Changing the 21 million bitcoin limit - page 5.

Anders

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Quote from: inBitweTrust on August 05, 2014, 09:32:20 AM

Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:15:22 AM

You mean the integrity of the value of bitcoin? The Bitcoin system would remain the same.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Prohibited_changes

These changes require the consent of every bitcoin-holder:

Increasing the total number of issued bitcoins beyond 21 million. Precision may be increased, but proportions must be unchanged.

Deviation from this changes a fundamental property of Bitcoin so you essentially are created an Alt. While hypothetically possible that 100% of people would consent to this change it is extremely unlikely knowing what we understand about human nature(we are selfish and are not going to adopt a change that destroys our savings and framework we depend upon), and the fact that miners don't solely control the vote but users do on this change.

Prohibited changes? Decided by who? Some Bitcoin dictator? Bitcoin Central Authority?

byt411

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Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:32:29 AM

Quote from: TwinWinNerD on August 05, 2014, 09:27:08 AM

Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:25:34 AM

Quote from: byt411 on August 05, 2014, 09:17:49 AM

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

But the creation of bitcoins would still be predictable! It's just that the amount of bitcoins that miners earn would remain constant instead of being reduced over time. It could become too inflationary I don't know. Would be interesting to test the idea on a separate block chain so to not totally crash the actual bitcoin value.

Dogecoin did that. Look at the price Wink

Dogecoin has no upper limit but it has a fixed rate of 5.2 billion coins every year in the future. I was thinking that the rate would be determined only by the mining, say 25 bitcoins per block as was the initial bitcoin rate.

What difference does that make? You are still digging an infinite hole, with an unlimited supply. It's one of the best ways to destroy Bitcoin. Are you from the Bitcoin Foundation, or the NSA?

Look. It's a terrible idea. Make a shitcoin to test it out if you want, but so far, I haven't seen and I don't expect to see even 1 person to agree with you at all.

Anders

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Quote from: shorena on August 05, 2014, 09:30:59 AM

Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:25:34 AM

Quote from: byt411 on August 05, 2014, 09:17:49 AM

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

But the creation of bitcoins would still be predictable! It's just that the amount of bitcoins that miners earn would remain constant instead of being reduced over time. It could become too inflationary I don't know. Would be interesting to test the idea on a separate block chain so to not totally crash the actual bitcoin value.

Quote

Once a predetermined number of coins have entered
circulation, the incentive can transition entirely to transaction fees and be completely inflation
free.

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf chapter 6

/thread

Completely inflation free yes, but deflation full, which can be problematic too.

Anders

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Quote from: TwinWinNerD on August 05, 2014, 09:27:08 AM

Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:25:34 AM

Quote from: byt411 on August 05, 2014, 09:17:49 AM

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

But the creation of bitcoins would still be predictable! It's just that the amount of bitcoins that miners earn would remain constant instead of being reduced over time. It could become too inflationary I don't know. Would be interesting to test the idea on a separate block chain so to not totally crash the actual bitcoin value.

Dogecoin did that. Look at the price Wink

Dogecoin has no upper limit but it has a fixed rate of 5.2 billion coins every year in the future. I was thinking that the rate would be determined only by the mining, say 25 bitcoins per block as was the initial bitcoin rate.

inBitweTrust

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Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:15:22 AM

You mean the integrity of the value of bitcoin? The Bitcoin system would remain the same.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Prohibited_changes

These changes require the consent of every bitcoin-holder:

Increasing the total number of issued bitcoins beyond 21 million. Precision may be increased, but proportions must be unchanged.

Deviation from this changes a fundamental property of Bitcoin so you essentially are created an Alt. While hypothetically possible that 100% of people would consent to this change it is extremely unlikely knowing what we understand about human nature(we are selfish and are not going to adopt a change that destroys our savings and framework we depend upon), and the fact that miners don't solely control the vote but users do on this change.

Stery

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Change in the 21 million limit can change the stability of bitcoins.

Look at the conversion rate of BTC to USD and other coins to USD.

BTC will come back to the same as others

shorena

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No I dont escrow anymore.

Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:25:34 AM

Quote from: byt411 on August 05, 2014, 09:17:49 AM

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

But the creation of bitcoins would still be predictable! It's just that the amount of bitcoins that miners earn would remain constant instead of being reduced over time. It could become too inflationary I don't know. Would be interesting to test the idea on a separate block chain so to not totally crash the actual bitcoin value.

Quote

Once a predetermined number of coins have entered
circulation, the incentive can transition entirely to transaction fees and be completely inflation
free.

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf chapter 6

/thread

Anders

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Quote from: LiteCoinGuy on August 05, 2014, 09:23:10 AM

by the way: there are already coins that have no limit. use them

I read that Stellar has an 1% inflation rate per year. But Stellar relies on gateways one must trust. Dogecoin has no upper limit but it has a fixed rate of 5.2 billion coins every year in the future.

byt411

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Quote from: TwinWinNerD on August 05, 2014, 09:27:08 AM

Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:25:34 AM

Quote from: byt411 on August 05, 2014, 09:17:49 AM

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

But the creation of bitcoins would still be predictable! It's just that the amount of bitcoins that miners earn would remain constant instead of being reduced over time. It could become too inflationary I don't know. Would be interesting to test the idea on a separate block chain so to not totally crash the actual bitcoin value.

Dogecoin did that. Look at the price Wink

Yeah. Dogecoin started with a "random" block reward, then changed it to a fixed block reward, since it wasn't random and was completely predictable.
Too inflationary? Definitely. You're basically digging an infinite hole, and people have no incentive to use Bitcoin at all since it would just devalue itself constantly.
You can fork bitcoin and make some sort of a crappy altcoin, but it's useless. No one will care and no one will use it.
How would this even help bitcoin in any way, shape or form?

TwinWinNerD

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Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:25:34 AM

Quote from: byt411 on August 05, 2014, 09:17:49 AM

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

But the creation of bitcoins would still be predictable! It's just that the amount of bitcoins that miners earn would remain constant instead of being reduced over time. It could become too inflationary I don't know. Would be interesting to test the idea on a separate block chain so to not totally crash the actual bitcoin value.

Dogecoin did that. Look at the price Wink

Anders

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Quote from: byt411 on August 05, 2014, 09:17:49 AM

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

But the creation of bitcoins would still be predictable! It's just that the amount of bitcoins that miners earn would remain constant instead of being reduced over time. It could become too inflationary I don't know. Would be interesting to test the idea on a separate block chain so to not totally crash the actual bitcoin value.

TwinWinNerD

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Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:15:22 AM

Quote from: TwinWinNerD on August 05, 2014, 09:09:08 AM

Why would anyone want to destroy the integrity of the very system?

You mean the integrity of the value of bitcoin? The Bitcoin system would remain the same. It would only be the amount of bitcoins that miners earn that would change. The value of bitcoin would be affected a lot, but not the Bitcoin technology.

In practice it could be too risky to try to change the Bitcoin specification like that. Because the bitcoin value may totally pancake. Cheesy

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting thought experiment.

The problem is with your line of thought that you value the tech alone to high.

Think about that: a 1:1 clone of Bitcoin with only the total coin parameter changed would literally be worthless. So why does Bitcoin have value. Because of the network effect. Now when you change such a important parameter that itself attracted so many people, you will not only destroy most of the network effect but also the benefit of the technology.

( Better example, the technology of facebook might be worth something, but without people using a clone, the technology itself is worthless!)

byt411

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Quote from: remotemass on August 05, 2014, 09:22:40 AM

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.

We don't really need to change the protocol. It's just changing a way to read data. A simple update for the nodes, users and miners would do it, without a hard fork. We can go beyond a satoshi, far more beyond that.

LiteCoinGuy

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In Satoshi I Trust

by the way: there are already coins that have no limit. use them

remotemass

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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.

byt411

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Quote from: Anders on August 05, 2014, 09:08:04 AM

Quote from: jonanon on August 05, 2014, 09:04:42 AM

The very point of Bitcoin is that the 21 mil limit can't be changed.

Miners get less bitcoin but in theory there should be more adoption hence the less Bitcoin they get has more purchasing power.

The main point of Bitcoin is the decentralized block chain. The 21 million limit is just arbitrarily set from the beginning. And in the beginning that was probably a good thing, turning bitcoin into a success. Now however when bitcoin has matured a bit there could in theory I guess be changes made to the Bitcoin specification.

The limit was set so that the creation of new Bitcoin is constant and predictable, unlike modern fiat currencies. And also decentralization, of course, but the point is to create a decentralized currency where no central authority can control the amount produced.

Quote from: ?? on ??

its fastest way to destroy bitcoin.

Yep.

Anders

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Quote from: TwinWinNerD on August 05, 2014, 09:09:08 AM

Why would anyone want to destroy the integrity of the very system?

You mean the integrity of the value of bitcoin? The Bitcoin system would remain the same. It would only be the amount of bitcoins that miners earn that would change. The value of bitcoin would be affected a lot, but not the Bitcoin technology.

In practice it could be too risky to try to change the Bitcoin specification like that. Because the bitcoin value may totally pancake. Cheesy

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting thought experiment.

TwinWinNerD

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Why would anyone want to destroy the integrity of the very system?

Anders

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Quote from: jonanon on August 05, 2014, 09:04:42 AM

The very point of Bitcoin is that the 21 mil limit can't be changed.

Miners get less bitcoin but in theory there should be more adoption hence the less Bitcoin they get has more purchasing power.

The main point of Bitcoin is the decentralized block chain. The 21 million limit is just arbitrarily set from the beginning. And in the beginning that was probably a good thing, turning bitcoin into a success. Now however when bitcoin has matured a bit there could in theory I guess be changes made to the Bitcoin specification.

jonanon

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The very point of Bitcoin is that the 21 mil limit can't be changed.

Miners get less bitcoin but in theory there should be more adoption hence the less Bitcoin they get has more purchasing power.

Topic: Changing the 21 million bitcoin limit - page 5. (Read 3306 times)