Topic: What if someday Bitcoin Foundation votes to remove 21M limitation? (Read 6094 times)

Death to Bitcoin foundation and ghash

This guy nailed it on page 1.  Seven pages later we are back to this. 

Maybe a better question is, what if Ghash.io votes to remove the 21 M limitation! 

Fuck the foundation, they have no authority

Im slightly curious. If they do "vote" on that, how will the apply the change? If its an update, cant we vote not to update or something? I have never seen something like that. (Dogecoin did, but I dont know how that works).

Wont the exchange rate go through the floor?

Unlikely to happen. If it does, bitcoin holders can just sell it off to move to another coin.

The hard fork coin would need to be accepted by the miners in order for it to have any kind of security.

Hm... let me guess... nothing will happen, I suppose

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/25-btc-per-block-forever-352734

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

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.


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.

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