I was wondering will 21,000 million satisfy?

[Zilon]

By the year 2140 the last bitcoin that will ever be mined will have been mined and then miners will switch completely to transaction fees as their reward for validating transactions. mine you full node miners perform basically two functions which include:

• validate transactions
• mint new coins

Before we consider this two functions. The bitcoin halving which occurs every four years ensures the total number of bitcoin that will ever be in existence will not exceed 21,000 million bitcoin.

will 21,000 million bitcoin be enough for the masses
Bitcoin is highly divisible. meaning in every 1 bitcoin there 100 million  satoshi's and the smallest sat is 0.00000001(1millibit) so its highly divisible nature will make bitcoin available to the masses and will be more than enough

What if miners decides to increases the bitcoin number is it really possible?
Yes it can be achieved but it simply means majority of the nodes that encompasses different miners on the network has to be in agreement and what eventually happens if more nodes are against this Then Bitcoin will definitely become two since the miners might likely spit since there are no longer in consensus.

if they split what will happen to the two bitcoin values
It just like having an original and a fake product. One will inflate and the other will deflate

since both are built on the same open source code why can't the two add up the same value
Now both might be tackling the same decentralized asset ownership and spending issue but since both will run on different software one will defintely get more adoption than the other and what controls market price is demand and supplyso both might not gain equal attention.

What are your take on this?

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[mocacinno]

21.000?

You mean 21.000.000?
(21 million instead of 21 thousand).

At this moment, the smallest unit is the satoshi (0.00000001 BTC), but nothing is stopping the devs from making one microsatoshi the smallest unit if it ever comes to this.
With some sidechains (like lightning), we're already talking about millisatoshi... So it's not even that far fetched.

[stompix]

Those 21 million coins might not be sufficient for some but for god's sake, more than 21 million topics about the necessity of more than 21 million coins sure are enough. This thing has been debated since the start of the forum and it's going to be debated well after 2140, what's this obsession poeple have that keeps them awake at night about things that will happen over a century? Just a month ago I nearly freaked out hearing that the Earth is cooling way faster and it will do a few billion years faster than predicted and now this?

But other than that, nice job answering your own questions, so...what's the point of all this?

[Lucius]

What if miners decides to increases the bitcoin number is it really possible?

Whoever and wherever does that will do nothing but another in a series of forked b(sh)itcoins, of which there are already over 100. It is not a problem to change a few lines in the code, the problem is how to reach a consensus, and if by any chance this ever happens, then Bitcoin will no longer be what it is today.

I wouldn't worry too much about what will happen in 100+ years, because by then people will probably find a way to destroy much more important things than Bitcoin. We currently have quite enough Bitcoin to meet the needs of everyone who wants to own it, and I’ve never heard anyone complain that they wanted to buy Bitcoin and that they couldn’t do it because everything was sold out.

[OcTradism]

Because Bitcoin is opposite to banks, its total supply won't be changed and can not be changed.

If it can be changed by consensus, what we will have is no longer Bitcoin which is created by satoshi nakamoto. I don't accept such inflationary Bitcoin.'
If in 2040, Bitcoin can be changed to 21,000 M bitcoin in total supply, what will be next in 2060, 2080?
Will we have more Bitcoin after couples of decade? It's terrible.

But thanks for the Bitcoin God, Satoshi Nakamoto and his Protocol, total supply of Bitcoin is 21M forever.

[Charles-Tim]

By the year 2140 the last bitcoin that will ever be mined will have been mined and then miners will switch to transaction fees as their reward for validating transactions.

Miners switched over to transaction fee as the reward can be misleading, miners have been earning fee from transaction fee right from the beginning, but as the mining reward is reducing every 210000 blocks (halving), miners will be getting more reward from transaction fee but fully depended on the fee when all bitcoin are mined.

The bitcoin halving which occurs every four years ensures the total number of bitcoin that will ever be in existence will not exceed 21,000 million bitcoin.

Approximately almost 4 years in the last three halving, but what that is most correct is that the block reward halves every 210000 blocks.

What if miners decides to increases the bitcoin number is it really possible?
Yes it can be achieved but it simply means majority of the nodes that encompasses different miners on the network has to be in agreement and what eventuall happens if more nodes are against this Then Bitcoin will definitely become two since the miners might likely spit since there are no longer in concensus.

This supposed to have occured in the past, the reason for past bitcoin hardfork is related to scalability, I do not think anyone is ready to propose bitcoin total supply to increase because if it increases, the price will reduce. But what I have seen people saying is 'can bitcoin total supply be reduced, so that the price can increase, but nothing like that is happening for now as bitcoin community is even against it, they want the supply to remain constant. But we do not know what may happen in the future though.

[Zilon]

By the year 2140 the last bitcoin that will ever be mined will have been mined and then miners will switch to transaction fees as their reward for validating transactions.

Miners switched over to transaction fee as the reward can be misleading, miners have been earning fee from transaction fee right from the beginning, but as the mining reward is reducing every 210000 blocks (halving), miners will be getting more reward from transaction fee but fully depended on the fee when all bitcoin are mined.

Swiching completely to transaction fee was what i meant thanks for highlighting that misleading line. Currently it's new minted coin of 6.25 bitcoin per each successfully validated transaction. Now will the fee be encouraging enough as the only reward then will this spring up inflation in transaction fee or will miners stop? and if miners stop what will happen to bitcoin

[Charles-Tim]

Now will the fee be encouraging enough as the only reward then will this spring up inflation in transaction fee or will miners stop? and if miners stop what will happen to bitcoin

You mean if mining is not profitable for miners? It has been working fine since bitcoin was created, all I noticed that is most important is adoption, as bitcoin price increases, this makes mining still profitable. 50 BTC was the first mining reward before 2013 halving, and yet 6.25 BTC is still profitable as the price of bitcoin increases and as more people are making use of bitcoin. What is most important is adoption.

[Japinat]

My vision for bitcoin is 1 satoshi = 1 USD.

I think that's already enough for massive adoption, and besides, I don't think everyone will use bitcoin and will replace fiat.
Whatever happens in the future, as long as there's still a government, fiat will always be the main currency and bitcoin will always be an alternative.

[cabron]

Forks had been done many times though, the politics in Bitcoin may not be very visible but consensus shows in the decision in increasing blocksize alone resulted to forking.

21M is enough, there was even plans for mili-satoshi. But that  I think I'm not sure as I just read it somewhere in the forum. There is no need for increasing the number of BTC since we can fork anyway. Or Altcoins will also do.

[hosseinimr93]

Currently it's new minted coin of 6.25 bitcoin per each successfully validated transaction.

Currently, miners can claim 6.25 BTC for every block they mine. This reward isn't for validating transactions. There are many full nodes validating transactions and helping the network without getting any reward for that.
A miner can solve the proof of work problem, broadcast a block without any transaction and get the 6.25 BTC.

Now will the fee be encouraging enough as the only reward then will this spring up inflation in transaction fee or will miners stop?

As stated by Charles-Tim, the block reward has decreased from 50 BTC to 6.25 BTC and mining is still profitable. That's 87.5% decrease in block reward.
The following image shows the total hash rate change over the time. As you see, we reached a new all time high a few days ago.


Source: blockchain.com

and if miners stop what will happen to bitcoin

Anyone who can't make profit stops mining. This causes the difficulty to decrease and mining becomes more profitable for others.

[Welsh]

Bitcoin is much more scalable than any other fiat currency out there, and if required changes can be made to make it even more scalable, not something you can really do with fiat, unless you massively change the system, with Bitcoin it wouldn't be that big of an adjustment. Unless, fiat completely converts to digital, which would aid the transition to them scaling it, which is a possibility by that time, some people would likely argue that's a given that physical fiat will likely not be around by then. 

My vision for bitcoin is 1 satoshi = 1 USD.

I think that's already enough for massive adoption, and besides, I don't think everyone will use bitcoin and will replace fiat.
Whatever happens in the future, as long as there's still a government, fiat will always be the main currency and bitcoin will always be an alternative.

Considering USD is going to be worthless by 2140, I'd like to think we would have a little more ambition than that, even if USD isn't completely worthless by then, the naturally occuring inflation that's normal with fiat means that one USD isn't going to be worth what it is today, i.e you won't be able to buy anything with one USD in the future.

[KingsDen]

...what's this obsession poeple have that keeps them awake at night about things that will happen over a century?

Truly the nature of man. Man wants to know the end from the beginning. Man thinks much, Man predicts much and Man fails much aswell.
Technology is so dynamic that we don't know what will happen by just near 2030. While we might be expecting the fight of bitcoin and fiat, we might be surprised that both bitcoin and fiat might not exist in the future. Technology might birth something totally different.

But other than that, nice job answering your own questions, so...what's the point of all this?

I wondered so much on this too. He already has answers to his questions. Maybe he wanted to be sure his answers are correct or to know if there are differed opinions.

[aysg76]

will 21,000 million bitcoin be enough for the masses

See when btc was built by Satoshi the thing in his mind was to provide an decentralised alternative to current central monetary system solving the issue of double spending of coins not to fullfill everyone's need on the planet.The population of the earth is in billions and there are much more fiat in circulation but still everyone have the enough proportion for it? So this thing cannot be resolved and limited supply is what makes it deflationary currency.

What if miners decides to increases the bitcoin number is it really possible?

A single miner or group of miners can't make any changes to bitcoin and the whole community needs to agree upon the decision to make any changes in the code.Or in other words if 51% of the miners agree to change the open source code on github then it's possible but still they won't do this thing.

if they split what will happen to the two bitcoin values

The Bitcoin had already witness some hard forks in the past and thing is what the outcome is not really bitcoin anymore and just another fake copy of it like the people Roger Ver have tried to do so in the past with BSV but there's only remain one and one bitcoin all the time.

Speaking of miners then there are enough incentives for them at this time also with rewards decreasing with half at each having.At this time it's 6.25BTC for finding the next block or say solving the puzzle with ASIC machines at this time.But still holding these coins will benefit them.In future the transaction fees is the reward and more transactions will prevail and more rewards which means network will be secured by them.

The difficulty is adjusted every 2106 blocks or two weeks depending on the time it takes to find the previous blocks so you see miners always have profit in the things.

[Lucius]

Technology is so dynamic that we don't know what will happen by just near 2030.

We know that by then there will be two more halvings (2024 & 2028), and that 99% of all Bitcoins will be mined by 2030. If price is not the motivating factor then and if there are not enough transactions, will there be mining farms at all? The 1% (210 000 BTC) that will remain for the next 100 years are rather insignificant given just under 21 million BTCs that will be in circulation in one way or another by then.

People who focus on the year 2140 are actually wasting time on things that they won’t be able to have any impact on.

[PrivacyG]

Have you seen how much technology has advanced from 1900 to 2022?  Imagine how much it will by 2140.  Bitcoin may in fact not even exist anymore by the time all supply is supposed to be mined.  So why care about the supply cap now if there is no problem with it?

Let this be taken care of when it is needed.  The Blockchain technology will evolve very quickly in the following decades and should Bitcoin ever need more decimals or a larger supply, it will have the change.

Anyway, since this can be changed at any given time, Bitcoin is ready to encounter future issues.  With that being said, let's focus on what we can do in the present and how we can make Bitcoin better today.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[KingsDen]

Technology is so dynamic that we don't know what will happen by just near 2030.

We know that by then there will be two more halvings (2024 & 2028), and that 99% of all Bitcoins will be mined by 2030. If price is not the motivating factor then and if there are not enough transactions, will there be mining farms at all? The 1% (210 000 BTC) that will remain for the next 100 years are rather insignificant given just under 21 million BTCs that will be in circulation in one way or another by then.

People who focus on the year 2140 are actually wasting time on things that they won’t be able to have any impact on.

The remaining 1% will be so insignificant and might not worth burning of energy. What I expect to see is hike in transaction fee and many people would be forced to find alternatives if bitcoin isn't made more scalable by then.
But what I will be interested to know then is; the bitcoin energy consumption allegations. By then, the energy consumption by miners will reduce drastically, and the government might not see energy related reasons again to fight bitcoin.

[Lucius]

The remaining 1% will be so insignificant and might not worth burning of energy. What I expect to see is hike in transaction fee and many people would be forced to find alternatives if bitcoin isn't made more scalable by then.

Burning energy as you say is just one of the deceptions financed by the banking sector and carried out by their pawns in politics, science, and the media. Today, Bitcoin mining consumes only 0.14% of the world's energy, and that will not change drastically in the years to come - mining devices are becoming more efficient and consume less energy. In addition, the energy loss in one year worldwide is as high as 50 000 TWh, while Bitcoin consumes only about 220 TWh per year.

But what I will be interested to know then is; the bitcoin energy consumption allegations. By then, the energy consumption by miners will reduce drastically, and the government might not see energy related reasons again to fight bitcoin.

If you read what I wrote above, and if you consider that all objective and independent research has come to similar conclusions, then you can conclude how meaningless it is even today to say that Bitcoin is a problem in this regard. Bitcoin is attacked with ordinary lies, does not endanger the environment, nor is it used by criminals - the problem is in the agenda of "power to the people" and "finance without central banks" which may result in the loss of control of tyrants who rule the world for thousands of years.

[stompix]

Today, Bitcoin mining consumes only 0.14% of the world's energy, and that will not change drastically in the years to come - mining devices are becoming more efficient and consume less energy.

Efficiency in miners will not drive down energy consumption they will simply drive up hashrate generated for the same energy consumption.

Miners compete for a piece of that 40mililion 30 (I forgot we've dumped that much lately) a day reward, they can't spend more than that since it would be stupid but in an extreme scenario, they can go as close to that assuming they would have ROI already on their machines. No matter how efficient the gear is they will still go overall as close as that reward number in consumption.

You can create a 10PH/s gear at 3000W, it's not like everyone will shut down 100 S19pro and power only one piece of new gear, since it's that profitable they will put 100 of it till every single miner is replaced by a 100 times ore efficient machine but with same power consumption.

We know that by then there will be two more halvings (2024 & 2028), and that 99% of all Bitcoins will be mined by 2030. If price is not the motivating factor then and if there are not enough transactions, will there be mining farms at all?

If there aren't enough transactions then we have failed already, right?

But, looking strictly at numbers I doubt we would have this much pressure in two halvings. Back in October 2020, the price was 10k, hashrate was around 140Exa, which means that assuming the same electricity prices for all miners as at that moment we could still have the same protection of the network as then even if the price keeps standing at 40k after two halvings.

Of course, there are some nice solutions for that, but some I consider right now more wishful thinking and more things I want to happen rather than things I think will do.