WHY 21 MILLION BITCOIN CANNOT SERVE THE WHOLE WORLD

[timotron]

You comparing with an imaginative and non-fundamental value. The few trillions they have tiped into the world has nothing to do with what the world need.

The amount of Bitcoin, even there are over 15% frizzed, can be enough for all of us. and it will be in movement...
A salary in BTC: 0.00001Btc
A car in BTC: 0.001
A house in BTC: 0.01BTC 
(speculations)

Due value is based on demand and supply (and manipulation)....
In any case, the future will give us the answers..

[MonsterV]

The amount of Bitcoin, even there are over 15% frizzed, can be enough for all of us. and it will be in movement...
A salary in BTC: 0.00001Btc
A car in BTC: 0.001
A house in BTC: 0.01BTC 
(speculations)

There are times when your speculations come true when demand & supply is high, but I don't think everyone should mention commas in every transaction with bitcoin. So at that time satoshi will play an important role, maybe people will say more with satoshi value except for the whales who have a lot of bitcoin.

And for me, we don't need to think long about the rest of this bitcoin supply because surely not everyone in the world will adopt bitcoin. Maybe there is bitcoin but fiat they prefer, there are times when bitcoin will switch functions into investment land.

[deisik]

And that is the more reason why we don't need to expand or increase the total supply

Bitcoin Cash does exactly that (even if it is not a true Bitcoin)

The lower the supply, the higher the demand and that also means the higher the price of it

The latter doesn't necessarily follow from the former

It works wonderful with valuable things that cannot be (easily) substituted with similar things performing the same role or function, and in that case a decrease in supply translates directly into an increase in demand and price (sometimes even with a vengeance). I'm not sure if this is the case with Bitcoin as its volatility prevails over any changes in the total supply (cp. the change in supply over the last couple of years with the price swings we see almost daily). In simple terms, it is more complicated

Apart from that, there is another factor which should be paid precious attention to, and that is utility. If utility goes down along with supply (a possible scenario), then the rise in demand is not guaranteed at all (so neither is the price). In other words, Bitcoin may become so rare that it may lose all utility it might have, and then it will quickly deteriorate and turn into a worthless asset (also a possible scenario). The same thing is going to happen if someone buys 99% of all bitcoins, just in case

Now such ideas seem completely out of place (and time) as Bitcoin is not serving the world even in its present state. Sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear but it is better to see what is really going on, however unpleasant it might be. Other than that, what you suggest is what altcoins already do, effectively expanding Bitcoin's supply

There's no point in any of us guessing where it's going to end up. It's early days still and anything could happen. This current period is a phase that'll pass. There'll be many more users who'll find many more uses

I hope you are proved right in the end

Yet, Bitcoin has been in the spotlight for at least 5 years by now, so you can't possibly say that it is "early days still and anything could happen" (people had been telling that in 2013). Indeed, anything can happen (regardless of maturity) but if nothing particularly good happened in the last few years in terms of "many more uses" (more specifically, uses not related to trading and gambling), it leaves plenty of doubt whether and to what extent things are going to change in the future. So what is going to change that didn't or failed to change already?

[Bardman]

The code actually allows Bitcoin to be divisible further: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/122/will-we-ever-need-smaller-amounts-of-bitcoin-than-a-satoshi

So even if we somehow need more satoshis, we can do it. Anyhow, I personally believe Bitcoin will never be a mainstream payment system, history has certainly shown us that Bitcoin is simply not that good when it's used as daily payment and we have far better options.

[mersal]

The code actually allows Bitcoin to be divisible further: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/122/will-we-ever-need-smaller-amounts-of-bitcoin-than-a-satoshi

So even if we somehow need more satoshis, we can do it. Anyhow, I personally believe Bitcoin will never be a mainstream payment system, history has certainly shown us that Bitcoin is simply not that good when it's used as daily payment and we have far better options.

we have USDT,we have ripple,we are going to have libra but these are the better options you are talking about? The prices need to be somewhat stable for currency which is the only thing missing in bitcoin roght now but if everyone see the decentralized payment system will do more good then surely there will be a price range.

[darklus123]

Even if you don't fully understand how divisible bitcoin is, you might understand it by simply understanding the law of economics. It is simply just all about the demand and supply.

It is being discussed a lot of times, you can have 1 satoshi which is .00000001 and if the demand is purely high its value can be enough to supply the 7b people you were talking about. There is actually also no point in allocating bitcoin to each and every person.

I highly expect that the bitcoin user will never go up to a billion. I might be wrong but that is just I simply forsee it

[o_e_l_e_o]

The code actually allows Bitcoin to be divisible further: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/122/will-we-ever-need-smaller-amounts-of-bitcoin-than-a-satoshi

Bitcoin is already divided in to milli-satoshis (msats), which is 0.001 of a satoshi, as the base unit on Lightning Network. For comparison. 1 milli-satoshi is 0.00001 of a US cent.

Anyhow, I personally believe Bitcoin will never be a mainstream payment system, history has certainly shown us that Bitcoin is simply not that good when it's used as daily payment and we have far better options.

That's what Lightning Network should address. Instant and almost fee-less transaction which can be used for transactions which require immediate confirmation, such as the often talked about "buying a coffee with bitcoin". You only need to broadcast to the main chain and wait for confirmations when you close a channel, or if you want the extra security when making or receiving a large payment.

I'm curious as to what "far better options" you think we have.

[Rustamm]

I think it is too early to say that the number of Bitcoin coins is small for everyone, given that each coin has 100 million satoshi. The price of one satoshi today is only $0.0001. I think this is a normal price for a unit of currency, which everyone can now use as money, because people can pay for goods and services using satoshi. The only thing that bothers me is the fee to the miners for the transaction, it is very high for micropayments.

[BitHodler]

We will never reach a stage at which there aren't enough coins in existence. There will always be a seller willing to let go of his coin(s) if a high enough price is being paid. It's just common sense.

We have seen that already happen in countries where coin scarcity has resulted in hefty premiums. South Korea's premium for Bitcoin was like $5000 over western spot prices during the previous bull run. Insane.

Another thing is that I doubt people will use Bitcoin globally all together. It's more of a wet Bitcoiner's dream. This is and will stay digital gold. It's impossible to compete with fiat as day to day currency.

[beerlover]

21 MILLION bitcoins that is, you are forgetting how much satoshi that would end up with, right now we do not have that much of a problem with how much bitcoin we have and how we can actually make sure everyone gets their share but in the end if bitcoin becomes so popular that 21 million bitcoin won't be enough for everyone we can literally find a way to drop prices to satoshis instead of bitcoin (getting a coffee is satoshi anyway) and that way we can easily send and receive in satoshis and talk prices in satoshis etc etc without a problem.

Real problem is think of bitcoin at 210 thousand dollars for example, even 1 satoshi will be super expensive and I don't know how we can deal with both fee's and spending bitcoin on small items like lets say a cup of coffee, which is why number is fine but price is dangerous, getting too high might create problems.

[Bardman]

The code actually allows Bitcoin to be divisible further: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/122/will-we-ever-need-smaller-amounts-of-bitcoin-than-a-satoshi

Bitcoin is already divided in to milli-satoshis (msats), which is 0.001 of a satoshi, as the base unit on Lightning Network. For comparison. 1 milli-satoshi is 0.00001 of a US cent.

Anyhow, I personally believe Bitcoin will never be a mainstream payment system, history has certainly shown us that Bitcoin is simply not that good when it's used as daily payment and we have far better options.

That's what Lightning Network should address. Instant and almost fee-less transaction which can be used for transactions which require immediate confirmation, such as the often talked about "buying a coffee with bitcoin". You only need to broadcast to the main chain and wait for confirmations when you close a channel, or if you want the extra security when making or receiving a large payment.

I'm curious as to what "far better options" you think we have.

People have been selling the idea of 'instant transactions' for quite a long time and yet there is no cryptocurrency out there that has instant transactions, bitcoin transactions take minutes, even hours sometimes. Even if you can have instant transactions and without fees, bitcoin would still be garbage as a payment option, why in the world would anyone accept Bitcoin in their business when the price can crash 20% in one day?

[Theb]

Look even central banks who has the possibility to print infinite amounts of their fiat currency isn't enough, why do you think "expanding" the units of BTC would solve your nonexistent problem? Why do banks don't print more money as they can to solve their financial problems? Because doing so will just cause inflation and further devalue their own currency, it basically won't solve anything but just dig yourself further to the ground. Just imagine Bitcoin doubling the supply we have now or even just adding half of it. It will just expand its current demand more therefore decreasing the price of Bitcoin. Let's not think about of the number of people Bitcoin can handle if it's supply expanded let the people (demand) adjust for its price increases.

[AjithBtc]

Right now its too early to think about bitcoin serving the whole world. The growing adoption and acceptance increase the demand, but even with the limited availability it is possible with the lowest denomination. There should be no modifications made on the algorithm to increase the number above 21 million. If such a change is done it is same as devaluating bitcoin same as the fiat currencies.

[veleten]

When we talk of bitcoin supply, we look at it as 21 million bitcoin, and people wonder how that can serve the whole 7 billion population, but we forgot that there are smaller units of bitcoin, we have the mbtc, we have the ubtc and we have the satoshi, and i will like to talk on the satoshi which i believe needs to be expanded to really serve the current economy.

SATOSHI,
This is the smallest units of bitcoin, and 1 bitcoin is equals to 100,000,000 satoshis, which means that the total satoshi that we have is 2100 thrillion satoshis.

The total circulating money of the world according to According to the Bank for International Settlements is 80 trillion dollars, the lowest denomination of usd is cent and 100 cent equals 1 dollar, so we have 8000 trillion cent circulating as money in the world, if satoshi is to be pegged to 1 cent and to be used as global currency, you see why it is necessary to have it expanded, because circulating money of the world will be short of about 5900 trillion satoshis.

so you , actually , prove that 21 million bitcoin can serve the whole world?
what is the point of the question then , yes 21 million compared to trillions of dollars and other printed coloured paper we call money is a small number
the smallest denomination is satoshi that makes it 2,100 trillion units , enough to serve anything you would want to serve
well , minus the burned and destroyed coins and lost keys wallets, that some of the analysts amount to 25% of the coins already
the problem is not in the physical number of coins , but that bitcoin cannot serve as a payment gateaway at the moment
it has several bottlenecks that prevents it to serve as the money that we all know
the most important one is the transaction speed , it is crawling at several transactions per second compared to tens of thousands per second of that of VISA and Mastercard

[lixer]

The first thing that we need to overcome first is that adoption, adoption cannot grow at once for bitcoin to serve the whole population as you speak, although you analogy is quite okay but I think that you know one of the problem we have is over printing of money which is destroying some countries as a result of corruption, now that bitcoin is limited in supply, don’t you think that it will correct some of those faults, an moreover, when we get to the bridge, we will cross over it.

There will always be a way to expand the limit of bitcoin when we get to that stage, and more so, don’t forget that we will always have other alternatives like altcoins, and fiat will also never die off the earth, bitcoin will only reduce the number of circulating currency, so there is nothing much here that I see as issue or challenge in future.

[deisik]

We will never reach a stage at which there aren't enough coins in existence. There will always be a seller willing to let go of his coin(s) if a high enough price is being paid. It's just common sense

Common sense and the law of large numbers don't live well together

More specifically, we may in fact reach such a state when the volatility will be so high across the markets that you won't be able to reliably determine the price at any given moment. This is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future anyway, but technically, that would pretty much count as "not enough coins in existence" to satiate the demand

Ironically, the demand itself may not necessarily be very high at that point. It is the supply which must be low, exceptionally low at high prices. That seems to be a theoretical possibility with assets whose total supply cannot be increased. For example, it is not possible with gold because at higher prices gold production will expand quickly

We have seen that already happen in countries where coin scarcity has resulted in hefty premiums. South Korea's premium for Bitcoin was like $5000 over western spot prices during the previous bull run. Insane

For a currency that effectively means an ultimate failure as a means payment (i.e. as a currency, yeah). But that's totally okay for a speculative asset in the state of a bubble

[el kaka22]

I think altcoins play a role here that people are missing, yes bitcoin has only 21 million and maybe satoshi could be used thats correct but at the same time fore faster and cheaper transactions by the time 21 million bitcoin is not enough other coins will come into affect as well.

If we one day have something like a million dollar per bitcoin thing (I would expect not happening anytime soon anyway) we will have ethereums and litecoins and so forth that would be used for transaction as well, remember its harder to make someone start accepting bitcoin as a payment, after that its easy to add ethereum or whatever right next to it, someone who agrees to take bitcoin wouldn't mind accepting ethereum or litecoin neither. Hence I think this is a non-issue for at least another 20-30 years.

[shield132]

At first bitcoin wasn't meant for so massive usage, to be used all over the world, so this coin isn't ready for a lot of reasons: 21 Million supply, what to do with those ones that are lost and are still getting lost? We can do  nothing at the moment and believe me, when a lot of people start using it, we will lose far more than we already have.
Secondly - what about fees? Current fees aren't good for such usage, we need almost zero fee and that's not good news for miners.
In overall bitcoin can't change current currencies, at least at the moment this looks like that.

[deisik]

If we one day have something like a million dollar per bitcoin thing (I would expect not happening anytime soon anyway) we will have ethereums and litecoins and so forth that would be used for transaction as well, remember its harder to make someone start accepting bitcoin as a payment, after that its easy to add ethereum or whatever right next to it, someone who agrees to take bitcoin wouldn't mind accepting ethereum or litecoin neither. Hence I think this is a non-issue for at least another 20-30 years

We are already there

And have been there since at least 2015. Today, Bitcoin is used primarily as a very special store of value for the unbanked (or those who don't want to have anything to do with banks), while top altcoins (say, Litecoin) are used for transactions involving small amounts, i.e. anything which can be related to as daily activities (whatever those might be).

Bitcoin is simply not very suitable for this purpose because its transactions are too expensive and slow. But if you need to move real wealth around and don't care about the fees (which is typically the case in such circumstances), it is still a good choice (probably the best if the wealth in question is in the millions)

[o_e_l_e_o]

Bitcoin is simply not very suitable for this purpose because its transactions are too expensive and slow.

The average credit card transaction charges a fee of 3%. On a $100 bill, that's $3. You can send $100 of bitcoin for less than 3 cents, or 0.03%, 100x cheaper.

The average credit card transaction takes 3 business days (so up to 5 or even more actual days depending on weekends and holidays) for the money to reach the merchant. Up until then, it is essentially the same as an unconfirmed bitcoin transaction, and relatively easily reversed by calling your credit card company and claiming your card was hacked, stolen, cloned, scammed, etc. A bitcoin transaction can be irreversible within an hour.

If that still isn't good enough for you, then you can use Lightning for near fee-less and instant transfers.