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[Beetkoin]

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[ranochigo]

If you were to modify your Bitcoin Core with a different block interval, different block rewards or halving, you'll effectively change the total possible coins generated. This would only apply for those that is running the client with the same modification as you. So no, anyone can change the limit but it won't be followed. It is already happening with the altcoins that are forked from Bitcoin. The consensus that you've mentioned effectively means that those who runs that modification consider theirs as 'Bitcoin'.

As with the limit of 21 million, it'll probably not be called Bitcoin because there really isn't any real reason for it to be changed. The original Bitcoin should still have 21 million as its limit.

[bassbity]

if the consensus is considered as one of the benchmarks to support the 21 million Bitcoin numbers, then how can we clearly describe it that until now no one has tried to do this?
Whether with the amount of 21 million or not, bitcoin is beyond the control of any party, except for China, which seems to have the capacity to try to change the consensus system and make reforms. but in essence if the 21 million amount can be manipulated, then would you please give us a scheme to use?

[mk4]

One of Bitcoin's main strengths is it's historically unchanged and predictable supply schedule, as well as the max supply cap. You do realize though that changing the max supply totally invalidates this core characteristic, right? Not a single Bitcoiner in the right mind would support such change.

[BlackHatCoiner]

It's just that the issuance of coins is not subject to a central authority, but requires a supermajority consensus.

Yes and no. A bitcoin node sends and receives information, but most importantly verifies. Note that each one runs autonomously. By that you understand that no one forces none to change a consensus rule, like the 21,000,000 coins. The already existent nodes define that Bitcoin works that way, since January of 2009. Every bitcoin node follows the rules chosen by satoshi. Everyone is free to change the consensus rules and continue/restart the blockchain, but that wouldn't be Bitcoin's. It would be a hard fork, a chain with different rules.

To answer you, if the majority of the nodes decide to follow different rules, they immediately stop being the majority. But since it's a majority of users (which means that they're a lot), they can manipulate people that their Bitcoin is Bitcoin.

Whether with the amount of 21 million or not, bitcoin is beyond the control of any party, except for China, which seems to have the capacity to try to change the consensus system and make reforms.

What does China have to do with the consensus rules of Bitcoin? The capacity has nothing to do with the consensus, not to mention that China isn't a single entity to perform 51% attack if we assume that they have enough computational power in total.

[ranochigo]

if the consensus is considered as one of the benchmarks to support the 21 million Bitcoin numbers, then how can we clearly describe it that until now no one has tried to do this?

It is not. Your full node should have the code that enforces the specific parameters pertaining to Bitcoin's rules. You can verify that you are infact enforcing the 21 million rule by checking the rewards halving, difficulty re targeting and block rewards within the code.

It is easy to change the parameters, whether anyone wants to follow your fork is an entirely different issue.

Whether with the amount of 21 million or not, bitcoin is beyond the control of any party, except for China, which seems to have the capacity to try to change the consensus system and make reforms. but in essence if the 21 million amount can be manipulated, then would you please give us a scheme to use?

They don't. Seems absurd that you think Bitcoin is within a control of any single entity and is still surviving at this point.

[Lucius]

In our opinion, cloud mining is the most convenient way for it.

Cloud mining is the best way to lose money, don't fool people with false promises because you won't do well on this forum - we know it is 100% SCAM.

Actually everything in Bitcoin can be changed, as long as there is the consensus for it.

Everything is subject to change, but as others have commented, anything that would interfere with the basic features would actually be the creation of a new coin - and the original Bitcoin should just stay at its max supply, so Satoshi determined, and it should be respected. If you want to see what happens to alternative BTC that have a max supply of tens of billions best to take a look at all the BTC forks -> https://forkdrop.io/list-of-bitcoin-forks

No matter what, the original will always be what people follow the most - it is the only decentralized solution in the literal sense of the word - all other crypto projects have someone who manages them in their own interest.

[Expecto]

People always say "bitcoin has a hard coded, guaranteed limit of 21 million coins".

However, I think the limit of 21 million is subject to the consensus of the users and miners?

So if a consensus is formed to allow more than 21 million Bitcoins to be generated, then it will be so, right?

Actually everything in Bitcoin can be changed, as long as there is the consensus for it.

So, there is actually no mathematical limit to the number of coins. It's just that the issuance of coins is not subject to a central authority, but requires a supermajority consensus.

It is actually a modifiable feature of Bitcoin. If somebody has his/her own fork from Bitcoin, he/she can change it to a value whatever he/she likes. But the most important part here is whether the people will want to use that version of Bitcoin or not. So I don't expect that kind of a change happen in the future.

[Charles-Tim]

Actually everything in Bitcoin can be changed, as long as there is the consensus for it.

The miners that have accumulated a lot of Bitcoin, while the whales that only wish Bitcoin price to be increasing, are they the one that will agree for a change in the total supply of Bitcoin to surpass 21 million, I think that is just not going to happen. I believe this is the last thing that can happen to bitcoin, even to be the last thing seem more of an understatement because the chance for such to happen is not realistic. Not realistic because people do not want their Bitcoin to have lesser value, people want it to appreciate, while increasing the total supply will reduce its value in term of price, and this, miners and holders will not want.

[batang_bitcoin]

21 million supply of bitcoin won't change forever. It's there to stay and can't be modified. As said explained well by ranochigo, there has been a lot of "upgrades" made by those fork coins and have replaced the supply limit into lower or higher one dependent from their stand towards the upgrade that they want.
But at the end, they're not bitcoin but only became forked coins or mere altcoins.

[Insanerman]

21 million supply of bitcoin won't change forever. It's there to stay and can't be modified. As said explained well by ranochigo, there has been a lot of "upgrades" made by those fork coins and have replaced the supply limit into lower or higher one dependent from their stand towards the upgrade that they want.
But at the end, they're not bitcoin but only became forked coins or mere altcoins.

Bro I can't comprehend enough on what you pertain on this matter. You just agreed to ranochigo and put a a simple comment that doesn't really makes sense. The modification on Bitcoin Core said by ranochigo only says that it could only apply on one's node. And with millions of users that runs their own nodes, it would even be impossible to change all of those node's limits. And no, it wasn't fork coins nor altcoins you misunderstood about. It is still on Bitcoin, but on its backend.

Bitcoin's limit is indeed unchangeable. Yet as soon as there would be forking to happen, it would also pullback the chance of Bitcoin being reach it's limit sooner. Hence, 21 million limit can happen decades from now, as it would be hard for miners to gain BTC with more forks to come, resulting to supply being circulated slowly in the market.

[dothebeats]

Even if it's up to the supermajority to decide whether to raise the max supply cap or not, I still don't think they will ever try to, given how crucial it is for bitcoin's valuation.

Bitcoin's value and appeal to the masses banks on the fact that it has limited supply and availability. If that limit is to be changed due to a consensus ruling, everyone holding bitcoins would be affected. It's just a lose-lose situation, and does not bring about any change since devs can just implement further divisibility to address the supply scarcity.

People can still create their own version of bitcoin with 21M+ coins. Though I can say, with utmost certainty, that almost everyone will agree that the 21 million max supply cap is, for most cases, still sufficient.

[seoincorporation]

So, there is actually no mathematical limit to the number of coins. It's just that the issuance of coins is not subject to a central authority, but requires a supermajority consensus.

The mathematical limit is in the code. And that limit is the result of the halving. Maybe a consensus could bring more coins, but the block reward should change and the having times should do it too. Is a complex task.

I think it would be easier to add more zeros after the point than adding more coins to the blockchain, and both would have the same effect.

[milewilda]

One of Bitcoin's main strengths is it's historically unchanged and predictable supply schedule, as well as the max supply cap. You do realize though that changing the max supply totally invalidates this core characteristic, right? Not a single Bitcoiner in the right mind would support such change.

On point and these are the characteristics on why bitcoin had been supported that much by the masses because of those qualities which numbers could really be changed or simply its already been fixed.
21 supply is still an issue? Even adoption would go into that global scale, come to think that 1btc is 100 million satoshis and even if we do have that global scale of acceptance or usage
then those supply that is circulating would really be enough to accumulate the population and of course excluding those lost bitcoins in the void wouldnt really join up the circulation.
Limit? better not to stress out yourself on thinking with this.

[pixie85]

I feel like it's good that it can be changed. It allows us to improve security in case bitcoin was to still be a big thing 20 years from now.

If Bitcoin ever became a reserve currency we might need to add some improvements and even do something about lost coins, because if you think that we could be down about 20% of total supply due to lost wallets and passwords, in the next 20 years it could be 50%. The consensus voting will allow us to deal with this problem in future.

It's not like people are going to vote to make bitcoin worse or weaker in any way. Voters will have a stake in it and will want it to be better and stronger so if we ever vote to increase the total supply cap there will be a strong reason behind it.

[ranochigo]

he modification on Bitcoin Core said by ranochigo only says that it could only apply on one's node. And with millions of users that runs their own nodes, it would even be impossible to change all of those node's limits. And no, it wasn't fork coins nor altcoins you misunderstood about. It is still on Bitcoin, but on its backend.

If someone wants to make an altcoins, it would take more than modifying the block generation parameters. Implementing a new magic bytes and dns seeds or nodes would be necessary as well for them to be connected to each other.

If you're able to modify a client that way and people actually use it, that is how BCH is spawned (albeit with quite some modification).

[Rruchi man]

The whole narrative of this almost wants to suggest that when the 21 million mining limit is reached, like it will be impossible to get btc. However, that is not the case. At 21 Million limit, people will still be able to procure btc from people who own them at that point. So extending the 21 million limit is not really necessary.

[YOSHIE]

So if a consensus is formed to allow more than 21 million Bitcoins to be generated, then it will be so, right?

Everyone who looks at Bitcoin and everywhere he looks is written only 21 million coins, more than that nobody knows and is written, there are three opinions what I think at the moment, it could be more, it could be less than 21 million or it could be 21 coins.

I haven't seen your questions or doubts about 21 Bitcoin, which is circulating in the market right now and didn't find out about it, 21 million Bitcoin is normal thinking right now.

21 or so doesn't know yet, however, if I find one, I'll let you know here.

[pooya87]

People always say "bitcoin has a hard coded, guaranteed limit of 21 million coins".

Not exactly. 21 million cap is guaranteed by math (like most other things in bitcoin). It is a combination of the starting block reward and reward halvings that ensures there will never be any more than 21 million bitcoins created.

However, I think the limit of 21 million is subject to the consensus of the users and miners?

Yes, like every other consensus rule in bitcoin.

So if a consensus is formed to allow more than 21 million Bitcoins to be generated, then it will be so, right?

Yes, a hard fork has to take place to change the block rewards to allow more or less coins to be generated. But it won't happen because there is no valid reason to change the cap.

Actually everything in Bitcoin can be changed, as long as there is the consensus for it.

Yes, but only if there is a valid reason for doing so. You can't just change stuff for no reason.

So, there is actually no mathematical limit to the number of coins.

There IS a mathematical limit as I explained above.
There is also another limit in form of the amount field in transaction outputs which can only be a 64-bit integer.

[OcTradism]

So if a consensus is formed to allow more than 21 million Bitcoins to be generated, then it will be so, right?

Actually everything in Bitcoin can be changed, as long as there is the consensus for it.

21 million is the total supply of bitcoin that most people read but per protocol, there is not exactly 21 million bitcoins. The total supply is a little bit less than 21 million bitcoins, in decimal figure.

Many scam developers use source code of bitcoin and make their altcoins. They self-called as forks from bitcoin but in fact they are altcoins. They give people promise that their shit coins will be another bitcoin but forget it please.

There are enough bitcoin for people on the planet to buy it. It is only a matter on your side, buy it or not. If buy it, buy it soon or late.

Lastly please read the quote that is satoshi's explanation

Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people in the world if it really gets huge.

But don't worry, there are another 6 decimal places that aren't shown, for a total of 8 decimal places internally.  It shows 1.00 but internally it's 1.00000000.  If there's massive deflation in the future, the software could show more decimal places.

If it gets tiresome working with small numbers, we could change where the display shows the decimal point.  Same amount of money, just different convention for where the ","'s and "."'s go.  e.g. moving the decimal place 3 places would mean if you had 1.00000 before, now it shows it as 1,000.00.