What if someday Bitcoin Foundation votes to remove 21M limitation?

[Harley997]

Say, at some point big banks and hedge funds make an agreement with core developers to remove the limitation of 21M and have the foundation vote for this?
Is it possible in theory and on practice?

The core developers do not have the final say the miners do. If the miners do not accept the new protocol then it will not happen.

[designfail]

Ok, lets forget about "voting" and "bitcoin foundation" for the moment.

How about hedge funds contact core devs and tell them: "guys, in order to make this thing would-wide spread we need a controlled inflation: we need to remove "halving". Lets say for solving a block it will always be N number of coins. You guys will be rich, famous and your names will be written in history forever. From our side we guarantee at least 51% of mining power with the updated bitcoin protocol where there is no 21M limitation anymore. The garage miners could stick to the old protocol or whatever - their old bitcoins are useless".

I think this is very possible if we are talking about wide adoption of bitcoin.

[Celroc Amaul]

Say, at some point big banks and hedge funds make an agreement with core developers to remove the limitation of 21M and have the foundation vote for this?
Is it possible in theory and on practice?

The core developers do not have the final say the miners do. If the miners do not accept the new protocol then it will not happen.

I may be mistaken, but would it require the consensus of everyone who uses Bitcoin (as opposed to only those who mine) to enact such a change?  I am still fairly new to how the Bitcoin protocol is designed.

Celroc

[designfail]

I may be mistaken, but would it require the consensus of everyone who uses Bitcoin (as opposed to only those who mine) to enact such a change?  I am still fairly new to how the Bitcoin protocol is designed.

Celroc

Not everyone. If you have more than 51% of all computing power - you own blockchain

[Ron~Popeil]

Ok, lets forget about "voting" and "bitcoin foundation" for the moment.

How about hedge funds contact core devs and tell them: "guys, in order to make this thing would-wide spread we need a controlled inflation: we need to remove "halving". Lets say for solving a block it will always be N number of coins. You guys will be rich, famous and your names will be written in history forever. From our side we guarantee at least 51% of mining power with the updated bitcoin protocol where there is no 21M limitation anymore. The garage miners could stick to the old protocol or whatever - their old bitcoins are useless".

I think this is very possible if we are talking about wide adoption of bitcoin.

They will be rich and famous either way when mass adoption comes. The only realistic possibility of this kind of change might be a POS protocol to keep it around 21 million in circulation but this would be 50-60 years away at least.

[designfail]

Ok, lets forget about "voting" and "bitcoin foundation" for the moment.

How about hedge funds contact core devs and tell them: "guys, in order to make this thing would-wide spread we need a controlled inflation: we need to remove "halving". Lets say for solving a block it will always be N number of coins. You guys will be rich, famous and your names will be written in history forever. From our side we guarantee at least 51% of mining power with the updated bitcoin protocol where there is no 21M limitation anymore. The garage miners could stick to the old protocol or whatever - their old bitcoins are useless".

I think this is very possible if we are talking about wide adoption of bitcoin.

They will be rich and famous either way when mass adoption comes. The only realistic possibility of this kind of change might be a POS protocol to keep it around 21 million in circulation but this would be 50-60 years away at least.

Keeping always  N number of coins (like 21M) in circulation is possible: coins will always been lost due to lost passwords, hodler dies, etc, etc

[roslinpl]

Then the world would laugh and quietly ignore such nonsense.

But worry not, such craziness won't occur. It's not under anyone's control except consensus of the community.

Even if the core devs vote to remove the 21M limit, it still won't make it so.

You are 100% right and this should end up this discussion.

At the moment even Satoshi Nakamoto is not able to remove 21M limit:)

I think what will happen after 21M will be mined - Bitcoin2 will be released

[Ron~Popeil]

Ok, lets forget about "voting" and "bitcoin foundation" for the moment.

How about hedge funds contact core devs and tell them: "guys, in order to make this thing would-wide spread we need a controlled inflation: we need to remove "halving". Lets say for solving a block it will always be N number of coins. You guys will be rich, famous and your names will be written in history forever. From our side we guarantee at least 51% of mining power with the updated bitcoin protocol where there is no 21M limitation anymore. The garage miners could stick to the old protocol or whatever - their old bitcoins are useless".

I think this is very possible if we are talking about wide adoption of bitcoin.

They will be rich and famous either way when mass adoption comes. The only realistic possibility of this kind of change might be a POS protocol to keep it around 21 million in circulation but this would be 50-60 years away at least.

Keeping always  N number of coins (like 21M) in circulation is possible: coins will always been lost due to lost passwords, hodler dies, etc, etc

That is why I can foresee some way to keep a controlled number of new coins in existence. The currency will inevitably have coins permanently lost over the years and eventually become so rare that it isn't really fungible anymore.

[designfail]

Then the world would laugh and quietly ignore such nonsense.

But worry not, such craziness won't occur. It's not under anyone's control except consensus of the community.

Even if the core devs vote to remove the 21M limit, it still won't make it so.

You are 100% right and this should end up this discussion.

At the moment even Satoshi Nakamoto is not able to remove 21M limit:)

I think what will happen after 21M will be mined - Bitcoin2 will be released

"Satoshi Nakamoto" - is just a name. Whoever has git source code push permission has the real power.

[StevenS]

transaction fee will never be enough to compensate with the current size...

The equation is pretty simple:

revenue = Pb * Hp * (BR + Tx)
Where Pb is the price of a BTC (in fiat);
Hp is the fraction of total hash power a miner has;
BR is the block reward; and
Tx is the transaction fees in an average block.

Obviously, to stay in business, a miner must keep revenue > costs.
All of the variables in that equation can change. The most certain one is BR, and that certainty depends on the protocol not changing.

As BR decreases, some of the other variables must increase for a miner to remain in business. And they all can change:

Bitcoin price (Pb) can go up as we see in the exchanges, but for this to happen, Bitcoin adopters can't be scared away, and this proposed protocol change would scare them, in my opinion.

Percentage of hash power (Hp) can change as well, when less-profitable minors drop out. For instance, when BR is halved next, typical revenue will drop by almost half, causing about half of the minors to retire, which will keep revenue constant for the remaining minors.

Tx is not significant now, but in 100 years or so, it will become more important. At this point miners will include as many transactions (with fees) as possible in blocks. Tx depends on 2 factors: the fee per transaction and the number of transactions. The plan is that Bitcoin will be used much more in the future, and thus the number of transactions will increase.

the mining business at some point will ask for block reward that cover cost and this will be the turning point to increase supply. and since they are the concensus they will have the power to dictate it. (most miner don't keep most BTC mine, but sell to pay cost so 20% drop in price for xM coins/Year supply will be acceptable for them)

That would be counter-productive. If the BTC supply were increased, we would have inflation, which would decrease the value of the BTC. If it gets to that point, then Bitcoin is finished.

[Bit_Happy]

What if someday the Bitcoin Foundation doesn't matter and almost no one ever talks about it? 

[BurtW]

I may be mistaken, but would it require the consensus of everyone who uses Bitcoin (as opposed to only those who mine) to enact such a change?  I am still fairly new to how the Bitcoin protocol is designed.

Celroc

Not everyone. If you have more than 51% of all computing power - you own blockchain

If some percentage of miners decide to continue with the 25 BTC subsidy forever then on the block that the protocol dictates that the subsidy should drop to 12.5 BTC there will be a hard fork of the blockchain.  There will be two blockchains:  one with blocks which have the correct 12.5 BTC subsidies and the other one containing the invalid blocks with 25 BTC subsidies.

If you do not change any of the network nodes then all blocks with the wrong subsidy will be dropped - end of story.  So, even if 90% of the miners decide to continue the 25 BTC subsidy all of their blocks will be dropped unless they also convince some of the nodes to change also.

So on that block, assuming some percentage of miners and nodes (and wallets) decide to change the protocol a new alt coin is born.  It is just another in the growing number of alts.  Bitcoin will just keep chugging along and will compete with the new alt in the marketplace.

I hope that answers your questions.

More technical details can be found here if you are interested:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=352734.0

[jjdub7]

And if you owned BTC pre-fork, you'd have equal BTC and "BTC-II" after, correct?

[fancy_pants]

If a central authority were to somehow gain control over bitcoin and start debasing it,  then bitcoin users will exit to the next currency that can't be debased.  Other currencies like ripple, chuckie cheese tickets, and the dollar are older than bitcoin, so one could argue this exodus has already happened.

[Soros Shorts]

"Satoshi Nakamoto" - is just a name. Whoever has git source code push permission has the real power.

Someone could easily set up an alternate repository and build system if the need ever arises.

[mubashir]

then i will start my own coin with same name as bitcoin x with parallel blockchain spliting at disputed point by limiting them 21M.

[BurtW]

And if you owned BTC pre-fork, you'd have equal BTC and "BTC-II" after, correct?

At the time of the hard fork we end up with two separate networks building two separate blockchains and the common blockchain history shared by and accepted by both of the networks.  

Let's call the network and blockchain that changed the protocol the A (for alt) network and blockchain.  Let's call the network and blockchain that did not change the protocol the B (for Bitcoin) network and blockchain.  The common history blockchain will be called the C (for common) blockchain.  After the split there will be three classes of coins:

BCTC coins that exist in the common history C blockchain and are accepted as valid by both the A and B networks
BTCA coins that exist only in the A blockchain and are only accepted as valid on the A network
BCTB coins that exist only in the B blockchain and are only accpeted as valid on the B network

If you own coins before the split, coins that were created and exist in the common blockchain history, coins that are accepted as valid by both the A and B networks then these coins can be spent on both networks.

As you spend your BTCC coins they become BTCA coins when spent on the A network and BTCB coins when spent on the B network.

If you hold your BTCC coins then you can spend them on both networks at any time.

Here is what I and many others would do:

1) Keep hoarding (saving), buying, collecting, using, my BTCB (real Bitcions) as I did before the split.
2) Wait until the A network builds up and the BTCA (new inflato alt) coins become worth something.
3) Dump all my BTCA coins and use the profit to buy more BTCB coins, leaving some poor sucker holding the soon to be worthless BTCA coins.

[Nerazzura]

Then the world would laugh and quietly ignore such nonsense.

But worry not, such craziness won't occur. It's not under anyone's control except consensus of the community.

Even if the core devs vote to remove the 21M limit, it still won't make it so.

hopefully it will not happen, but if what happened was bad possibilities that will arise.

[ajareselde]

Then the world would laugh and quietly ignore such nonsense.

But worry not, such craziness won't occur. It's not under anyone's control except consensus of the community.

Even if the core devs vote to remove the 21M limit, it still won't make it so.

hopefully it will not happen, but if what happened was bad possibilities that will arise.

Bitcoin Foundation would never do such a disruptive thing.
Anyways, you would need to fork bitcoin, and you cant do that without atleast 51% hashrate, therefore bitcoin foundation alone cant do any major things without comunity backing that up.

cheers

[BurtW]

Then the world would laugh and quietly ignore such nonsense.

But worry not, such craziness won't occur. It's not under anyone's control except consensus of the community.

Even if the core devs vote to remove the 21M limit, it still won't make it so.

hopefully it will not happen, but if what happened was bad possibilities that will arise.

Bitcoin Foundation would never do such a disruptive thing.
Anyways, you would need to fork bitcoin, and you cant do that without atleast 51% hashrate, therefore bitcoin foundation alone cant do any major things without comunity backing that up.

cheers

A hard fork can be done with any amount of hashing.  You don't need 51%.  You are confused.