Why was 21 million coins chose as the total number of bitcoins? - page 2.

runpaint

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Quote from: R2D221 on March 03, 2015, 11:52:04 AM

I think asking this kind of questions is like asking “Why did you wear green clothes today?”. Yes, there was a decision to be made, but not a very deep one, to be honest.

Except you're wrong, as shown by the above quote regarding the decisions that went into determining the supply of bitcoins.

R2D221

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I think asking this kind of questions is like asking “Why did you wear green clothes today?”. Yes, there was a decision to be made, but not a very deep one, to be honest.

runpaint

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Quote from: DannyHamilton on March 03, 2015, 11:38:28 AM

Quote from: runpaint on March 03, 2015, 11:36:35 AM

21 million was the intended number, it isn't "derived" in the sense that it's an arbitrary number. It was coded intentionally to produce 21 million.

Really?

Did you have a conversation with Mr. Nakamoto whereby he explained this to you?

No, Hal Finney and Ray Dillenger did.

Quote

Ray Dillenger recalls:

I remember this discussion, actually.

Finney, Satoshi, and I discussed how divisible a Bitcoin ought to be. Satoshi had already more or less decided on a 50-coin per block payout with halving every so often to add up to a 21M coin supply. Finney made the point that people should never need any currency division smaller than a US penny, and then somebody (I forget who) consulted some oracle somewhere like maybe Wikipedia and figured out what the entire world’s M1 money supply at that time was.

We debated for a while about which measure of money Bitcoin most closely approximated; but M2, M3, and so on are all for debt-based currencies, so I agreed with Finney that M1 was probably the best measure.

21Million, times 10^8 subdivisions, meant that even if the whole word’s money supply were replaced by the 21 million bitcoins the smallest unit (we weren’t calling them Satoshis yet) would still be worth a bit less than a penny, so no matter what happened — even if the entire economy of planet earth were measured in Bitcoin — it would never inconvenience people by being too large a unit for convenience.

https://thewealthofchips.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/why-bitcoin-is-and-isnt-ideal-money/

Danny Hamilton, you're not smart enough or important enough to back up how much of an asshole you are. Maybe take it down a few notches, especially when you're wrong and making a fool of yourself.

GreekBitcoin

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getmonero.org

So that if all gold speculation goes to Bitcoin (at the prices of 2009) the price of bitcoin would be 1000000$ Tongue

ngocbkcse

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this is the 21st century --> 21M BTC Cheesy

DannyHamilton

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Quote from: runpaint on March 03, 2015, 11:36:35 AM

21 million was the intended number, it isn't "derived" in the sense that it's an arbitrary number. It was coded intentionally to produce 21 million.

Really?

Did you have a conversation with Mr. Nakamoto whereby he explained this to you? Or are you just making things up out of your own imagination and assuming that you are correct?

If he wanted to produce exactly 21 million then he did a poor job of programming.

There will never be 21 million bitcoins. The maximum that will be produced with the programming that Mr. Nakamoto chose is: 20999999.9769

If he was specifically intending 21 million, then why would he code it to intentionally produce only 20999999.9769?

runpaint

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21 million was the intended number, it isn't "derived" in the sense that it's an arbitrary number. It was coded intentionally to produce 21 million.

DannyHamilton

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Quote from: slacknation on March 03, 2015, 11:12:13 AM

Quote from: bitspill on March 03, 2015, 12:38:01 AM

21 million was not chosen, 21 million is the result of multiple other choices.

Initial block reward was 50BTC
1 block is made every 10 minutes
Block reward halves every 4 years

Those three choices lead to 21 million coins, after so many halvings the block reward eventually hits 0 and at that time the number of coins generated happens to be just under 21 million.

if you look into the source code, 21m was hardcoded, not derived as you have mentioned

Looks derived exactly as explained to me (except that the reward halves every 210000 blocks which is approximately every 4 years):

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/59310f1c02673c3ee068cd82f8654bed9b757889/src/main.cpp#L1229

Code:

CAmount GetBlockValue(int nHeight, const CAmount& nFees)
{
    CAmount nSubsidy = 50 * COIN;
    int halvings = nHeight / Params().SubsidyHalvingInterval();
    // Force block reward to zero when right shift is undefined.
    if (halvings >= 64)
        return nFees;
    // Subsidy is cut in half every 210,000 blocks which will occur approximately every 4 years.
    nSubsidy >>= halvings;
    return nSubsidy + nFees;
}

runpaint

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Quote from: Kazimir on March 03, 2015, 11:21:24 AM

Only thing that's hardcoded is:

1. the initial 50 BTC per block
2. reward halving every 210000 blocks

Just these two factors implicitly determine the 21M limit (or actually: 20999999.9769 BTC).

Yes, but WHY?

The block reward doesn't continue to halve forever. It stops, instead of going to .5, .25, .12, .06, .03, etc.

The correct answer is that Bitcoin was designed to have enough divisible units (Satoshis) to replace the entire money supply of the world. Obviously it was a rough estimate, but the intent was that 21 million * 100 million Satoshis = enough units to replace all fiat money.

LiteCoinGuy

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In Satoshi I Trust

roughly 21x21x21 m

A total of 174,100 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history, according to GFMS as of 2012. This is roughly equivalent to 5.6 billion troy ounces or, in terms of volume, about 9261 m3, or a cube 21.0 m on a side.

Since Bitcoin is often compared to gold, total number of bitcoins matches total amount of gold mined in human history which can be imagined as a cube 21 m on a side.

escrow.ms

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http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8439/why-was-21-million-picked-as-the-number-of-bitcoins-to-be-created

Maybe this?

Kazimir

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Quote from: slacknation on March 03, 2015, 11:12:13 AM

Quote from: bitspill on March 03, 2015, 12:38:01 AM

21 million was not chosen, 21 million is the result of multiple other choices.

Initial block reward was 50BTC
1 block is made every 10 minutes
Block reward halves every 4 years

Those three choices lead to 21 million coins, after so many halvings the block reward eventually hits 0 and at that time the number of coins generated happens to be just under 21 million.

if you look into the source code, 21m was hardcoded, not derived as you have mentioned

Oh, where is that?

Only thing that's hardcoded is:

1. the initial 50 BTC per block
2. reward halving every 210000 blocks

Just these two factors implicitly determine the 21M limit (or actually: 20999999.9769 BTC).

slacknation

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Quote from: bitspill on March 03, 2015, 12:38:01 AM

21 million was not chosen, 21 million is the result of multiple other choices.

Initial block reward was 50BTC
1 block is made every 10 minutes
Block reward halves every 4 years

Those three choices lead to 21 million coins, after so many halvings the block reward eventually hits 0 and at that time the number of coins generated happens to be just under 21 million.

if you look into the source code, 21m was hardcoded, not derived as you have mentioned

R2D221

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Quote from: AgentofCoin on March 03, 2015, 12:41:35 AM

The answer to the universe and everything is 42.
Since we are human, imperfect, and not God, and only know half of everything, we should use half of 42.
Therefore, 21 million coins represents that half of the great work is done. Wink

If somebody knew half of everything today, they could pretty much become God.

nikona

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Quote from: Enzyme on March 03, 2015, 01:41:16 AM

Quote from: CtrlAltBernanke420 on March 03, 2015, 12:21:15 AM

Why not 1 bitcoin…

Why not 1million or 100million bitcoins, why not 21 billion, or trillion?

Why not 14 million?

Satoshi wanted Bitcoin to be rare, it's as if he knew the price boom would happen.

I guess it was a complete accident..n randomly he got to that amount..when he though 21 mil was enough.

Enzyme

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Quote from: CtrlAltBernanke420 on March 03, 2015, 12:21:15 AM

Why not 1 bitcoin…

Why not 1million or 100million bitcoins, why not 21 billion, or trillion?

Why not 14 million?

Satoshi wanted Bitcoin to be rare, it's as if he knew the price boom would happen.

Icardi09

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Satoshi think it's ideal Cheesy

kidding, that number is from mining reward after halving several times in next hundred years.

finnile

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Quote from: bitkilo on March 03, 2015, 12:44:36 AM

How did other coins like doge and NXT .ect work out there total coins?

They usually estimate how many coins will be mined, and what will be the time by which they all will be mined.Blockrewards/blocktime etc and all taken into account to come to a number.

bitkilo

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https://www.bitcoin.com/

How did other coins like doge and NXT .ect work out there total coins?

harrymmmm

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Quote from: CtrlAltBernanke420 on March 03, 2015, 12:21:15 AM

Why not 1 bitcoin…

Why not 1million or 100million bitcoins, why not 21 billion, or trillion?

Why not 14 million?

It's not quite as arbitrary as it seems...
The final total of the infinite series is twice the number issued in the first 4 years (before the first halving). That, in turn, is determined completely by the initial block reward (and the 10 min block time).

So once satoshi had decided on the mechanism and issuance rate, the only parameter left to play with was the initial block reward of 50 btc.

Total of 1 btc would mean there's only 10^8 units (satoshis) to handle the whole system ... not enough.

50 per block probably seemed like a good number to get them mined, distributed, enough to play with even if one only mined one block, etc.

I'm guessing about it tho...someone correct me if i'm missing a good reason here.

Topic: Why was 21 million coins chose as the total number of bitcoins? - page 2. (Read 3610 times)