch
- there is a limit on how much data you can store on a 16GB stick , no matter what you try.

If the limit can be changed , who can do this? (I have a bad or very bad feeling about this).

Technically, yes. There is nothing special about the number 21million that makes it impossible for there to be more.

Realistically, no. There is something special about how bitcoin works that means that changing this number would mean that you would create something new that is not bitcoin, and that bitcoin would continue to exist with its 21million limit.

The issuing of bitcoins happens when a miner solves a block.  The miner adds a new transaction when creating their block that pays the block reward (currently 25 bitcoins) to them in the solved block when they broadcast it.  Every peer on the network verifies that this reward is not more than it should be according to the protocol before they add the block to their own blockchain or relay it to anyone else.  So, even if 99.99% of the miners decided to change the protocol to allow them to reward themselves a larger amount of bitcoins, none of their peers would accept or relay the block.  Their blockchain would no longer match the blockchain that everyone else is using, and so they would have something different than bitcoin that they would be mining.  They might even get others to run a wallet that would accept the stuff they were mining.  Meanwhile those miners and users who chose to continue to use the limits in the current protocol would continue to operate with the current bitcoin system with the current limit on total issued.

To change the protocol to allow more than 21 million bitcoins, you would need to convince EVERYONE to switch to the new protocol.  If just one miner and one user continue to run the old protocol, then the 21 million bitcoin limit would continue to exist for them in the blockchain that they would be using.  Everyone else might try to call their new system "bitcoin", but the old bitcoin would still exist with its limit.

[ssoonnss]

It could be changed with a patch but the more likely change is a shift in smallest divisible amount currently at 0.00000001 it is more likely that this goes to 0.0000000000000001 than we go from 21 to say 42 million coins but note this is just here say on my part based on the opinions and responses I typically see.  Both changes merely need a software patch that is generally accepted by the wider community.
[/quote]

Same answer I'm getting everywhere , no offense .
It can be done , but community will (might) not allow.
I've seen far too many people ditching their belief for $$$ , to believe in something like this.

[pyra-proxy]

It could be changed with a patch but the more likely change is a shift in smallest divisible amount currently at 0.00000001 it is more likely that this goes to 0.0000000000000001 than we go from 21 to say 42 million coins but note this is just here say on my part based on the opinions and responses I typically see.  Both changes merely need a software patch that is generally accepted by the wider community.

Same answer I'm getting everywhere , no offense .
It can be done , but community will (might) not allow.
I've seen far too many people ditching their belief for $$$ , to believe in something like this.
[/quote]

The difference in $$$ vs this is the community.... almost the perfect ecosystem to resist changes since you truly need a significant advantage over everyone else to "man handle" the system and in all cases must have some skin in the game.  $$$ on the other hand can and is "man handled" by a very few number of people who can do this without regard to having any skin in the game, for when you control the game you can get all the skin you need at will :-)

[ssoonnss]

----------------------------------------------------------------
The 21m bitcoin limit is something than can be changed or can't?
----------------------------------------------------------------

Before even considering answering...
- there is a limit to the level of some characters in games, but that only till the developers  release a patch
- there is a limit on how much data you can store on a 16GB stick , no matter what you try.

If the limit can be changed , who can do this? (I have a bad or very bad feeling about this).

Technically, yes. There is nothing special about the number 21million that makes it impossible for there to be more.

Realistically, no. There is something special about how bitcoin works that means that changing this number would mean that you would create something new that is not bitcoin, and that bitcoin would continue to exist with its 21million limit.

The issuing of bitcoins happens when a miner solves a block.  The miner adds a new transaction when creating their block that pays the block reward (currently 25 bitcoins) to them in the solved block when they broadcast it.  Every peer on the network verifies that this reward is not more than it should be according to the protocol before they add the block to their own blockchain or relay it to anyone else.  So, even if 99.99% of the miners decided to change the protocol to allow them to reward themselves a larger amount of bitcoins, none of their peers would accept or relay the block.  Their blockchain would no longer match the blockchain that everyone else is using, and so they would have something different than bitcoin that they would be mining.  They might even get others to run a wallet that would accept the stuff they were mining.  Meanwhile those miners and users who chose to continue to use the limits in the current protocol would continue to operate with the current bitcoin system with the current limit on total issued.

To change the protocol to allow more than 21 million bitcoins, you would need to convince EVERYONE to switch to the new protocol.  If just one miner and one user continue to run the old protocol, then the 21 million bitcoin limit would continue to exist for them in the blockchain that they would be using.  Everyone else might try to call their new system "bitcoin", but the old bitcoin would still exist with its limit.

This is the bit of info I was looking for and I quite don't understand why everyone doen't like this subject or isn't concerned about it and they take this 21m for granted just like they thought the earth was flat.

[Birdy]

This is the bit of info I was looking for and I quite don't understand why everyone doen't like this subject or isn't concerned about it and they take this 21m for granted just like they thought the earth was flat.

Hmm...I did find this information (->aka did research and it was discussed in this forum), so this isn't true for everyone o.ô
(just couldn't explain it that good xD)

[ssoonnss]

It could be changed with a patch but the more likely change is a shift in smallest divisible amount currently at 0.00000001 it is more likely that this goes to 0.0000000000000001 than we go from 21 to say 42 million coins but note this is just here say on my part based on the opinions and responses I typically see.  Both changes merely need a software patch that is generally accepted by the wider community.

Same answer I'm getting everywhere , no offense .
It can be done , but community will (might) not allow.
I've seen far too many people ditching their belief for $$$ , to believe in something like this.

The difference in $$$ vs this is the community.... almost the perfect ecosystem to resist changes since you truly need a significant advantage over everyone else to "man handle" the system and in all cases must have some skin in the game.  $$$ on the other hand can and is "man handled" by a very few number of people who can do this without regard to having any skin in the game, for when you control the game you can get all the skin you need at will :-)
[/quote]

People can make mistakes , no matter how many they are..
I've made enough money out others poor decisions not to be concerned when the moment comes to put some of my wealth in others hands.

[DannyHamilton]

I quite don't understand why everyone doen't like this subject or isn't concerned about it and they take this 21m for granted just like they thought the earth was flat.

Not "everyone".  There are many knowledgeable people who understand this aspect of bitcoin.

However, there are also many less knowledgeable people who simply put their faith in the knowledge of others and assume that if there was any chance of there being more than 21million bitcoins someone would tell them so.

[ssoonnss]

This is the bit of info I was looking for and I quite don't understand why everyone doen't like this subject or isn't concerned about it and they take this 21m for granted just like they thought the earth was flat.

Hmm...I did find this information, so this isn't true for everyone o.ô
(just couldn't explain it that good xD)

Can you please share your source...?
It will take more than a few posts in the forums to enjoy my next week in the sun without thinking of those damn bitcoins.

[DannyHamilton]

Here is my source:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/src

Look at the source code that defines the protocol and it becomes clear that it works exactly as I've described it.

Every transaction and every block are verified by every peer before being relayed.  If someone (or some group) tries to change the code, all the peers will simply ignore the stuff they broadcast that is invalid according to the current protocol.  The only way to change this is to get EVERYONE to use modified code.  If even two peers can talk to each other and maintain the original rules, then the original rules are still enforced on the system that is currently called "bitcoin".

[ssoonnss]

I quite don't understand why everyone doen't like this subject or isn't concerned about it and they take this 21m for granted just like they thought the earth was flat.

Not "everyone".  There are many knowledgeable people who understand this aspect of bitcoin.

However, there are also many less knowledgeable people who simply put their faith in the knowledge of others and assume that if there was any chance of there being more than 21million bitcoins someone would tell them so.

You're right. "Everyone I talked in the last days". And I started with people I knew they have real big sums invested in this. This is why i became  a bit scared. I know how a real crash feel like and i don't want to face it again just because I was greedy like a piglet.

[DannyHamilton]

For a better understanding of this "consensus" system, take a look at the original "white paper" written by the person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto:

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

[DannyHamilton]

I quite don't understand why everyone doen't like this subject or isn't concerned about it and they take this 21m for granted just like they thought the earth was flat.

Not "everyone".  There are many knowledgeable people who understand this aspect of bitcoin.

However, there are also many less knowledgeable people who simply put their faith in the knowledge of others and assume that if there was any chance of there being more than 21million bitcoins someone would tell them so.

You're right. "Everyone I talked in the last days". And I started with people I knew they have real big sums invested in this. This is why i became  a bit scared. I know how a real crash feel like and i don't want to face it again just because I was greedy like a piglet.

Sounds like you've been talking to some very un-knowledgeable and trusting people.

[Birdy]

The discussions about Bitcoin forks shared a similar set of problems.
So I guess you could find something searching for the term "fork"

I will take a look if I can provide a better source than telling you to search for a term (but later, have RL things I must attend to atm).