Speaking in Davos on Wednesday, JPMorgan CEO and also a well-known bitcoin critic Jamie Dimon made a suggestion that Satoshi Nakamoto might lift the limit on the number of bitcoins, which as we know is 21 million BTC. How would you comment on such a statement?
Referring to the limited supply of Bitcoin, which is to mirror the properties of gold, Dimon said he doubted the finality of the 21 million Bitcoin supply maximum, saying: "I think there's a good chance, when we get to that 20 million bitcoins...Satashi [sic] is going to come on there, laugh hysterically, go quiet, and all Bitcoins [are] going to be erased. How the hell [do] you know it’s going to stop at 21?"
No he can't. The thing that people mistake bitcoin for is that they assume it could be altered by its main developers or Satoshi Nakamoto himself, But that wouldn't happen and that couldn't happen because of its immutable technology.
People have tried to argue otherwise in the past to no avail, plus the community almost always agree to never touch anything within bitcoin's code or system which is why we're still dealing with the aftermath of the blocksize wars to this day. It's just going to be the case till the end of bitcoin's existence and no one will be able to change the 21 million supply, or anything that is related to bitcoin for that matter. If you want to change bitcoin you're going to have to issue a hard fork that will create another form of bitcoin with your own sets of bells and whistles. But bitcoin classic will remain the same as it is and you can't change that.
I do have one concern that pertains to this very subject. What happens when the miners begin to mine in the .00344 range or .000022 range? I would try to considered the fact that the average person has trouble counting into the hundreds let alone the thousands and the numbers in the future will feel backwards to the average person. This isn't going to make BTC obsolete or anything. However, it by no means is going to add value to BTC. What will we do? Begin to browse Amazon for an item and try to purchase something with .000025 BTC? I know this creates a problem. Who has the solution? Altcoins etc? When does BTC decouple from the fiat? LOLz BTC
By then I think the solution lies in the Satoshis. Right now they don't mean shit but when bitcoin becomes so valuable that even mining it would mean useless like what you're trying to suppose here, Satoshis will be the miner's best friend. I'm not really sure how viable this is but as someone who's been in the industry for a while now this question has been asked quite a couple times and I've seen people talk about sats being the solution to this valuation problem.