Bitcoin devs can undo 21M supply cap but can’t force changes

[larry_vw_1955]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-devs-can-undo-21-million-cap-but-cannot-force-changes

Bitcoin developers can theoretically remove the 21-million-Bitcoin supply limit from the source code, but miners are unlikely to accept such a change, according to one analyst.

I'm sure this comes as a huge relief for all of you guys.

Then they go on to say this:

Like most other codes, Bitcoin’s source code can be modified, meaning the 21-million limit is theoretically changeable. However, such a change will have to be accepted by miners to be effective, according to Josef Tětek, a Bitcoin analyst at the hardware wallet firm Trezor.

The more people write about how the 21 million limit can be changed, the more its going to get into peoples' heads that maybe it should be changed. That way they could own more bitcoin and get richer. That's how they would think about it.

[mk4]

I'm sure this comes as a huge relief for all of you guys.

I mean — not really, because this really isn't anything new to start with. Bitcoin's supply cap is one of Bitcoin's main selling points, so it's very unlikely for the community in general(not just the miners) to support such a huge fundamental change.

[ranochigo]

That is wrong. The value of Bitcoin doesn't come from miners, but it comes from the community and the users actively transacting with it. Even if the miners were to adopt it, if the community doesn't support it or people don't use it, then Bitcoin becomes useless. It is to their best interests to support the sentiments of the majority given their billions of dollars in investment.

Most people understand basic economics regardless, so the supply cap probably won't gain any traction.

[pinggoki]

But they can't do that even if they tweak the code right? There's releases and those releases are reviewed by several developers before they can be deployed right? So even if there's one rogue developer that will do just that, I don't think that it's going to get through and the article says theoretically which means they've got no proof even if there's already a code there already that can prove it because it can't really be done.

[bobbybkk]

Actually I see no point in fiddling with the supply cap;

1) If you have no cap at all, then that means kind of unlimited supply and the value will go down the  drain....

2) another higher cap lets say 100 millions, just the same as now just pushed back a couple of years....

3) 2 versions of bitcoins, one with a cap and the other without a cap -sounds not really promising

So I think this topic can be ignored for a long time

[mocacinno]

Changing that limit would be a hard fork... Especially if you'd also change the rules for the block reward (which you would HAVE to do to increase or remove the supply limit).
Nodes running the "old" fork (with a ~21.000.000 supply limit) will start to reject all blocks whose block reward does not conform to the "old" rules (block reward halving every 210.000 blocks, starting with 50 BTC), and since the "new" fork will need to adjust this logic to replace (or remove) the supply limit, they'll actually HAVE to change this rule.
The fork could probably do something like: wait untill the next halving when the "old" chain's block reward becomes 3,125 BTC, then change the client's sourcecode to keep this block reward forever (disable halving in the future), that way your new chain will be "compatible" with the old chain for another ~4 years, but as soon as the next halving happens, the old chain will start to reject blocks with a 3,125 BTC block reward.

In, the end, you'd have 2 bitcoins: Bitcoin_super_unlimited and Bitcoin. Everybody who controlled unspent outputs on Bitcoin by the time of the fork will have the same value on both chains, and one of them *might* die off (even tough some forks actually exist for a long time, albeit not as popular as bitcoin).

Personally, i don't think you'd have to worry about this as a "normal" user. I think the chances are very slim anybody would tamper with the supply limit and risk a hard fork for something that will probably do the community no good... There are more pressing matters TBH. I worry a lot more wether a solid, mature L2 network will exist by the time the block reward becomes so small we'd have to pay $80 per transaction in order to keep the miners interested in mining bitcoin... I also worry about people spamming the mempool with crap transactions pushing the fee waaaaay up... People that want to start meddeling with the controlled supply aren't even in the top 10 when it comes to worries about our network and our community.

[hugeblack]

Sometimes I feel like cointelegraph articles are written by artificial intelligence.
Anyone can change the total number of Bitcoins to more than 21 million, and this has already happened, but this requires a hard fork, and then the resulting new coin will not be in the name of Bitcoin and will not be of the same value, and most likely it will not have any value. The reason for this is that there are not 21 million Bitcoins, but ~ 2.1 quadrillion sats which is more than any fiat money.

[Learn Bitcoin]

I am not a tech guy and don't know what could be done and what could not be done. I am sure 90 of Bitcoin users do not care about what are the developers doing. However, a large part of the community knows that the Maximum supply of Bitcoin is 21 Million and it cannot be changed. Since scarcity increases the demand, Bitcoin's price should be more valuable day by day.

Now, If devs make any changes to its supply, I don't see any reason why people still should trust Bitcoin. A lot of us invested in it knowing the max supply cannot be changed. If they could change it to some bigger numbers, and there are more coins in circulation, my Bitcoin will lose value due to oversupply. Bitcoin will become like other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum.

[komisariatku]

I think many people would oppose if the 21 million bitcoin limit was removed because one of the things that keeps the price of bitcoin going up is the scarcity of bitcoin. If the bitcoin limit is changed, for example, to 100 million, I am sure the price of bitcoin will fall and perhaps people's trust in bitcoin will drop drastically because bitcoin is no different from fiat which can be controlled for the interests of certain groups

Apart from that, more bitcoin does not make someone richer because the price of bitcoin will definitely fall and will not be like the current price. Moreover, if people's trust in Bitcoin is lost, Bitcoin's glory will collapse and it will no longer have high value.

[ABCbits]

That CT article would be accurate if word "Bitcoin devs" replaced with "anyone".

I'm sure this comes as a huge relief for all of you guys.

Not really, anyone who somewhat familiar with Bitcoin technical detail would just say it's something obvious.

Sometimes I feel like cointelegraph articles are written by artificial intelligence.

Actually it's one of less worse CT articles i've read. My only major complaint is they treat Bitcoin Core source code as source of truth when it's supposed to be reference implementation.

[JollyGood]

If people did think about it in the manner you describe, then I think they are setting themselves for a huge fall. One of the things Bitcoin is synonymous with, is the fact it will have a limited 21 million supply. Without a maximum supply it will be less appealing to investors. Look at Dogecoin for example, it has an unlimited supply but do we want Bitcoin to go the same way?

The more people write about how the 21 million limit can be changed, the more its going to get into peoples' heads that maybe it should be changed. That way they could own more bitcoin and get richer. That's how they would think about it.

[DeathAngel]

It will never happen because miners simply would not cooperate. If in some extremely likely event this was to happen then Bitcoin is dead. Thankfully it will not happen.

[Blitzboy]

The Bitcoin ecosystem is resilient, in my opinion. The source code can be changed, but miners and the community have the true power. This decentralized decision-making mechanism underpins Bitcoin's integrity. I believe the Bitcoin community would fight any attempts to dilute its primary value offer. Not only code, but collective trust and belief.

Dont forget these talks' educational value. Bitcoin's fundamentals are better understood every time this question comes up due to considerable debate and study. Bitcoin's long-term health and adoption depend on this. These debates allow the community to reaffirm its commitment to the values that have made Bitcoin a financial revolution.

[MusaMohamed]

Bitcoin developers can theoretically remove the 21-million-Bitcoin supply limit from the source code, but miners are unlikely to accept such a change, according to one analyst.

Bitcoin has its value because of limited total supply, caps at 21 millions.

The Bitcoin developers don't need to remove it and make a bigger total supply. Bitcoin community have no need to increase it because it will cause inflation and price will decrease. With increasing total supply from 21 millions to 42 millions, price will decrease like 50%. People will no longer believe in Bitcoin when it happens, as if it can be doubled from 21M to 42M, in future it will be able to double more to 84M. No cap at all and we already see how the US. dollar and many fiat currencies lose their purchasing power with inflation.

How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?
Purchasing Power of the U.S. Dollar Over Time

[Smack That Ace]

Is anyone here like me, I find it a bit strange that since the bitcoin ETFs was approved, topics and questions about bitcoin supply have been appearing more and more? There are even more proposals to change the bitcoin supply.

If the supply of bitcoin changes, it only proves that bitcoin has become centralized and the future will likely be like fiat, gradually losing value until it becomes useless. I hope developers, miners will never agree to this stupid idea.

Limited supply is not the only factor that helps bitcoin achieve its high value, but it is an important factor as well as what differentiates bitcoin from other centralized assets in the world. It's stupid that someone came up with the idea of changing the supply and spreading it in the past few days.

[Kelward]

Is anyone here like me, I find it a bit strange that since the bitcoin ETFs was approved, topics and questions about bitcoin supply have been appearing more and more? There are even more proposals to change the bitcoin supply.

You're not the only one in question about the sudden interest in topics everywhere in the crypto space about Bitcoin surpassing it's 21 million supply, especially after the ETF approval. This theory might be to test the waters to see people's reaction about the possibilities of Bitcoin surpassing the 21 million. I don't think that it'll be a good development for Bitcoin investment if this were to happen, because this is one of the researched reason why many people invested in it, knowing that the limit will always create scarcity in the future which will make it to continue to retain it's value and relevance. I hope that the propaganda remains in theoretical level and it'll not be practical now or in the future.

[dzungmobile]

Is anyone here like me, I find it a bit strange that since the bitcoin ETFs was approved, topics and questions about bitcoin supply have been appearing more and more? There are even more proposals to change the bitcoin supply.

Bitcoin Spot ETFs need to buy many bitcoins but I believe they know that increasing the total supply is not good for them and for all. The value of Bitcoin is from its total supply and of course other factors but it's undeniable that with only 21M bitcoins in total supply, it helps Bitcoin and Bitcoin Spot ETFs are unique. The only Spot ETF type with limited supply.

Bitcoin Spot ETF Tracker. Investors in Grayscale exits but other investors are participating in and we will have more new investors, more new big capital to join this market.

https://www.coinglass.com/pro/gray/Grayscale

[Helena Yu]

It will end up in this list https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/forks

If someone really think they can change the protocol, they should try by themselves to make pull request and let's see what the response they will get from the developers.

However, we need to give credit to @Kakmakr because cointelegraph is quoting his post.

[retreat]

Changing the "21 million supply" code from the Bitcoin source code is a very big change from Bitcoin and it not only requires approval from the miners, but also from the community which has always appreciated the 21 million Bitcoin supply as an advantage of Bitcoin and that makes it different compared to fiat whose supply can be increased at will.
I think that if one of the parties submitted a request to change this supply, most people in the community would not agree to it because it would be the same as changing the basis of Bitcoin and disrupting Satoshi's vision where he said that the supply of Bitcoin would remain at 21 million and it will not increase forever and it is appropriate for us to throw away this desire because it will only erase Bitcoin's credibility.

[bobbybkk]

I have a stupid question:

With all the new ETF Funds coming on the market, what happens if the funds buy all the existing 21 million bitcoins, in hope of future price increases ?

If no fund is selling bitcoins and no new bitcoins are created,there is no market,  that could lead to a major sell off, because nobody wants to be the last seller with the lowest price...

So will be interesting to see how the ETF Approval will play out finallly....