Topic: BitCoin: is it really finite? - page 2. (Read 425 times)

First of all, while 21M litres of water you can also split into very very small droplets (of water), it's still 21m litres.
Then, while 21M litres of water you can split into much more very small droplets, with Bitcoin you cannot do the same just like that.

Now, Bitcoin. Indeed, the 21M Bitcoin you can see as 2 100 000 000 000 000 satoshi, but that's still 21M bitcoin.
Now, the problem is that without changes deep in the code, changes which arguably will make it not be the "original bitcoin" anymore (!), we cannot go (on bitcoin blockchain) "deeper" than the satoshi unit, while with water you can go as low as the H2O molecule (much lower than the visible droplet).

Well OP wasn't arguing about what may or may not happen in the future but what is true right now (which obviously is false).
As for Lightning Network, what the second layer does is not going to change the bitcoin protocol. So bitcoin is still not divisible to any smaller units than a satoshi. Another second layer could give you 1 bitcoin for every 2 bitcoin you lock in a channel and that still wouldn't change anything about bitcoin protocol.

Welcome.

No, that makes you very wrong, because you're comparing finiteness with divisibility. If you pictured bitcoins as actual coins, there wouldn't be more than 21 million, which makes the supply limited. It doesn't matter if in the next decade we propose the Nakamotos (= 0.001 sats); Bitcoins will remain the same.

You should think about it. If gold could be caught in infinite pieces, would it make my gram infinite?

The smallest unit in bitcoin is Satoshi and if the need to add more decimals arises then we will be simply creating a smaller unit but this doesn't make the bitcoin supply infinite.
Take the lightning network as an example. It allows sending fractions of Satoshis but this does not change the total supply of bitcoins.

If we want the supply to become infinite then we should remove the block reward halving rule as it's it what ensures we can't mine more than 21 million btc.

You're making a fundamental mistake: Bitcoin is based on math, while your comparison reminds me of ancient philosophy:

Or just look at the graph:

Obviously it won't ever cross (or even reach) 21 million.

I think this is the wrong argument to make here. Even if it would require a hard fork, such a hard fork is not impossible. If in 100 years bitcoin is being used around the world and is worth $10 million per coin, then we can't have the scenario of the smallest spendable amount being ~$20, and so a hard fork to add more decimals may well take place. Further, Lightning network already goes to 11 decimal places and milli-satoshi, so already provides a 1000x increase in divisibility over the main chain. However, neither of these things change the fact that there a finite number of bitcoin which can ever exist.

If doesn't matter how much you divide up 21 million, there will still only ever be (slightly fewer than) 21 million bitcoin. There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. That doesn't make 1 = infinity.

As for OP's water analogy, given the molecular weight of water is 18, in one liter of water there are 3.35*10²⁵ molecules. To apply the same degree of divisibility to bitcoin, the smallest unit would be somewhere around 0.00000000000000000000000001, or one milli-milli-milli-milli-milli-milli-satoshi. If that was equivalent to 1 US cent, a single bitcoin would be worth 1 trillion trillion dollars.

Finite is a supply people can achieve over a certain time period. Like gold as an example, no gold miner or any other person can predict when all gold will be mined, even if estimated, it will take millions or billions of yeras, this makes gold infinite, unlike Bitcoin that almost 19 million are mined already. The total Bitcoin supply is 21 million in which over 98% would have been mined by 2050, this makes the supply finite. What some people argue is that the Bitcoin community can agree one day to increase the supply, but this can not happen because people would even prefer if the supply is reduced which will help in Bitcoin price valuation.

No it is not. To divide the smallest unit (1 Satoshi) into smaller parts you would have to change the consensus rules using a hard fork.
In simple terms you can send 0 satoshi, you can send 1 satoshi but you can't send 0.1 or 1.1 satoshis.

By strict rules the amount field of each transaction is of a 64-bit integer type and the values it can contain is between 0 and 2100000000000000 (21 million bitcoin in satoshis). If you want to divide this to smaller values you'll have to first convince the entire bitcoin network to accept a hard fork where it changes this field into another integer type that supports smaller units and allows values outside of the mentioned range.

Not to mention that in math 1 = 1.0 = 1.00 = 1.000 = ...

P.S. It is "bitcoin" not "BitCoin".

In simple terms...

Let's imagine I have 1 BTC right now. In a few years, all 21 million BTC will be mined and I'll have 1/21,000,000 of the total BTC supply. Does that proportion change if people start saying that there are now 21,000,000,000 BTC (100x smaller unit)? Nah, I'll have 100/21,000,000,000... my share of the total BTC supply hasn't been diluted, and that's all that matters.

You're question has nothing to do with bitcoin, it's simple math.  1 is 1.  It's fixed at 1, no matter how many times you divide it, it's still 1.  1 doesn't' become worth more when you divide it, the value of the sum of it's denominations is is still 1.

It is finite.

Bitcoin's block rewards follows a geometric progression where the rewards halves every 210,000 blocks. If you were to take the sum of the geometric progression, it would be 21 million. This means that in a scenario whereby you have infinite number of blocks, the total supply cannot exceed 21 million no matter how divisible it gets. Making something more divisible doesn't change the fact that the total supply is the same. The value of each denomination is still proportionally smaller.

Hello all,

I am new to this forum, so I hope you will not take my question wrongly.

I have been discussing Bitcoin with friends and people who have some substantial amounts.

I hear the claim that Bitcoin is finite, with a total of 21 million over and over again. However, this all seems like mind games to me and the people involved are not realising that in actual fact Bitcoin is infinite (or at least it's supply is!).

Before you jump on me, please allow me to explain.

The Bitcoin TOTAL is indeed fixed at 21 million. OK, that makes it finite right? Very Wrong!

The thing is Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, it can go as small as it needs to go, you can own 0.1% or 0.0000000000001% or even less...

This means that while the TOTAL is finite, the number of denominations / fractions / divisions has no limit.

Isn't everything like that? Isn't it the TOTAL that counts? NO.... and here is where the trick lies:

Let's make a thought experiment and take 21 million Bitcoin vs 21 Million litres of Water. Are both infinitely divisible? NO!

The Bitcoin is, you simply go smaller and smaller....... but you cannot do this with water, once you reach 1 molecule of water (H20), you cannot divide it further whilst keeping it as water...... if you break up the H20 Molecule it is not water anymore.

Therefore, 21 Million litres of Water actually has a limit, both in TOTAL and in DIVISIONS and is therefore a FINITE resource.

Bitcoin on the other hand has a limit in TOTAL, but not in DIVISIONS and is therefore an INFINITE resource.

None of the people heavily involved in Bitcoin have accepted or admitted this, on the other hand people with less or no investment, especially from Scientific and economic backgrounds, have agreed with me.

What would you make of this?