Can Bitcoin protocol be changed to allow for a larger supply?

[kryptqnick]

I agree with others who've mentioned that there's no need for it. I suppose that it's potentially possible to change the supply, but it would be close to impossible to reach consensus rather than create another 'Bitcoin', some of which we already have. The larger supply is not a problem right now since we have Satoshis. Scalability is a problem that should be dealt with. Not everyone recognizes or agrees to use the LN, and without it what we now call micro-transactions are very costly and take a lot of time. The real problem is that if Bitcoin costs even more and the network gets way busier, $100 transactions also would not make sense (this was the case in 2017 during the ATH) and then the issue can expand. There might be a time when we need to think of dividing Satoshis (the LN already does it, though), but we are not even close to that point IMO, and might never even reach it.

[ranochigo]

I see no point in increasing the cap of Bitcoin. The main characteristic of Bitcoin is for it to have a fixed supply and thus a stable deflationary model. For the coin cap to be changed, it would ruin that characteristic of Bitcoin and it probably would never garner enough support.

It's much more viable to increase the denomination of Bitcoin though I never imagine there would actually ever be a need for that.

[bryant.coleman]

I first registered to this forum almost 8 years back. Ever since then I am seeing threads like this one, which makes little sense. Why don't people understand that one of the key strengths of Bitcoin is the controlled supply principle? People like me invested in Bitcoin, because it is protected from inflation as a result of the controlled supply algorithm. You mess up with this, and Bitcoin will become similar to fiat currency. I understand that the miners would be happy to get an increased block reward, but my opinion is that they need to look for other options.

[adaseb]

I think alot of new people are confused and don't realise that "You don't need to buy a full Bitcoin", and they have no idea you can buy it in partial amounts. Most likely the reason for this is how the stock market operates. The price for Amazon stock is currently $2000, so you need to have at least $2000 to buy one share. If you have $1000 you can't own any Amazon stock. Hence why sometimes there are stock splits where the supply goes up 10x but the price goes down 0.1 so the stock price becomes $200 and more affordable.

With bitcoin this isn't needed since the units are down to a Satoshi and this is what most people don't understand. If the supply is increased or even possible to adjust then what is the point of Bitcoin really? It will be like fiat which had bad inflation and loses massive value overtime.

Currently 21 Million BTC  with satoshi units is enough for the entire planet to use.

[bryant.coleman]

I think alot of new people are confused and don't realise that "You don't need to buy a full Bitcoin", and they have no idea you can buy it in partial amounts. Most likely the reason for this is how the stock market operates. The price for Amazon stock is currently $2000, so you need to have at least $2000 to buy one share. If you have $1000 you can't own any Amazon stock. Hence why sometimes there are stock splits where the supply goes up 10x but the price goes down 0.1 so the stock price becomes $200 and more affordable.

With bitcoin this isn't needed since the units are down to a Satoshi and this is what most people don't understand. If the supply is increased or even possible to adjust then what is the point of Bitcoin really? It will be like fiat which had bad inflation and loses massive value overtime.

Currently 21 Million BTC  with satoshi units is enough for the entire planet to use.

Well.. this is another important issue that has been ignored by the core team for quite a long time. A huge number of people believe that in order to purchase Bitcoin, you need to buy one full BTC. A lot of awareness campaigns were taken out, with limited outcome. I had proposed to redenominate the BTC some years back. Each of the existing (old) Bitcoins should be replaced with 1,000 new coins. The total circulating supply will increase to 21 billion from 21 million. A lot of people argued that Satoshi is already there and we don't need redenomication. But the issue is that Satoshi is too small to be used as an unit. As of now the price of one Satoshi is just $0.000094 and it is very difficult to use that unit.

[chip1994]

Only 21 million Bitcoins can be mined in total. Currently, about 18 million of them have been already mined. Moreover, according to studies, 5 million Bitcoins (or even more) are lost forever.
I think this supply isn't enough for world-wide using and mass adoption, so is Bitcoin supply really finite and unchangeable?

I think this is impossible. many will object because the crowd only wants to retain the original properties of bitcoin. But do not worry about the supply, this is a digital asset so it can be broken down and everyone can keep their share. It's not like our fiat money, we can't tear it apart to split it into smaller value, but bitcoin is. To make this easier, more halving events should take place and the price of bitcoin will rise and make bitcoin more and more valuable. Meanwhile, 0.1 bitcoin can also buy a house.

[ranochigo]

Well.. this is another important issue that has been ignored by the core team for quite a long time. A huge number of people believe that in order to purchase Bitcoin, you need to buy one full BTC. A lot of awareness campaigns were taken out, with limited outcome. I had proposed to redenominate the BTC some years back. Each of the existing (old) Bitcoins should be replaced with 1,000 new coins. The total circulating supply will increase to 21 billion from 21 million. A lot of people argued that Satoshi is already there and we don't need redenomication. But the issue is that Satoshi is too small to be used as an unit. As of now the price of one Satoshi is just $0.000094 and it is very difficult to use that unit.

No offense intended but I don't think it is a very bright idea to increase the coins by tenfold. Its a more viable option to just divide the coins smaller than satoshi.

You don't have to use satoshi as an unit either. Just use mBTC as a more suitable denomination. There is no issue with the denomination until a satoshi becomes equivalent to a dollar. I really don't see the point behind increasing the supply instead of increasing the denomination.

[blckhawk]

How is it not enough? 100,000,000 satoshis can be made out of a single Bitcoin? Even comparing to USD, and giving 100 satoshi an equivalence to 1.00 USD (accounting for the decimal places), it would be 1 BTC = 1,000,000 USD.

$18m BTC would be 18 trillion USD, which is far more enough, considering the total money globally is somewhere only at 5 trillion USD.

[Lucius]

$18m BTC would be 18 trillion USD, which is far more enough, considering the total money globally is somewhere only at 5 trillion USD.

Where did you get the information that there is only a $5 trillion? The annual budget of the US is only slightly less than that amount, and there is around $37 trillion in circulation (data from 2019).

There is really no problem with the final supply of 21 million Bitcoins, and there is no point in trying to change that at all. If that ever happens, Bitcoin will no longer be what it used to be, change would shake the very foundations on which the whole project was built, and would probably collapse over time. In fact, a Pandora's box would open and confidence would disappear like fog on a spring morning.

[Ailurophile]

Why wouldn't the 21Million BTC be enough?
We don't need a whole BTC we could use Sat's so why wouldn't be enough if 1BTC=100M sats just imagine how many Sats would it be for the whole 21M supply.
Even if there are some BTC that is lost forever a sat could always have a price so there wouldn't be a problem on the supply.

[Debonaire217]

When I see a question like this posted by a beginner, the first thing that comes to my mind is actually the classic thinking of the average person who thinks that if the total amount of something goes up that the price of the same will go down. If by some miracle the total supply would increase from 21 million, this would definitely cause the price to fall not only because of increased supply but for lack of confidence in BTC.

There are things that need to stay just the way the creator put them, for everything else there are forks of BTC. Not even them (at least the more famous ones) did not interfere with total supply.

In addition, IMO, it is somehow the pride of BTC to remain and to become consistent to what it is right from the start. Having a limited supply for bitcoin also build up  trust for people who are willing to spend huge amount of time for investment, and basically, changing the total supply of bitcoin would just mean that bitcoin isn't worth the trust of people and just the same with other crypto that has an infinite supply.

So far, what drives bitcoin's market price to increase this high is its scarcity that many newbies want to increase.

[TopT3ns]

Why wouldn't the 21Million BTC be enough?
We don't need a whole BTC we could use Sat's so why wouldn't be enough if 1BTC=100M sats just imagine how many Sats would it be for the whole 21M supply.
Even if there are some BTC that is lost forever a sat could always have a price so there wouldn't be a problem on the supply.

well indeed the supply of bitcoin can never be added or subtracted again because the supply of bitcoin is valid only available 21 million pieces of bitcoin and imagine if everyone in the world is trying to have bitcoin then the price of bitcoin will be very expensive because it will be increasingly difficult to get bitcoin.

[Lucius]

well indeed the supply of bitcoin can never be added or subtracted again because the supply of bitcoin is valid only available 21 million pieces of bitcoin...

It's not true that it can't be technically done, it's a code that I assume is easy to change, but the whole thing would require the hard fork and consensus of most of the crypto community.

Some people know the theory that there are 36 million millionaires in the world, and that if everyone wanted at least 1 BTC it would not be enough for everyone. This is certainly true, but it is a millionaires problem, not the problem of Bitcoin. Every day there are at least 1 million BTC available in the market, anyone can buy and sell, the market is open 24 hours a day.

[joniboini]

i don't think this is possible. Bitcoin has a very robust design which does not make it possible for this adjustment other than that this would have been done a very long time ago. If this would have been achievable there would have been no need for all the forks of bitcoin.

A fork is actually a 'changed Bitcoin'. So yeah, you can change it, but the next question is whether the network accepts or adopt it or not. If not, then your 'new Bitcoin' will fail.

Bitcoin supply is 'huge' already. As Danny pointed out, you can divide it into smaller numbers. Whether those small numbers worth something or not would be answered in the next few years. Surely this supply thing would no longer be a problem when 100 sats are equal to a dollar or something similar.

[Innerpumper]

Only 21 million Bitcoins can be mined in total. Currently, about 18 million of them have been already mined. Moreover, according to studies, 5 million Bitcoins (or even more) are lost forever.
I think this supply isn't enough for world-wide using and mass adoption, so is Bitcoin supply really finite and unchangeable?

Bitcoin does have a slight limit. And this is the condition of the beginning of bitcoin, they did deliberately set a bitcoin supply of 21 million. I think this is the reason why many new cryptocurrencies we can now see on Coinmarketap. If in this world there are only bitcoins used for various needs, the price of bitcoin is really very difficult to control and set Sideway position. In addition, other altcoins also serve to improve what Bitcoin cannot do. So cryptocurrency looks more perfect in the future.

[bhabygrim]

I don't think that it is possible and I don't see any reason for a larger supply.
I think everyone could have a part of it in the future 1 Bitcoin could be divided into 100 Million sats.
But I think it would really drive the price up when all of the BTC has been mined since we have so many lost BTC and not to mention those who are holding a huge amount of BTC.
I think when that time comes 1 Sat would have a good value.

[7788bitcoin]

If in this world there are only bitcoins used for various needs, the price of bitcoin is really very difficult to control and set Sideway position.

That is bullshit, if everyone is using just bitcoin and not the  other alt coins then we would have been a much bigger market with everyone trying to make things better for bitcoin rather than making their own subsidiary coin to make money when they can. To be frank i would be happy if he had just one coin.

In addition, other altcoins also serve to improve what Bitcoin cannot do. So cryptocurrency looks more perfect in the future.

Tell me some altcoins that will serve you better than bitcoin with the same level of transaction volume, anon coins is a different case altogether as it provides you the privacy, other than that you do not need thousands of coins.
@OP the doubt is cleared by all the responses you got and i am sure we will not see the developers messing with the supply cap .

[20kevin20]

I don't think that it is possible and I don't see any reason for a larger supply.
I think everyone could have a part of it in the future 1 Bitcoin could be divided into 100 Million sats.
But I think it would really drive the price up when all of the BTC has been mined since we have so many lost BTC and not to mention those who are holding a huge amount of BTC.
I think when that time comes 1 Sat would have a good value.

If 1 sat would have a good value, then you better have a lot of money in your wallet because you're going to pay a lot for a transaction fee!

I don't get it, my question has never been answered before: If Bitcoin ever has a spectacular price increase and 1 satoshi would have "a good value", how will we handle the tx fees? As I suggested a while ago, BTC's supply should stay the same but it should be split into more than just 100 million pieces. We need a lower denomination before a satoshi would be worth a lot.

On the other side though, would miners ever accept a.. say 1 satoshi fee per tx if 1 satoshi was $1, no matter what the size of the transaction is?

[Wexnident]

Upvote for not changing it. The others have already said it, BTC has and can be used in smaller amounts. Supply is completely not a problem. If some BTC gets lost, then that would probably make the price go higher since the supply became less, and in the end, the community would then again use it in smaller amounts for everyday transactions. If, and only if, every BTC out there was lost, then possibly, enthusiasts would probably do something to fix it, but the chances of that happening are much closer to an impossibility rather than a possibility.
 
Losing BTC due to wallets being lost or owners forgetting passwords and what not isn't really anything new. It is finite, yes, but you can also use it infinitely, approaching the number of 0, but never really reaching it. Unless, that is, all coins are lost.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Maybe impossible because many have kicked against the move to increase Bitcoin supply. These has been many opposition that: only hardfork could do such but not ready for the move. This can be seen as something that looks impossible because many individuals have spoken against such act. If you ask for my opinion on this, I will simply say, no need to increase Bitcoin supply Period.

Bitcoin protocol could be changed which will allow for a larger supply but thinking about the perspective of the users and miners, I don't think it will be that easy to do. Because,
(a) For the new protocol to take place, every user and miner has to adapt to the new mode and
(b) If Bitcoin is more prevalent, the price of it will go really low from as it is now, which will be barely accepted by the community.