How do we know there are actually only 21M BTC?

[RoseAPT]

Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.

But with more banks, institutions, and CEXs trying to custody the BTC and creating ETFs, options, and perhaps other derivatives in the future, how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?

I have a feeling the mass adopters will ultimately trust big banks to custody their BTC for them especially if some yield bearing instruments become popular. I fear the banks may engage in shady behavior to manipulate prices further.

Thoughts?

I only became aware of what synthetic shares are by studying how GME investors have explained how the stock markets actually work. This is all related to BTC in the sense that I'm trying to see how to play $GME as it transitions to MSTR 2.0, but the synthetic shares for GME is interesting....wondering if this is possible for BTC and IBIT etc.

[DaveF]

So, what you are asking is not that will there be more then 21M "real" BTC but how would we know if bank A says they have 1M BTC and bank B says they have 1MBTC and so on other then a complete audit of everything they have how can we know that they really have it?

If that is what you are looking for then the answer is well...we will not without them providing a full audit.

Financial institutions are supposed to be audited by professionals who have their work supervised and checked by others. But, as we saw in 2008 and 2001 and all through the 1980s and early 1990s and probably before that people lie.

That is what is great about BTC You can hold your own.

Not your keys....not your coins....

-Dave

[OcTradism]

Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.

It is less than 21M bitcoin.

How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?
Bitcoin controlled supply.

It is 20999999.9769 BTC.

But with more banks, institutions, and CEXs trying to custody the BTC and creating ETFs, options, and perhaps other derivatives in the future, how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?

Those shares are not bitcoins and people should not buy such shares because it's not bitcoin, and they don't have private keys or mnemonic seeds.

If investors want bitcoin, they need to buy bitcoin, and avoid shares. They can trust capital management of Bitcoin Spot ETFs but trust sometimes will be punished by scammers.

Nobody is able to change the Bitcoin protocol to have more than 21M bitcoin. It's possible but nobody actually want to have more than 21M bitcoins then price of each bitcoin drops considerably.

Can Bitcoin's Hard Cap of 21 Million Be Changed?

[FatFork]

Thoughts?

The very essence of Bitcoin lies in its existence and immutability on the blockchain. Therefore, any digital asset or record that is not recorded and secured on the Bitcoin blockchain cannot, by definition, be considered true Bitcoin.

[qwertyup23]

<..snip..>
Can Bitcoin's Hard Cap of 21 Million Be Changed?

Thank you very much for sharing your insight and this article! This really was informative and explained on how the supply of BTC cannot be changed; nor its transactions be modified due to the presence of miners who correct and check if everything is in order.

In contrast, corporations who issue shares of stocks can be increased/decreased depending on the agreement of the board of directors (which has of course the vote of 2/3 of the stockholders representing the outstanding capital stock). This is the very reason on why stocks and cryptocurrencies (specifically BTC) are different from one another. The dynamic and fundamental element of BTC in which Satoshi imagined, is just truly outstanding in terms of combating inflation, etc.

I hope that more topics like these be shared under this board. Topics like these are really informative since it also scratches the itch in some of questions that I really ponder but never really got the confidence in asking the forum.

[Cricktor]

While it may sound like nitpicking, your title should rather say something like "How do we know there will actually be only (slightly less than) 21M Bitcoin".

Currently ~19,843,907.181BTC (94.49% of total supply) have been emitted so far, see stats e.g. at https://bitcoinexplorer.org/. The last five percent will take decades as long as the Bitcoin protocol isn't changed and such a change accepted by a majority of users, unlikely to happen.

The amount that actually and provably can circulate is even lower and adds to the scarcity of Bitcoin. I can't predict the future but I assume that the finite emission amount won't ever be changed as it is one of the key pillars of Bitcoin.

[YOSHIE]

Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.

Maybe you can believe in the value of Bitcoin, you can make calculations from the beginning Bitcoin is released and circulated in the market and until now and you can take examples of several other types of crypto, such as ETH and BNB, Bitcoin values ​​from the year To the year continues to develop starting from the price of a few dollars can be $ 100K, isn't that indicating the more rare more expensive, do you understand what I say.

Logic if Bitcoin is created exceeding 21 million coins, of course I think the price will not reach $ 100K, this indicates that Bitcoin in the creation is limited to only 21 million coins, of course with a limited supply can make the price of Bitcoin more stomach, as we see it today, are you sureIn that case.

But we understand that there is no official statement from Satoshi in detail Bitcoin is unlimited supply, he said that Bitcoin is only 21 million pieces, I think from Satoshi's statement and if you see the development of Bitcoin prices at this time it makes sense to be believed to be believed.

[Article4tip]

Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.

But with more banks, institutions, and CEXs trying to custody the BTC and creating ETFs, options, and perhaps other derivatives in the future, how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?

Those shares are not bitcoins and people should not buy such shares because it's not bitcoin, and they don't have private keys or mnemonic seeds.

If investors want bitcoin, they need to buy bitcoin, and avoid shares. They can trust capital management of Bitcoin Spot ETFs but trust sometimes will be punished by scammers.

Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.

But with more banks, institutions, and CEXs trying to custody the BTC and creating ETFs, options, and perhaps other derivatives in the future, how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?

Those shares are not bitcoins and people should not buy such shares because it's not bitcoin, and they don't have private keys or mnemonic seeds.

If investors want bitcoin, they need to buy bitcoin, and avoid shares. They can trust capital management of Bitcoin Spot ETFs but trust sometimes will be punished by scammers.

Nobody is able to change the Bitcoin protocol to have more than 21M bitcoin. It's possible but nobody actually want to have more than 21M bitcoins then price of each bitcoin drops considerably.

You can't tell people they shouldn't buy BTC ETFs because not everyone is interested in self custody. Not everyone is interested in self-custody because to some, that's the quickest way to lose their coins. Image telling a millionaire to start learning how to keep their coins safe though all his business life, he had had to depend on banks and other entities to secure his money. That's the essence of the ETF.

For the OP, there is no way anyone could be sure there are not more ETF Bitcoin floating around than the operators claim. Afterall, giants like Enron lied to their investors for decades. Banks and other operators sometimes cook their books to impress their shareholders.

[RoseAPT]

It's an interesting question, and you’re definitely tapping into some complex dynamics between Bitcoin’s true supply and the synthetic representations of it.

The concern you're raising — about synthetic shares of BTC flooding the market — is valid. While Bitcoin itself is limited to 21 million coins, derivative products like ETFs, futures, and options could potentially create the illusion of more BTC in circulation than there actually is. In a way, this could mimic the kind of “synthetic” asset scenario you mentioned with GME.

So, while there’s a risk that synthetic BTC could flood the market, it all boils down to how much regulation is in place and how decentralized the custody and trading of BTC remain. The system might evolve toward more institutional control, but whether that becomes problematic for Bitcoin’s value and security is something that will play out over time.

As for how this compares to GME, it’s definitely an interesting parallel. The key difference is that Bitcoin has a finite supply baked into the code, whereas the financial products built on top of Bitcoin (like ETFs) can be manipulated, much like stocks. It’s something to watch closely as Bitcoin continues to gain institutional traction.

What are your thoughts on how that might play out? Do you think Bitcoin will retain its decentralized nature, or is it heading toward a more traditional financial system?

It's a very interesting scenario. Of course, the underlying asset (BTC) will continue to be decentralized. But if it continues to be "wrapped" in tradfi products, the "decentralized" integrity gets diluted in these products...especially if synthetic shares of BTC continue to get traded in large volumes and only get settled onto the blockchain periodically.

I don't think this is the perfect analogy, but it might be similar to the problem that ETH has been experience with its L2 counterparts eating away from ETH's gas fees and revenues. There may be a scenario where large tradfi institutions are making tons of fees from volume trades of BTC derivatives that never hit the blockchain, and they simply use BTC as a settlement layer occasionally for 10Q/10K filings. That's alot of time between audits to do some price manipulation.

Again, I'm not an experienced equities trader either and I won't pretend to even understand how Market Makers and clearing houses manipulate stocks using synthetic shares and naked short selling....but whatever they are doing to equities (and particularly what they did to GME) might be used in BTC in the long run.

And this is where I think the concept of limited supply of BTC might be irrelevant when it will be part of the tradfi system. Unless people actually self custody their BTC, just like people DRS-ing their stock (which literally no one does except hardcore GME investors), this might allow tradfi to essentially create an infinite number of BTC derivatives essentially making BTC an "infinite supply" commodity

[MeGold666]

..Image telling a millionaire to start learning how to keep their coins safe though all his business life, he had had to depend on banks and other entities to secure his money. That's the essence of the ETF.

ETFs are worthless junk.

You need to spend about 15 minutes to know how to stay safe.

15 minutes if you read, 15 hours if you watch retarded YouTube videos explaining it.

/Over&Out.

[kotajikikox]

Sorry for clickbaity title, obviously there will only be 21M BTC.

But with more banks, institutions, and CEXs trying to custody the BTC and creating ETFs, options, and perhaps other derivatives in the future, how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?

The amount of bitcoins we can buy is a fixed amount. If other platforms decide to sell "bitcoins" but it is not actually backed by bitcoin, is that what your question is? Well thankfully you can see transactions in the blockchain, right? You should always try to check for this. Even then I do not think you should be buying bitcoins from ETFs or other institutions.

[Cryptohygenic]

The invented 21 bitcoins can not exceed more than the number but if it does, with an analytical arithmetics of how many bitcoin being mined and the current prices of bitcoin and the total supplies can tell how many is the totality of existing bitcoins.
For price manipulations, that is common as it already happening where politics and economy wavery has been a high effect to the bitcoin market.

[stwenhao]

how can we be sure there won't be an "infinite" supply of these synthetic "shares" of BTC?

We can be sure, that they won't be limited, unless we can see some strong cryptographic proofs (for example similar to what we have in LN, where you can locate coins in channels, and find them on-chain). And today, this is not the case, when it comes to many centralized exchanges.

Also note, that the whole game is about proportions: even with finite amount, there are many things, which can be done. For example: instead of changing the limit from 21 to 42 millions, you can steal half of the coins from everyone. Then, 21 million coins limit can be unaffected, but the end result will be equivalent. And any kind of "tail supply" can be implemented, without touching 21 million coins limit, if you instead introduce some rules, which will grab single satoshis from users, and redirect them somewhere else (for example to the miners).

[Catenaccio]

ETFs are worthless junk.

You need to spend about 15 minutes to know how to stay safe.

15 minutes if you read, 15 hours if you watch retarded YouTube videos explaining it.

/Over&Out.

It's simply as Not your keys, not your coins. Shares from Bitcoin Spot ETFs are unsafe, because investors don't have any private key and they totally depend on Bitcoin Spot ETFs and their custodians for securing private keys. It's double risk as most Bitcoin Spot ETFs are not self-custodians but use other third party companies with a role of custodians.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs: Everything You Need to Know. It does not say everything but you can get something by reading this

More broadly, spot Bitcoin ETFs can help create additional opportunities for institutional and retail investors to speculate on Bitcoin without the technical challenges of managing a cryptocurrency wallet or the security concerns of safeguarding private keys.

They write it not to tell people about risk but if you understand the saying "Not your keys, not your coins", you will smell big risk there.

[OcTradism]

While it may sound like nitpicking, your title should rather say something like "How do we know there will actually be only (slightly less than) 21M Bitcoin".

If people wanted to change it, could do it, they would have done it many years ago, and don't wait till this market cycle after Bitcoin crossed $100,000 to initiate this crazy but impossible action.

The question was answered by Bitcoin history and failed attempts to do this.

Currently ~19,843,907.181BTC (94.49% of total supply) have been emitted so far, see stats e.g. at https://bitcoinexplorer.org/.

You can check more general figures with https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply with the Reward era and End BTC % of Limit.

You can get some insights with a reversed display of Bitcoin controlled supply, presented as Bitcoin Equivalent Network Time.

[Ucy]

Bitcoin price has become entirely resistant to manipulation. You can be sure they can't just manipulate it whether by selling the so called synthetic bitcoins, by speculating, creating positive/negative news or by dumping/pumping huge amount of bitcoins for no true or fundamental cause.

Ofcourse, they could use the custodial platforms to sell synthetics or fakes that aren't backed by real bitcoins to ignorant people or people who don't care much about Bitcoin ideals. But those who are attracted to the ideals will always have upper hands and continue to create the right effects... They will have more control over the price of Bitcoin. And in the end the price will be determined mostly by fundamentals that are connected to Bitcoin ideals, coupled with how influential the sources of the fundamentals are.

[Smartprofit]

Of course, thanks to cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitcoin spot ETFs, services that provide "wrapped Bitcoin" services - there are now a lot of Bitcoin coins in the world (well over 21,000,000 pieces).

This is a very well-known scam from the world of traditional finance and I would be very surprised if modern cryptocurrency companies did not use this trick in relation to Bitcoin. Previously, a similar scam was done with gold - there is also much more "paper" gold in the world than real. Real Bitcoin is only the Bitcoin that you have in a cold wallet, which you fully control, owning the private keys (seed).

Everything else is just obligations of various cryptocurrency companies and services.

And if all the clients of these companies and services demand the fulfillment of these obligations, then not all clients will be able to get real Bitcoin.

[notocactus]

Of course, thanks to cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitcoin spot ETFs, services that provide "wrapped Bitcoin" services - there are now a lot of Bitcoin coins in the world (well over 21,000,000 pieces).

Wrapped Bitcoin are tokens.

Bitcoin Spot ETFs don't provide any Wrapped Bitcoin tokens to their customers but they print shares and provide shares to customers. Bitcoin Spot ETF shares are different with Wrapped Bitcoin tokens.

[Smartprofit]

Of course, thanks to cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitcoin spot ETFs, services that provide "wrapped Bitcoin" services - there are now a lot of Bitcoin coins in the world (well over 21,000,000 pieces).

Wrapped Bitcoin are tokens.

Bitcoin Spot ETFs don't provide any Wrapped Bitcoin tokens to their customers but they print shares and provide shares to customers. Bitcoin Spot ETF shares are different with Wrapped Bitcoin tokens.

Yes, I know that.

There are many different organizations and services that take real bitcoins from their clients and give them obligations to return them on demand. And they do not always plan to fulfill these obligations. And even if they initially planned to fulfill them, their intentions may change later.

As for spot ETFs, as far as I understand, they do not transfer shares to their clients, but units. But this is not a fundamental issue.

The main thing to understand is that the obligations of cryptocurrency organizations and services are just obligations, and not real bitcoins.

[DPHOR]

Anything is possible in the space and when there seem to be lack of bitcoin or they could mint more btc but however, how would mint and if that is easy as it we may thought of it people could had gone behind the bar to make sure they mint their own mint bitcoin. And for sure, the supply is 21M but can't fetch out how they hold the bitcoin in their possessions, and some bitcoin could have burnt by those who are holding it through either fire outbreak, flood or hurricane which could caused destruction of building, lives and properties would be misplace.