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

[Abiky]

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.

[pixie85]

If it ever becomes a world reserve currency used for payments all around the world like some people believe we will have to think of something.

By the time Bitcoin reaches 21 million we will probably have at least 1/4 of that permanently lost and another 1/4 in safe accounts of lifetime hodlers which will leave only 10 million in circulation. That's not enough for over 500 million people. I said 500 because not all people in the world will use Bitcoin just like USD and EUR are estimated to be used by about 350 million people each.

[logfiles]

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.

It would still be profitable so long as more people start using bitcoin. This would me more transaction fees for the miners on top of block rewards

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 won't be necessary. Unlike most fiat currency
Bitcoin has 8 decimal blockchain values (1 satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC) and 11 decimal values for Lightning network Payment channels (I millisatoshi = 0.00000000001 BTC)
So there would be no need to increase more coins if 0.001 BTC can be 100,000 Satoshi or 1 mBTC

[dothebeats]

Or introduce an even smaller denomination allowed to be used and recognized in between wallets? That might not be the best solution to address this non-problem but it gets the job done all the same, though entirely dependent on the value of bitcoin by then of course. Manipulating the supply cap of bitcoin would only make things complicated, as that will show that bitcoin can also be controlled by someone which will then make the community lose their trust in it and eventually abandon bitcoin. Maybe I'm exaggerating things, but that could really happen if decisions like this would be followed hastily without much thought.

[Kemarit]

I think Bitcoin can live with the 21 million supply, I think we have enough:

Predefined Values:
Click the Satoshi value below to use that value above.
1 Satoshi    = 0.00000001 ฿    
10 Satoshi    = 0.00000010 ฿    
100 Satoshi    = 0.00000100 ฿    = 1 Bit / μBTC (you-bit)
1,000 Satoshi    = 0.00001000 ฿    
10,000 Satoshi    = 0.00010000 ฿    
100,000 Satoshi    = 0.00100000 ฿    = 1 mBTC (em-bit)
1,000,000 Satoshi    = 0.01000000 ฿    = 1 cBTC (bitcent)
10,000,000 Satoshi    = 0.10000000 ฿    
100,000,000 Satoshi    = 1.00000000 ฿    

https://www.btcsatoshi.com/

And technically the supply can be increase, but it will require a consensus that everyone needs to agree, because you need to change the code. And then we will have to see another hard fork.

But we have to understand the very simple principle of core value of Bitcoin, limited supply, which gave it a deflationary throughout, until the very last BTC is mine.

[Ryker1]

Well, bitcoin max supply will remain 21 million and it will always the same as what Satoshi created that code, --unless if you will change the bitcoin code and protocols just to increase the supply. Bitcoin miners will always incentives because of transaction fees, the more active on trading the more transactions will be made by those miners. Bitcoin won't work without miners and miners won't incentives if there are no transactions and perhaps that is enough to sustain the miners' work and also we are paying high fees. Remember that when there is bull run bitcoin fees will also bullish.

[20kevin20]

I'd rather use smaller fractions of satoshis instead. I think the limited supply of BTC now became a very powerful psychological thing and having the supply suddenly turn into billions of BTC might do more bad than good, considering supply is one of the reasons some people are here.

Smaller fractions of satoshis is about the same thing as having more supply, without having to think "oh, now we have more BTC!". If Bitcoin ever gets to $100k or more, I personally believe this will become a problem not just for miners, but for everyone else.

[AmoreJaz]

I'd rather use smaller fractions of satoshis instead. I think the limited supply of BTC now became a very powerful psychological thing and having the supply suddenly turn into billions of BTC might do more bad than good, considering supply is one of the reasons some people are here.

Smaller fractions of satoshis is about the same thing as having more supply, without having to think "oh, now we have more BTC!". If Bitcoin ever gets to $100k or more, I personally believe this will become a problem not just for miners, but for everyone else.

yeah, it just translates to the fact that smaller fraction of satoshis will be valuable in the future. no need to have additional supply. who knows in the future 1 satoshi will be worth $1? so whatever the supply right now is enough. the value of every fraction will just change thru time. if the fees received by the miners will just be few satoshis, that means at that time every satoshi counts and very valuable

[erikoy]

In my opinion it is better to make another coin same as bitcoin and tradable too but in different value. Until such time that coins market price are at the same value and ready to merge. This way prices of bitcoin will not be change but the supply will do. I think it could be done a done and pretty sure that the new bitcoin creation will get a hype and eventually will be able to get the same.price as the bitcoin in just a small period of time. Well I guess merging could be the best way to add more btc supply.

[livingfree]

Increasing the supply is like the helicopter money.

I don't think that there's a need for it to increase. It's bitcoin and its scarcity is one of its asset and the best thing that it had. We are far seeing that day that there will be debates of increasing the supply. The concern is more of the transaction speed and fees.

[hatshepsut93]

This is a possible scenario, but keep in mind that just because the devs can release a new version of the client, it doesn't mean that the users will automatically adopt it. This is not Ethereum where developers can change protocol as they please.

I think the chance of this happening is higher than some might think, but overall isn't very high right now. If the community fill face this dilemma between inflation or low hashrate, I think most would choose inflation. Low network security is way worse for value than some small inflation rate like 0.5% per year. But for now we don't know what exactly the impact of no block reward will be, so it's all pure speculation right now.

[pixie85]

I think Bitcoin can live with the 21 million supply, I think we have enough:

We would maybe have enough if there were really 21 million bitcoins in circulation.

Do you guys really not see that up to 20% of all mined Bitcoins could be lost at this point? This is going to be at elast 30% in the next 10 years and so on and so forth.

I don't know what can be done about those lost coins but we will have to think of something eventually or switch to Bitcoin 2.0.

[gentlemand]

If it's increased once it'll be increased again which means it's never going to happen as down that road outrageous dilution and endless splintering lies.

The longer Bitcoin stays alive the less likely the prospect of a fundamental change in its nature is. There'll be simply too many clashing points of view to ever reach enough consensus for a change that profound. It could well lead to a bunch of forks once more but they'll be ultimately irrelevant like all the others.

I'm yet to be convinced lightning networks will ever amount to anything, but they have the ability to break a satoshi down into 1000 smaller units. If that's still a problem we'll all be so dead and/or so incomprehensibly rich we'll be long past caring.

[Little Mouse]

I do not think it will be necessary or even if it does, the coin will no more be existing. BTC is popular because of its limited supply of 21million. If it changes, or even if it changes to another limited number, there will be a deflation and I doubt many investor or long term holder would love that.
Satoshi had predicted that either BTC will be so expensive or it will just die. So, if miners can not be happy with the fee (if price low), bitcoin will no more be existed.

[pooya87]

For long, Bitcoin has been touted as the "store of value" of the crypto/Blockchain space with its limited supply of 21 million coins.

bitcoin is a currency that can work also as a store of value. if it were only a store of value then 1 million coin would have been more than enough!

Now, what if developers decide to increase that hard cap in supply?

bitcoin is decentralized so the community must decide not the devs.

By then, developers would need to raise the limit of 21 million coins to a higher value,

if price couldn't rise and it were causing problem for miners to make profit, raising the supply would crash the price and that new reward would be worth a lot less than what they were given before the stupid decision!

Do you think that the need to increase BTC's max supply will arise in the future?

not because of miners reward, that's for sure.

[odolvlobo]

... 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.

Bitcoin mining is designed such that it will always be profitable to mine for some people.

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.

You concern is well-founded. Bitcoin is designed such that the block reward determines the level of protection from a 51% attack, and if the block reward is too low, then Bitcoin may be vulnerable to a 51% attack. The question then is how much of a block reward is necessary to prevent a 51% attack, and will fees be enough? The answer to that question is unknown. We have seen 51% attacks against other coins, so we know how much is not enough. We just don't know how much is enough.

OTOH, a very low block reward indicates that nobody uses Bitcoin, so in that case it really doesn't matter if Bitcoin is attacked because Bitcoin has already failed.

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.

No. There is no benefit to increasing the limit.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

They'll just have to find a way to make it work, miners don't deal on bitcoin alone as countless number of them mine various other cryptocurrency. Therefore, in a scenario when all bitcoin minable are exhausted I think the miners would just have to feed off the transaction fees with addition to mining other cryptocurrency available and keep the ecosystem running.

Increasing the supply of bitcoin isn't a way out of the problem since we doing that won't make us any different from the centralized government operating in our different countries that constantly increase the supply of fiat by printing trillions from nowhere. There has to be another solution which will be found before that due date, lets just keep faith with bitcoin.

[hd49728]

I don't need to see higher supply for bitcoin. Higher supply, lower price.

There are people think that tBTC or Bitcoin Testnet will have value someday so they hold it for the future but I think they exaggerate the future value of tbtc. It is important but don't hope or try to build its value like bitcoin. Things for tests, they should be free.

Soon if bitcoin price is high enough, then people will switch to talk about value of satoshi. How much does 10k satoshi cost at current market price of bitcoin? I think people will talk about it next 8 or 12 years.

[virasog]

Increasing the supply is like the helicopter money.

I don't think that there's a need for it to increase. It's bitcoin and its scarcity is one of its asset and the best thing that it had. We are far seeing that day that there will be debates of increasing the supply. The concern is more of the transaction speed and fees.

The moment you increase the bitcoin supply, the bitcoin will dump so fast that you can't imagine. Why we see so high bitcoin price is that it's supply is limited and fixed. This makes it a valuable currency. Since more people will use bitcoin, its demand will keep increasing but the supply will always remain the same.

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

In my opinion it is better to make another coin same as bitcoin and tradable too but in different value. Until such time that coins market price are at the same value and ready to merge. This way prices of bitcoin will not be change but the supply will do. I think it could be done a done and pretty sure that the new bitcoin creation will get a hype and eventually will be able to get the same.price as the bitcoin in just a small period of time. Well I guess merging could be the best way to add more btc supply.

Isn't it we already have those bitcoin fork coins? BCH and BSV and others? Yes, it is doable because it is just a piece of code that can be modify specially that it is a open source. But the community will be split again.

For me there's no need to increase the 21 million supply, it is what it was designed. And the unit can be divisible. For the miners, it is still profitable, until the last every bit of bitcoin has been mine. It will just complicate things.