Will the need to increase BTC's max supply arise in the future?

[supine]

For long, Bitcoin has been touted as the "store of value" of the crypto/Blockchain space with its limited supply of 21 million coins. Based on estimates, all Bitcoin will be mined by 2100. Now, what if developers decide to increase that hard cap in supply? If at that point in time, Bitcoin's prices stay just the way they are right now (less than $1m), it may become unprofitable for miners to continue supporting the Blockchain. With no block reward, they'll be living off fees. If prices are too low, earned fees won't be able to sustain miner's operations. By then, developers would need to raise the limit of 21 million coins to a higher value, re-introducing a block reward in order to attract miners into the Blockchain. Otherwise, the security of the Bitcoin blockchain will be at risk.

Do you think that the need to increase BTC's max supply will arise in the future? Or will Bitcoin be able to "live" just fine with a max supply of 21 million coins? Your input will be greatly appreciated.

For me Bitcoin could live just fine with a max supply of 21 Million and the creator already knew it that is why we have Mbits,Bits and Sats to make sure that it is enough.
The price could expend and it wouldn't matter because we could always send small amounts or use small amounts for every transaction it is not required to have 1 BTC so why would we need to increase the max supply?

[LogitechMouse]

This will cause a problem for sure and the fact that Bitcoin is deflationary will now be diminished because there is a chance that they can increase the total supply of it if they want too.

One of the reasons why people like to use Bitcoin or at least hold is the fact that it is deflationary unlike cash where they can print and print whenever they want, in Bitcoin that is not the case. Increasing the total supply of Bitcoin will surely affect the price of it. Bitcoin can be transferred or used in smaller bits too (satoshi) so I don't think that it will be scarce enough for the people not to have it.

[dansus021]

I don't think is needed, instead of increse max supply why not try different consensus from PoW to PoS or something new.  

[dimastegar]

Do you think that the need to increase BTC's max supply will arise in the future? Or will Bitcoin be able to "live" just fine with a max supply of 21 million coins? Your input will be greatly appreciated.

I think for now, the amount of Bitcoin that is available can cover all transactions every day? I am not sure in the future Bitcoin will be increased to the max supply. In numbers, 21 million Bitcoin cannot cover billions of human transactions. However, we do know that Bitcoin transactions can be further divided into 'satoshi' parts. Suppose a person wants to buy an item that costs 10000sats or 0.0001 BTC.
Therefore, even though the number of Bitcoin is limited, the BTC transaction system can be divided. And that's the advantage Bitcoin can cover its limited amount. Ja

[coolcoinz]

I believe the ability to divide existing coins into smaller fractions should be enough. The more pressing matter is making sure we can accomodate the growing number of users and their daily transactions. We know that we can keep generating wallets indefinitely and have enough coins, but if Bitcoin is to fail somewhere I'd say it's going to be in transaction time and cost.
We're not ready for a real adoption boom yet.

[FXforfun]

I'm a newcomer on Bitcoin. My interest is not to specullate or technical but holding it for the future because I firmly believe that Fiat money is going to crash with the current debt policy.
One of the main appeals for Bitcoin is its scarcity. Raise the number of Bitcoins and you're killing it. Of course I would leave from Bitcoin as hell as soon as this idea would even be seriously considered.
There are hundreds of ways, by sure, to keep happy the miners, the developers or anyone.

[pawanjain]

Well I don't think that the supply of bitcoin will ever be increased since Satoshis itself can be used for payments.
But yeah I do think that when all the bitcoins will be mined the transaction fees will increase a lot.
I think miners would not validate transactions with low fees and the network would get congested and hence we will have to pay the higher transaction fees. I think that the lightning network would be used for regular payments and only large transactions would be done with bitcoin directly.

[odolvlobo]

what is your reaction to this assertion made by peter todd? https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/697532042553065472

IMO Bitcoin should have had an explicit 1%/year or so security tax, implemented via inflation.

We don't know if 1% would be necessary, or if it would be sufficient. I think that an in-depth analysis would make a great research paper.

It is not clear if it would even be viable. How would you feel about your bank charging you a 1% security fee to hold your money?

To maintain a fixed money supply, the 1% subsidy could be accompanied by a 1% demurrage.

[AjithBtc]

If the demand for bitcoin keeps growing with time, automatically the small fractions will be valued high. If the supply is increased the demand will fall, and there won't be any difference between the traditional fiat nd the cryptocurrencies.

With traditional fiat whenever required the governments start printing more and more money. This lead to inflation. Continuing the same process with bitcoin won't happen and if such a scenario happens surely bitcoin will also goes worth nothing.

[kezinaur14]

For long, Bitcoin has been touted as the "store of value" of the crypto/Blockchain space with its limited supply of 21 million coins. Based on estimates, all Bitcoin will be mined by 2100. Now, what if developers decide to increase that hard cap in supply? If at that point in time, Bitcoin's prices stay just the way they are right now (less than $1m), it may become unprofitable for miners to continue supporting the Blockchain. With no block reward, they'll be living off fees. If prices are too low, earned fees won't be able to sustain miner's operations. By then, developers would need to raise the limit of 21 million coins to a higher value, re-introducing a block reward in order to attract miners into the Blockchain. Otherwise, the security of the Bitcoin blockchain will be at risk.

Do you think that the need to increase BTC's max supply will arise in the future? Or will Bitcoin be able to "live" just fine with a max supply of 21 million coins? Your input will be greatly appreciated.

That would not be a good idea, it would undermine one of the principles it was built upon. 21m btc stays!!

[Asuspawer09]

Probably not the best idea since having a big supply of bitcoin could easily affect the market price of bitcoin, Stil bitcoin today was still not adopted in a lot of countries that is why bitcoin is getting a very high market price.

In the future when bitcoin becomes a top digital currency for sure billion of people is going to use bitcoin at that point so increasing the supply could help a lot, because the market price might increase in a very high market price if the supply doesn't increase.

[ChronoLite]

It will be 21 million Bitcoins at some point, you don't even need to have 1 btc to be a holder. You can hold small amount of Bitcoin since Bitcoin has 8 decimal points and by holding that, in the future when the time comes those small amount of decimal will worth really expensive for each bit i believe

In the future when bitcoin becomes a top digital currency for sure billion of people is going to use bitcoin at that point so increasing the supply could help a lot

it's unnecessary, what's the point of limited supply then?

[figmentofmyass]

what is your reaction to this assertion made by peter todd? https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/697532042553065472

IMO Bitcoin should have had an explicit 1%/year or so security tax, implemented via inflation.

We don't know if 1% would be necessary, or if it would be sufficient. I think that an in-depth analysis would make a great research paper.

It is not clear if it would even be viable. How would you feel about your bank charging you a 1% security fee to hold your money?

To maintain a fixed money supply, the 1% subsidy could be accompanied by a 1% demurrage.

no matter how it's implemented, paying for mining security is experimental. we don't know if fees alone will be viable either. that's one of the reasons i'm a small blocker. i want to err on the conservative side re the assumptions we make about security absent a significant mining subsidy. if that damages adoption potential, so be it. adoption shouldn't come at the cost of viability.

there are basically 3 ways we can pay for mining security: 1. fees, 2. inflation, 3. demurrage......or some combination. none of these are attractive to users. nobody wants to pay large amounts just to send money. nobody wants to have their money devalued by inflation. nobody wants to be charged money just for holding it.

still, we need to pay for mining security somehow. and since economics can't be studied empirically/scientifically, we're all just guessing at what the best solution is. we're also tempering that against our own selfish drive towards a tragedy of the commons, where we sacrifice long term viability because we don't wanna pay any of the costs. that's partly what is behind the motivation for big or unlimited block sizes---the other motivation being that it's a marketing point for adoption. you know, "cheap/instant tx".

[Gotumoot]

Why are the people so scared about BTC's max supply ? I personally think that it is more than enough because we don't really need 1 whole BTC we could always have it in small amount of Sats.
And Sats could be used for transaction I also don't think that 1 Sat would be $1 in the future so there is no reason for us to worry about the max supply.

[hulla]

Probably not the best idea since having a big supply of bitcoin could easily affect the market price of bitcoin, Stil bitcoin today was still not adopted in a lot of countries that is why bitcoin is getting a very high market price.

In the future when bitcoin becomes a top digital currency for sure billion of people is going to use bitcoin at that point so increasing the supply could help a lot, because the market price might increase in a very high market price if the supply doesn't increase.

It good you believe increasing BTC max supply is not the best idea and I don't see it as something important in the future when billion of people is going to use bitcoin cause it shows the purpose of block halving to be meanless cause ATH price of bitcoin market will be affect and what I expect us to be talking about is the solution of things that may hinder the mainstream of bitcoin.

[Wawa2013]

I believe Satoshi Nakamoto determines the max supply of Bitcoin with full consideration. So increasing the Bitcoin
max supply is not necessary done, because Bitcoin is different from fiat in which Bitcoin is divided into several satoshis.
So everyone in the world doesn't have to owning 1 whole Bitcoin, just 1 satoshi could have a large value in the future.

[Agios]

In the opinion of many experts, the amount of Bitcoin is exactly 21 million coins, if the Bitcoin supply is enlarged / added, the price of bitcoin will become unstable and will even decrease drastically, they predict that if Bitcoin has been mined all, then the price will be more stable and expensive, so the miners will get adequate fees. most importantly the circulation of the amount of Bitcoin can be evenly distributed throughout the world, and there is no Bitcoin monopoly by the whales.

[Sadlife]

I think the core devs already considered that scenario, and surely by that time Bitcoin already became as the global currency. If not then the only choice is to switch from POW to POS or they may introduce a new feature in earning to miners, for instance they can earn just by setting up a node for Bitcoin blockchain network. Like the concept of flash loans or DeFi investment with compounding interest.

[minersday]

Personally, I think there is a huge possible for the total supply of Bitcoin to increase considering how the financial systems of the world works. I see the 21 million Bitcoins as the initial budget of the crypto coin to test how the financial economy of the world will accept and cope with it. It is very likely to see the total supply of Bitcoin to be 50 million if the 21 million is exhausted. 21 million of Bitcoins will definitely not be the total supply as the years passes. My reasons are based on how new bitcoins are created whenever a miner confirms a transaction.

[Lucius]

For long, Bitcoin has been touted as the "store of value" of the crypto/Blockchain space with its limited supply of 21 million coins. Based on estimates, all Bitcoin will be mined by 2100.
Do you think that the need to increase BTC's max supply will arise in the future? Or will Bitcoin be able to "live" just fine with a max supply of 21 million coins? Your input will be greatly appreciated.

As for this specific problem (if we can call it that at all), is exactly what we have today embedded in the human value system - millions have actually become too small on that scale, so some are asking why 21 million BTC will not be enough for everyone - which again leads us to the misconception that everyone should have at least 1 BTC - or that it is not possible to buy less of that amount.

When we talk about the last mined block, it should happen around the year 2140, but most forget the fact that in 10 years the percentage of mined BTC will be 99%. For more than 100 years, the total number of BTCs that will remain available for mining will be around 210 000.

I think the opinion of the majority (and mine personally) is that some basic things should not be changed and that they should remain as Satoshi programmed them. Any change in terms of increasing total supply would only be negative.