Changing the 21 million bitcoin limit

[Anders]

I have zero interest in an open ended production system. These would be worthless to me. It is precisely the scarcity of bitcoin that keeps the price high. As far as the "fairness" of bitcoin, it is totally fair to reward hard work and risk. If you were willing to take on the high risk of buying bitcoins in 2012 then you saw huge gains in profit. If you waited until today to see that it is working and that there is much less risk, you will see less upside. That is the way it works.
I have seen the fairness argument for years now. I remember when BTC reached $1. The forum filled up with talk of how unfair it is that some people made a bunch of money because they bought at $.50.  

I think it's perfectly fine that those who have invested in bitcoins can make huge gains. That's a part of the game. It's when bitcoin is meant to become mainstream that it will become a problem. I don't think bitcoin can become mainstream because of the massive increase in value that it would result in.

[RodeoX]

I have zero interest in an open ended production system. These would be worthless to me. It is precisely the scarcity of bitcoin that keeps the price high. As far as the "fairness" of bitcoin, it is totally fair to reward hard work and risk. If you were willing to take on the high risk of buying bitcoins in 2012 then you saw huge gains in profit. If you waited until today to see that it is working and that there is much less risk, you will see less upside. That is the way it works.
I have seen the fairness argument for years now. I remember when BTC reached $1. The forum filled up with talk of how unfair it is that some people made a bunch of money because they bought at $.50.  

I think it's perfectly fine that those who have invested in bitcoins can make huge gains. That's a part of the game. It's when bitcoin is meant to become mainstream that it will become a problem. I don't think bitcoin can become mainstream because of the massive increase in value that it would result in.

The constant change in price is very different than other money and can be confusing. I try thinking of BTC like a big pie. A few years ago if you had said "Cut me a $5 slice of pie please", you would have received a nice juicy slice.  Today you would only have a thin line of crumbs. But so what. You still have $5 in pie and can buy a $5 toy or whatever. The size of the slice is completely irrelevant. For example, we could just start counting Satoshis instead of bitcoins. That would make the current rate something like $0.0000058 ; far less than one penny a piece. Would that make it seem affordable?

This is a lot like how the gold market works. If there is an increase in demand, then the price goes up because you can't just make more gold. At that point people start trading in grams of gold instead of ounces. It is also why hotdogs make a terrible currency. As more people make hotdogs to spend the price of hotdogs would drop lower and lower, destroying any value you are trying to store.

The mainstream are just going to have to re-learn money. The debt-based fiat dollars that the banks issue now have lost some 96% of their value and are on seriously shaky ground. I want money that can't be tampered with by anyone. Money that is influenced only by supply and demand.  Money that anyone, rich or poor, can use. 

[Anders]

I have zero interest in an open ended production system. These would be worthless to me. It is precisely the scarcity of bitcoin that keeps the price high. As far as the "fairness" of bitcoin, it is totally fair to reward hard work and risk. If you were willing to take on the high risk of buying bitcoins in 2012 then you saw huge gains in profit. If you waited until today to see that it is working and that there is much less risk, you will see less upside. That is the way it works.
I have seen the fairness argument for years now. I remember when BTC reached $1. The forum filled up with talk of how unfair it is that some people made a bunch of money because they bought at $.50.  

I think it's perfectly fine that those who have invested in bitcoins can make huge gains. That's a part of the game. It's when bitcoin is meant to become mainstream that it will become a problem. I don't think bitcoin can become mainstream because of the massive increase in value that it would result in.

The constant change in price is very different than other money and can be confusing. I try thinking of BTC like a big pie. A few years ago if you had said "Cut me a $5 slice of pie please", you would have received a nice juicy slice.  Today you would only have a thin line of crumbs. But so what. You still have $5 in pie and can buy a $5 toy or whatever. The size of the slice is completely irrelevant. For example, we could just start counting Satoshis instead of bitcoins. That would make the current rate something like $0.0000058 ; far less than one penny a piece. Would that make it seem affordable?

This is a lot like how the gold market works. If there is an increase in demand, then the price goes up because you can't just make more gold. At that point people start trading in grams of gold instead of ounces. It is also why hotdogs make a terrible currency. As more people make hotdogs to spend the price of hotdogs would drop lower and lower, destroying any value you are trying to store.

The mainstream are just going to have to re-learn money. The debt-based fiat dollars that the banks issue now have lost some 96% of their value and are on seriously shaky ground. I want money that can't be tampered with by anyone. Money that is influenced only by supply and demand.  Money that anyone, rich or poor, can use. 

Ok, having bitcoin deflationary may work for mainstream use, but I still think many people will think it's unfair that they have to buy bitcoins when they become very expensive. The constant increase of bitcoins as I propose will make the pie bigger forever, yes, but the increase will be less and less percentage-wise since the overall number of bitcoins would grow. So the inflation would become limited that way. Actually I learned that Dogecoin works like my proposal. And the Dogecoin chart shows a decrease of price but it may be flattening out! I will check the Dogecoin chart again later to see how the price develops.

[TwinWinNerD]

Ok, having bitcoin deflationary may work for mainstream use, but I still think many people will think it's unfair that they have to buy bitcoins when they become very expensive. The constant increase of bitcoins as I propose will make the pie bigger forever, yes, but the increase will be less and less percentage-wise since the overall number of bitcoins would grow. So the inflation would become limited that way. Actually I learned that Dogecoin works like my proposal. And the Dogecoin chart shows a decrease of price but it may be flattening out! I will check the Dogecoin chart again later to see how the price develops.

Where did you get the vibe that bitcoin tries to solve "unfairness" in the world. Is there anything fair in the world? Is Fiat fair?

Tell me one good reason, why a crypto has to be fair to succeed!

[Anders]

Ok, having bitcoin deflationary may work for mainstream use, but I still think many people will think it's unfair that they have to buy bitcoins when they become very expensive. The constant increase of bitcoins as I propose will make the pie bigger forever, yes, but the increase will be less and less percentage-wise since the overall number of bitcoins would grow. So the inflation would become limited that way. Actually I learned that Dogecoin works like my proposal. And the Dogecoin chart shows a decrease of price but it may be flattening out! I will check the Dogecoin chart again later to see how the price develops.

Where did you get the vibe that bitcoin tries to solve "unfairness" in the world. Is there anything fair in the world? Is Fiat fair?

Tell me one good reason, why a crypto has to be fair to succeed!

The cryptocurrency has to be fair for the general public to accept it as a general currency. Today bitcoin is economically mainly an investment tool for a few people. Dogecoin may overtake bitcoin as the most popular currency for practical shopping use etc.

[inBitweTrust]

The cryptocurrency has to be fair for the general public to accept it as a general currency. Today bitcoin is economically mainly an investment tool for a few people. Dogecoin may overtake bitcoin as the most popular currency for practical shopping use etc.

You keep saying this is a merely a thought experiment but it is not. Inflationary currencies have been around forever and exist today. If you prefer inflation than by all means switch to Stellar or Dogecoin.... There are thousands of inflationary currencies that exist to choose from... can we just have one slightly deflationary one to use without people demanding that it conform to their inflationary wishes?

Good luck with your currency that is constantly dropping in value-

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dogecoin/#charts

Doge has been in constant free-fall since last April and just lost another 5% this week.

[RodeoX]

This may be a spoiler alert, but dog-coin, or whatever it's called, is not going anywhere. Like a lot of alt coins, it fails because it solves a problem that does not exist. Sure it's inflationary, that is why it is steadily going down in value. Why would I want that?

[TwinWinNerD]

Also I think OP didn't think about the most important part: Integrity.

What would happen to the trust into bitcoin, if one of the most basic part of the promise is broken?

[TwinWinNerD]

Please, fork the code and let this inflatacoin compete with Bitcoin. People have been discussing this for years but no one has actually done it!

I would love to sell off all of my newly forked inflatacoins and then use the proceeds to purchase more actual bitcoins!

There is a reason for that! Most people wanting inflatory Bitcoins have nearly no bitcoin holdings. So making a fork would yield them no reward, so they don't do it.

Big Bitcoin holders wouldn't want such a thing anyway, also they don't want to hurt bitcoin by maybe confusing some newbies.

(On a sidenote: Spin-offs will happen in the future, there is a big thread about it!)

[bigasic]

And if one day we need to have more units we could have more decimals.
Experts say that changing the protocol to have more decimals would be relatively easy and wouldn't even require a hard fork.

I think that adding more decimals is more of a question than adding or subtracting the amount of coins, lets say the bitcoin hit a million dollars a coin, then for sure there would be a need to add more decimals, unless a dollar then equals just pennies today. I think adding more decimals is something that will probably need to be done. (probably not in our lifetimes)

[Anders]

The cryptocurrency has to be fair for the general public to accept it as a general currency. Today bitcoin is economically mainly an investment tool for a few people. Dogecoin may overtake bitcoin as the most popular currency for practical shopping use etc.

You keep saying this is a merely a thought experiment but it is not. Inflationary currencies have been around forever and exist today. If you prefer inflation than by all means switch to Stellar or Dogecoin.... There are thousands of inflationary currencies that exist to choose from... can we just have one slightly deflationary one to use without people demanding that it conform to their inflationary wishes?

Good luck with your currency that is constantly dropping in value-

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dogecoin/#charts

Doge has been in constant free-fall since last April and just lost another 5% this week.

I have to correct what I wrote about Dogecoin. It's not until 2015 it will go into a fixed coin rate:

"Dogecoin has a fast initial coin production schedule: there will be approximately 100 billion coins in circulation by the end of 2014 with an additional 5.2 billion coins every year thereafter." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogecoin

So it's in 2015 it will be interesting to see how the price of Dogecoin changes.

[TwinWinNerD]

And if one day we need to have more units we could have more decimals.
Experts say that changing the protocol to have more decimals would be relatively easy and wouldn't even require a hard fork.

I think that adding more decimals is more of a question than adding or subtracting the amount of coins, lets say the bitcoin hit a million dollars a coin, then for sure there would be a need to add more decimals, unless a dollar then equals just pennies today. I think adding more decimals is something that will probably need to be done. (probably not in our lifetimes)

Actually, lets assume 1 satoshis is the smallest unit, then given our legacy notation of 2 digits, 100 satoshis will be "1" basic unit. We would basically only need to increase digits if 1 smallest unit was way worth more than 1 cent.

100 satoshis = 1$
21000000 BTC = 21.000.000.000.000 market cap = 21 trillions.

So I'd say if this Bitcoin thing is no fad, then 21 trillions should be well in the range of the possibilities. So new digits in our lifetime , yay!

[Buffer Overflow]

Is this just another sad disguised Doge pump thread?

[TwinWinNerD]

Is this just another sad disguised Doge pump thread?

Nah, look at OPs posting history. He is spamming the forum with hidden "anti"-bitcoin crap for days. I think it is due to "fear-of-missing-out" FOMO!

[bigasic]

The op has been a member here since 2011, I don't know how you could be here and not hold at least a few coins.

[TwinWinNerD]

The op has been a member here since 2011, I don't know how you could be here and not hold at least a few coins.

I can tell you why!

Let me present you his FIRST post in this forum, in May 2011:

Hi,

I learned about Bitcoin today. Absolutely fascinating concept. One thing I thought could potentially be a problem though is if many people will start to hoard bitcoins for investment purposes. Since the bitcoins already are a scarce resource, a lot of hoarding will make them even more scarce. This will make the bitcoin value increase. Large investors can collect a huge number of bitcoins, wait a while until the value goes up, and then quickly sell all their bitcoins at a high value which in turn will cause the bitcoin value to go down. Then they buy a large amount of bitcoins again at the lower value and repeat the cycle. In this way large investors, or crowdsourcing of investors can 'pump' money out of the bitcoin market.

[Anders]

Is this just another sad disguised Doge pump thread?

No, but I must admit that I installed a Dogecoin wallet. That's a topic for the altcoin section however.

[niktitan132]

It's a bad idea to change the 21 million bitcoin limit.

[jonald_fyookball]

I have to say that that guy is completely insane.

So that's why Google recruited Ray Kurzweil as a Director of Engineering?

Ray Kurzweil has some brilliant ideas. 
He also has some foolish ones like "immortality" and "spiritual machines".

Anyway, I don't see a single benefit to changing the 21 million BTC limit.

[justusranvier]

Why is this troll thread already 6 pages long?