Should bitcoin be limited to 21 million?

[pushups44]

Yes, bitcoin should be limited to 21 million, because this scarcity is what makes bitcoin so appealing to many investors. If bitcoin had more inflation, or even changed its inflation rate through a fork, it would take away the perception of its immutability for investors. Bitcoin would then be just like any fiat currency.

[brotherwood12]

i think bitcoin was limited (?) , i mean it mined time by time , and harder also , and the end we cant mined it anymore (?)

[Vishnu.Reang]

I am not in favor of increasing the overall supply, as it may cause a crash in the exchange rates. Also, the existing holders may end up with losses. However, I am in favor of re-denominating Bitcoin. A possible formula is 1 old Bitcoin = 1,000 new Bitcoin. There is a lot of complaint from some noobs that Bitcoin is very "expensive". After the re-denomination, the exchange rate will be around $6 per coin.

[jackg]

Limiting Bitcoin to 21 million will definitely conserve its price overtime as this will avoid the hyperinflation.

Also, with less and less Btc remained to be mined and with new halvings coming,  the rewards from mining should decrease and this will help the price, too. Basically,  you mine less btc, but a more valuable one.

I never mentioned hyperinflation?

Inflation might be needed at some point in order to ensure bitcoin continues to live on. Think of what you've said, what happens if we end up with only 1 bitcoin left in 200 years (it's possible).

if in my opinion it doesn't need to be limited bro. because the price of bitcoin is unstable and even soars it is very good. for investment either long term or short term.

I am really amazed at the lack of general concepts about Satoshi's ideology that people in this forum have started to express. Bitcoin was and is supposed to be made scarce day by day in order to make it a deflationary currency. That's how it was envisioned. You all should go through Satoshi's white paper once a while if you have never heard of it, yet.
The fact that Fiat is printable every when it's needed is one of the reasons of its current state. I don't understand why people are failing to understand these simple things. 21m is the golden number.

It's not deflationary either. It's inflationary at the moment still and will be until 2100+ it isn't particularly an issue for us but for our ancestors to determine what should happen.

Why is 21million so golden? If it were 100 million, I'm sure you'd be piping on about that. It isn't even 21 million since Satoshi has 1 million untouched and some blocks are without a coinbase or with a lower coinbase.


@TimeBits, gold is inflated, that's clear. That market will crash at some point. The UK and US governments own 1/5th of the amount of gold that has been mined and they both have sold more gold than they have.

Also, there is a lot of gold in places like the ocean, that could potentially be mined if we work out how to economically extract it.

[TheCoinGrabber]

Bitcoin is less of a currency and more of an asset class. Finite supply is a fundamental feature of Bitcoin. No compromise on it will be accepted.

Besides most other asset (land, precious metal) is limited anyway. It seems the current system of just keeping on printing money is unsustainable. Bitcoin is divisible enough that even if it remains valued in fiat and rise astronomically, people can just switch to using smaller amounts.

[soulripper]

Bitcoin are limited to 21million only. Not more and not less from that. The price might go higher and higher but bitcoin supply will remain the same. Its not just like fiat where you can prints it out and make it more in the market. Bitcoin is limited and that make peoples wanted to hodl it for a long term.

[lamadu3]

Bitcoin is limited to 21 Million, anything not limited to 21 Million  is not Bitcoin.

LOL. You are right. Now, I know how to explain the sense of Bitcoin to those guys who ask me about it. I wonder if the price of Bitcoin goes to the Sun when the last BTC is mined or fall to the bottom.

[olamidey]

I'm very sure Satoshi deliberately wanted 21 million bitcoins.thats not disputeable. Presently not up to that but as miners keep mining with blocks being created every no and then, it's just soon that we will get to the finite end of Bitcoin and the rush for the price increase will begin. All the price speculations now will only be achievable when bitcoins reach the max supply.

[acheampong64]

Bitcoin is less of a currency and more of an asset class. Finite supply is a fundamental feature of Bitcoin. No compromise on it will be accepted.

Very good. That's the way I see the future of Bitcoin to be. Ideally, Bitcoin will become more of a n asset class and people will store their wealth in it (the store of value cliché) and then the many altcoins we see around may do the monetary job. Nevertheless let's not forget many of these ALTs are shitcoins and will need to die for better ones to come. I believe Bitcoin being limited to the 21 M will provide scarcity which brings forth incremental valuation.

[pixie85]

It should be because it makes it stable in our minds. We know what to expect like when you have a unique car that you know only a number was made and there will never be more. Limited things are more valuable and make great collectibles.

We could change it by voting but I don't think that people will ever agree to do it. It would destroy the value.

[Questat]

We could change it by voting but I don't think that people will ever agree to do it. It would destroy the value.

If I understand it correctly, only where there is a hard fork of bitcoin where we can change its supply.
That has been done with some fork of bitcoin but bitcoin is still the number 1, people are trusting bitcoin over other coins and if there are changes in supply it would certainly affect the holders, bitcoin then is not a good coin for long term hold, we should preserve its origin.

[ranman09]

Bitcoin is less of a currency and more of an asset class. Finite supply is a fundamental feature of Bitcoin. No compromise on it will be accepted.

I too think for now bitcoin as an asset. Without the 21 million cap, maybe it woun't be a great investment and prices wouldn't be pegged to go up.

[FIFA worldcup]

yes, don't think bitcoin as profit or loss commodity it is not made like that. it is not intended to be in a market, that's what people treat it nowadays but bitcoin was made against government and banking system where no money fraudulent or corruption can happen. Bitcoin is limited so no supper price drops can be seen which is common when banks print new money in addition to the old money.

The reason we are seeing bitcoin price growth is that bitcoin quantity cannot be increased from 21 million. Why everyone is so sure that bitcoin will cross 5000$ or even 100,000$ ? Only because when the demand will increase and more users will enter in crypto space, we will only have 21 million bitcoins and therefore their value will increase very high indeed.

[AmirSolo]

hi, in my opinion if it wasn't limited to 21m, then we won't seen the price of it even grow. just like a Fiat currency that if a government keep printing them the price of it falls and there will be stagflation in the country.

[uray]

I have mixed views on this because most currencies stay stable with some sort of inflation. Quite frankly you shouldn't be inflating by 2% per month as thst a huge market but I don't think anyone would be against an increase for this to be accepted as a currency.

The alternative view is that this is what altcoins are for and most of the people won't see the last block with the initial rewards being taken up but at a point where we're at a low number of bitcoins per block it may come in handy to increase inflation slightly although if it becomes unprofitable to mine it'll be the node owners doing the mining which wouldn't be a bad thing (each node miner with a few chips to mine with like the gekkos side hack makes - id be into that).

There is no point in changing the initial codes about the limited amount of bitcoins, we have an identity on what bitcoin is all about and we do not want to change the structure, we need to improve on certain things when it comes to transaction speed and transaction charges and that can be tackled with increase in blocks or lightening network or any other feasible method, other than that we do not need any changes what so ever that could change the face of bitcoin.

[DreamStage]

Yes, bitcoin should be limited to 21 million, because this scarcity is what makes bitcoin so appealing to many investors. If bitcoin had more inflation, or even changed its inflation rate through a fork, it would take away the perception of its immutability for investors. Bitcoin would then be just like any fiat currency.

But then if we overreach the 21 million you will probabily not be able to buy more
So a new limit will have to be imposed / created just like INT vs LONG values.
Or take an example with ipv4 vs ipv6. There will always be a necessity on increasing the imposed limits in a near future.

[BitHodler]

hi, in my opinion if it wasn't limited to 21m, then we won't seen the price of it even grow. just like a Fiat currency that if a government keep printing them the price of it falls and there will be stagflation in the country.

Bitcoin is in its very early stage and for that reason the limited supply isn't the most important aspect of buying it. Ethereum has no limited supply, yet it kept going up hard because the demand greatly exceeded the supply.

With how crypto in general grows, and as long as the rate of inflation isn't an exorbitant percentage, the increasing demand will always outperform the rate of inflation, and I don't see this end in the coming 10 or so years.

Eventually it will matter, but for now it really doesn't. Bitcoin is a tiny drop in an ocean of capital that need a regulatory framework to consider it a safe and interesting enough asset class to allocate capital to.

[TimeBits]

hi, in my opinion if it wasn't limited to 21m, then we won't seen the price of it even grow. just like a Fiat currency that if a government keep printing them the price of it falls and there will be stagflation in the country.

Bitcoin is in its very early stage and for that reason the limited supply isn't the most important aspect of buying it. Ethereum has no limited supply, yet it kept going up hard because the demand greatly exceeded the supply.

With how crypto in general grows, and as long as the rate of inflation isn't an exorbitant percentage, the increasing demand will always outperform the rate of inflation, and I don't see this end in the coming 10 or so years.

Eventually it will matter, but for now it really doesn't. Bitcoin is a tiny drop in an ocean of capital that need a regulatory framework to consider it a safe and interesting enough asset class to allocate capital to.

hi, in my opinion if it wasn't limited to 21m, then we won't seen the price of it even grow. just like a Fiat currency that if a government keep printing them the price of it falls and there will be stagflation in the country.

Bitcoin is less of a currency and more of an asset class. Finite supply is a fundamental feature of Bitcoin. No compromise on it will be accepted.

I too think for now bitcoin as an asset. Without the 21 million cap, maybe it woun't be a great investment and prices wouldn't be pegged to go up.

Bitcoin is less of a currency and more of an asset class. Finite supply is a fundamental feature of Bitcoin. No compromise on it will be accepted.

I mean let us put the price of fiat measured as bitcoin aside, and just look at bitcoin or gold(limited supplies).

What happens in the future?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7TLFyK_3Pk

Ok granted you can work for ones coins, but why not start the race at the same time? Why are we enslaving our future people. Why don`t they get to mine? To anyone being born after 2030 bitcoin looks like a 100% premine and someone else`s money supply.

I think time and duration is the answer, we all make it at a constant (unlimited) we all stop making it when we die (limited) we all go to work for a certain amount of duration, and could get paid in time/duration representing coins. 

Thoughts?