Can Satoshi Nakamoto remove the 21 million BTC limit?

[Keawe]

I do have one concern that pertains to this very subject.  What happens when the miners begin to mine in the .00344 range or .000022 range?  I would try to considered the fact that the average person has trouble counting into the hundreds let alone the thousands and the numbers in the future will feel backwards to the average person.  This isn't going to make BTC obsolete or anything.  However, it by no means is going to add value to BTC.  What will we do?  Begin to browse Amazon for an item and try to purchase something with .000025 BTC?  I know this creates a problem.  Who has the solution?  Altcoins etc?  When does BTC decouple from the fiat?  LOLz BTC

[Zaguru12]

Yes Bitcoins 21mil cap can be removed. In a hard fork, we would essentially have Bitcoin and another coin branch off. Bitcoin will continue with the 21 mil cap but the new coin will have a new cap or no cap. I am sure there must have been a fork in the past where this was done. One coin will continue being used while the other dies off.

It’s a good question to think about actually. What happens when the 21 mil cap is reached and miners get no more block reward. What will incentivise the miners to continue mining. Will transactions fees have to compensate for the loss of block reward? In that case wouldn’t tx fees be incredibly high? So where is the utility as a currency at that point? I don’t know the answers to these. They should be another thread all together to be honest.

Exactly the only way is to create a new cryptocurrency in the form of a hard fork and put up a higher number of supply but for bitcoin it can’t just be done the way we see it, Satoshi doesn’t have that power again to make an individual decision even though he is around that’s how decentralized bitcoin has grown to. A consensus must be reached before any effective change takes place if not the change wouldn’t be effective and it will just result into creation of a new coin just like the likes of Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Diamond and no real use of it. The issue do this 21 million bitcoin is what even adds value to bitcoin because something that’s scarce is also expensive.

Yes after all bitcoin have mined, Miners will definitely depend on transaction fees as the only incentives, we have discussed that many often in this forum. Miners already are having incentives from transaction fee which are much more than the block reward itself. A thing you need to know is transaction fee are charged in bitcoin, base on current rate of bitcoin price raise the price increase might be actually help, for example after the second bitcoin halving when the reward was reduced to 12.5 bitcoin you can clearly see that the current 6.25 is almost equivalent to it in terms of the fees. So this could actually help in the future too but the problem will be, will bitcoin be ok for micro transactions due to the fees that will be paid then?

[Casdinyard]

Speaking in Davos on Wednesday, JPMorgan CEO and also a well-known bitcoin critic Jamie Dimon made a suggestion that Satoshi Nakamoto might lift the limit on the number of bitcoins, which as we know is 21 million BTC. How would you comment on such a statement?

Referring to the limited supply of Bitcoin, which is to mirror the properties of gold, Dimon said he doubted the finality of the 21 million Bitcoin supply maximum, saying: "I think there's a good chance, when we get to that 20 million bitcoins...Satashi [sic] is going to come on there, laugh hysterically, go quiet, and all Bitcoins [are] going to be erased. How the hell [do] you know it’s going to stop at 21?"

No he can't. The thing that people mistake bitcoin for is that they assume it could be altered by its main developers or Satoshi Nakamoto himself, But that wouldn't happen and that couldn't happen because of its immutable technology.

People have tried to argue otherwise in the past to no avail, plus the community almost always agree to never touch anything within bitcoin's code or system which is why we're still dealing with the aftermath of the blocksize wars to this day. It's just going to be the case till the end of bitcoin's existence and no one will be able to change the 21 million supply, or anything that is related to bitcoin for that matter. If you want to change bitcoin you're going to have to issue a hard fork that will create another form of bitcoin with your own sets of bells and whistles. But bitcoin classic will remain the same as it is and you can't change that.

I do have one concern that pertains to this very subject.  What happens when the miners begin to mine in the .00344 range or .000022 range?  I would try to considered the fact that the average person has trouble counting into the hundreds let alone the thousands and the numbers in the future will feel backwards to the average person.  This isn't going to make BTC obsolete or anything.  However, it by no means is going to add value to BTC.  What will we do?  Begin to browse Amazon for an item and try to purchase something with .000025 BTC?  I know this creates a problem.  Who has the solution?  Altcoins etc?  When does BTC decouple from the fiat?  LOLz BTC

By then I think the solution lies in the Satoshis. Right now they don't mean shit but when bitcoin becomes so valuable that even mining it would mean useless like what you're trying to suppose here, Satoshis will be the miner's best friend. I'm not really sure how viable this is but as someone who's been in the industry for a while now this question has been asked quite a couple times and I've seen people talk about sats being the solution to this valuation problem.

[hatshepsut93]

The problem with that proposition is that all the people that's worshipping Satoshi will just blindly allow and agree on the things that he's going to happen, there will be people that's going to ask questions that will challenge the propositions but his army of blind believers will defend him to the end. I don't think that he's ever going to do that though, it's more than a decade already and I don't think that he'll be able to remember all the stuff that he's done on that and he's going to need a lot of catching up to do with the updates on bitcoin and it would be counterintuitive for Satoshi to do that because he's the richest bitcoin hodler in history and adding an additional to the 21 million total supply is gong to be problematic for him, it's unlikely what Dimon says will be done by Satoshi, he's a greedy asshole that worships money and so that's what he thinks of Satoshi, he's an apathetic asshole that can never put his feet on other people's shoes, he will die as a money hungry asshole.

I doubt that the majority of Bitcoin community will just blindly follow whatever Satoshi offers. This could be true in the early days when he was active and the community was small and there wasn't much knowledge about Bitcoin's technology, but today Bitcoin community already demonstrated that it knows where it stands, when it rejected the SegWit2x fork and all the other big block forks and chose to stick with the Core developers.

[ObscurePen]

It’s a good question to think about actually. What happens when the 21 mil cap is reached and miners get no more block reward. What will incentivise the miners to continue mining. Will transactions fees have to compensate for the loss of block reward? In that case wouldn’t tx fees be incredibly high? So where is the utility as a currency at that point? I don’t know the answers to these. They should be another thread all together to be honest.

Yes after all bitcoin have mined, Miners will definitely depend on transaction fees as the only incentives, we have discussed that many often in this forum. Miners already are having incentives from transaction fee which are much more than the block reward itself. A thing you need to know is transaction fee are charged in bitcoin, base on current rate of bitcoin price raise the price increase might be actually help, for example after the second bitcoin halving when the reward was reduced to 12.5 bitcoin you can clearly see that the current 6.25 is almost equivalent to it in terms of the fees. So this could actually help in the future too but the problem will be, will bitcoin be ok for micro transactions due to the fees that will be paid then?

So in essence the value of tx fees (even if the amount of bitcoin for the tx fee) are going to increase to cover the lack of block reward. So if we paid a $10 tx fee before, after the halving it would rise to around $20. So then the problem arises as you mentioned for micro transactions we can't really use Bitcoin. Thus wouldn't Bitcoin lose its utility as a currency?
Unless we start thinking of currency in terms of Bitcoin instead of converting it to dollars in our heads. In this case tx fees don't really change when block reward stops, they stay similar in terms of amount in BTC.

[Zaguru12]

So in essence the value of tx fees (even if the amount of bitcoin for the tx fee) are going to increase to cover the lack of block reward. So if we paid a $10 tx fee before, after the halving it would rise to around $20. So then the problem arises as you mentioned for micro transactions we can't really use Bitcoin. Thus wouldn't Bitcoin lose its utility as a currency?
Unless we start thinking of currency in terms of Bitcoin instead of converting it to dollars in our heads. In this case tx fees don't really change when block reward stops, they stay similar in terms of amount in BTC.

Just like I said it depends if we continue to have this upward movement of bitcoin price over the years that’s when we will say the price of bitcoin will try to cover for the lack of block subsidy, but still it wouldn’t totally covers the incentive except the charge for the transaction fees is very high like the ones we experienced during the end of last year which even put the transaction fees for a particular block to be higher than that block subsidy. But as for regular transaction fee charges no it wouldn’t cover totally.

Why I brought the bitcoin price to cover for the halving of block rewards is because the past trend have actually proven that. Take for an example the block reward now is 6.25 which on current bitcoin is equivalent to $260k when the reward gets halved to 3.125 and we possibly see a bitcoin price raise to something like a $100 then it’s equivalent will be $312k which is higher than now.

[pinggoki]

Jamie Dimon will never stop yapping about stuff that don't make sense, they're so used to the fact that the Federal Reserve can always just print more banknotes whenever they want that they think that it's the same thing for bitcoin. This reminded me of that one meme, I do remember it and I think that it fits perfectly with the discussion.

[tread93]

Speaking in Davos on Wednesday, JPMorgan CEO and also a well-known bitcoin critic Jamie Dimon made a suggestion that Satoshi Nakamoto might lift the limit on the number of bitcoins, which as we know is 21 million BTC. How would you comment on such a statement?

Referring to the limited supply of Bitcoin, which is to mirror the properties of gold, Dimon said he doubted the finality of the 21 million Bitcoin supply maximum, saying: "I think there's a good chance, when we get to that 20 million bitcoins...Satashi [sic] is going to come on there, laugh hysterically, go quiet, and all Bitcoins [are] going to be erased. How the hell [do] you know it’s going to stop at 21?"

That would definitely be a sight to see that would also occur in like 120 years or something like this as the last percent of these coins will be a painstakingly long process and very little mining reward in the end.

[Mate2237]

Since Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of Bitcoin the matter what if he decides to add more I think he can do that and the only thing it will affect the Bitcoin network because Bitcoin is decentralized. But  JPMorgan and Jamie Dimon are just a mere speculators which you have already said that they're critics of Bitcoin. To add will be possible but to erase will not be possible.

Those who don't like Bitcoin always come up with different stories to make people afraid and leave Bitcoin but that stage of Bitcoin has passed and not now again. Every Bitcoiner is getting stronger in the bitcoin investment. Therefore all those articles are just a mere formulation of stories to scare people.

[SamReomo]

The straightforward answer to this question is a big noooooooo! Satoshi Nakamoto can't remove the 21 million Bitcoin limit because he's no more the owner of Bitcoin, the community the current owner of Bitcoin.

Even if Satoshi wants to do something like this then he won't be able to do it. He can remove the limit if he can convince the community that it's for good of Bitcoin but I doubt even Satoshi Nakamoto will be able to convince the whole community for such action.

Jamie Dimon just want public attention and nothing else, that guy is more like a newbie who doesn't know much about the Bitcoin and its protocol. He has been skeptical about Bitcoin because he missed the chance to purchase Bitcoin when it was below $10 per coin and now he's just making such fake attempts to get some attention from the community. Nothing else than that.

[Rustam Meraj]

I do not agree with Jamie Dimon idea that Satoshi Nakamoto may increase the number of bitcoins. The fixed amount is 21 million bitcoins is one of the main reasons that's why bitcoin is valuable and rare. By being similar to gold, bitcoin can be a way to store value and protect against inflation. If there were unlimited supply of bitcoins it would make bitcoin less trust and can be caused hyperinflation. Also because bitcoin is decentralised no one person including Satoshi Nakamoto can change the rules by themselves. So, I think the limit of 21 million bitcoins will stay the same which will keep the bitcoin stable and valuable in the long run.

[MFahad]

Speaking in Davos on Wednesday, JPMorgan CEO and also a well-known bitcoin critic Jamie Dimon made a suggestion that Satoshi Nakamoto might lift the limit on the number of bitcoins, which as we know is 21 million BTC. How would you comment on such a statement?

I would comment by saying Jamie Dimon does not know what he is talking about.  Bitcoin is not J P Morgan.  Bitcoin is DE Centralized.  It is Trust LESS.

Satoshi created Bitcoin and let it run in the wild.  He has no more power of governance over it, ever since Bitcoin became public.  There is no 'access key' to inner workings of Bitcoin and every body pretty much knows that after a five minute serious read on this topic.

The only way this can happen is through a Hard Fork.  I doubt every body is dumb enough to accept such a significant change which has an obvious and very strong negative impact on Bitcoin.

you are absolutely right about that. and a lot of shitty Bitcoin forks are alraedy there to prove that. I think Jamie just want to inflate Bitcoin like Fiat so he can own more and more, he think he can be wealthier like that.
Thankfully Bitcoin community have sensible people who wouldn't let that happen.

How dumb the crypto community is becoming to give someone with no knowledge of basics as critique of cryptocurrency.

If Satoshi came and hard fork to bring more coins off a new branch it will be just another coin not just bitcoin and people won't use that coin but why Satoshi will do that?

no one give anyone rights of becoming critique of cryptocurrency. it's everyone's personal choice and decidions to become a critique. now it is upto the community to listen and believe that person or not. and we can clearly see that no one taking Jamie seriously here in this community and I am pretty sure no one would take him seriously anywhere else outside of this forum.
So don't worry about whatever he says because we can't shut anyone off..

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Speaking in Davos on Wednesday, JPMorgan CEO and also a well-known bitcoin critic Jamie Dimon made a suggestion that Satoshi Nakamoto might lift the limit on the number of bitcoins, which as we know is 21 million BTC. How would you comment on such a statement?

Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million Bitcoin but we have satoshi as you can send fractions of satoshi therefore Bitcoin supply doesn't need any alterations. Anyone that wants to do that will only get himself his own Bitcoin and they'll all fail like Bitcoin cash, Bitcoin sv and the rest of the forks that all failed. Satoshi himself can't alter the supply of Bitcoin as Bitcoin is no longer under his control although he started the whole thing but Bitcoin is now owned by the community and we have the final say. Any alterations to Bitcoin supply creates another altcoins while Bitcoin will still be existing.

Satoshi needs the community approval to do that but lets say he somehow removing the whole 21 million supply limits, it takes aways the Identity of Bitcoin and just proves that it's actually a centralized coin and not decentralized as it claims but that won't happen so we can't stop thinking about that and concentrate on how we can lower the fees and make the network less congested and more appealing to merchants so they can accept Bitcoin and increase the adoption of the currency.

[elevates]

How is that even possible as Bitcoin is not a physical object or it can be printed. It is a software code and in order to reconfigure it a new set of codes need to be written. If a new set of codes a written then a new cryptocurrency would be made and zero changes will happen to Bitcoin. This proves how individuals in big position still are clueless about Bitcoin and why such individuals get trolled when they are online.

[PrivacyG]

I think Jamie just want to inflate Bitcoin like Fiat so he can own more and more, he think he can be wealthier like that.

I think Jamie just wants to convince people that Bitcoin is the bad guy by speaking about it with zero knowledge in the domain.  And some people take Bitcoin price predictions by J P Morgan with no salt?  I would take them with a spoon full of it!

It only shows something about the ones who govern us.  Jamie Dimon included, because I really doubt he has nothing to do with how the world runs.  The elderly barely know how Bitcoin works yet they always comment on it.  The United States has Bitcoin laws governed by people who have only up to a decade left to live probably.  It really sucks!

Let the elder man be and stop giving him attention.  Jamie is never going to support the Currency that was created as a protective shield for the people against Banks.  It is like telling me Jeff Bezos would support their biggest competitor.  Never, unless they are in the same boat.

[satscraper]

Will transactions fees have to compensate for the loss of block reward? I

Depends on both the volume of incoming transaction and the size of miners competed for those fees. No one can foresee the future thus all speculations on this matter are not far from the coffee cup reading.

Bitcoin is a new technique in  transferring value and two opposite  outcomes are equally possible.

[johnsaributua]

Due to bad habits in assets other than bitcoin, which has a negative effect and side effect for a developer in maintaining sales and possibly increasing income , until the perspective of some observers arises that there will be a denial or even a chance of being replaced with another coin by Mr. Satoshi. Possible to be a replacement even though it might not happen and not deny the whitepaper. I think satoshi is still holding firm so that the above habits are not included in bitcoin and maintain stability and even continue to shine from halving to halving.

The habit of people in DCA bitcoin in my opinion there is no doubt, because anyone can claim the possibilities that occur, even with satoshi has not appeared again until now, but I admit Mr. satoshi is an anonymous person who successfully makes the coin run by itself and unites the two market segments harmoniously. I hope BTC will still be popular now, later and so on.