Topic: Will the need to increase BTC's max supply arise in the future? (Read 776 times)

Or perhaps the developers think 2140 is too far away to start worrying about it.

I agree with you. 120 years is too long a time to start worrying. Besides, how do we even know what Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind? I bet he had this scenario in mind.

Honestly, I think Bitcoin is (and will do) fine with a max supply of 21 million coins. That's largely because Bitcoin is divisible up to 8 decimal units. There are 21 quadrillion satoshis for anyone to use in the mainstream world. That's more than enough to satisfy the world's population. Increasing the supply to a higher value will do more harm than good to the price of Bitcoin on the market. Even if Bitcoin's supply remains the same, it has already been theoretically expanded by the number of Bitcoin-based forks that emerged since 2017. Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV both have a max supply of 21 million coins with the same protocol as Bitcoin (only with a few minor modifications). Bitcoin holders prior to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork in August 2017, have now doubled their coins on competing blockchain networks. If we were to perform calculations, Bitcoin has effectively increased its max supply to 63 million coins (which is the sum of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV's 21 million coin supply).

If prices become a lot higher than what they are right now, we could expect people to deal with "satoshis" instead of a Bitcoin or 1/10 of a Bitcoin. With the Lightning Network already gaining traction, it's possible to send satoshis across the blockchain at a fraction of the cost. At least, we won't need to worry about Bitcoin's max supply during the course of its lifetime. Just my opinion

After all the 21 million BTCs are mined - estimated at the year 2140, two scenarios are likely to occur. The first one involves miners abandoning their work since there won't be any rewards except transaction fees. Since miners are at the core of decentralization, this may force the centralization of BTC or its total collapse. A second scenario is where BTC's value is high enough and transaction fees are high as well. Here, miners can live off transaction fees and BTC continues. Hopefully, the second scenario comes to pass.

Although this is too far away to determine now, I think there will be need to increase Bitcoin's max supply in the future. With increasing adoption of bitcoin over the coming years, with a large percentage of these people keeping bitcoins as a store of value and not as a currency which would keep it in circulation, there would be need to increase the limited 21 million supply of coins into circulation.
This might invoke the need for a much better and higher technology and codes, it will inevitably have to happen. Besides, technology is evolving and we will get to that bridge where we've exhausted the limited coins, we'll cross it.

Can it add supply to the fixed blockchain chain? This is too far away to think about as we still have little information about the future to aim for. Hard forks, 8 decimal bitcoins, reward transactions, stabilization and many more things that we haven't been able to add to the blockchain supply. I think it's better to wait another 50 years, if what you say by 2100 the max supply of bitcoin has already been mined.

That's certainly true, mate. Honestly, there's no need to worry about raising the max supply for the foreseeable future. As you've said earlier, most of us won't be able to live by the time all Bitcoins are mined. AFAIK, there will exist a total of 21 quadrillion satoshis on the BTC blockchain. That's more than enough for the world's current population. With plenty Bitcoins for everyone, I think the hard cap of 21 million coins is perfect. In the future, people might be dealing with satoshis due to high prices on the market. It's expected that the Lightning Network will be stable enough to make people use satoshis for micropayments and such. For large money transfers, people will use the main Bitcoin blockchain for added security and reliability.

If Bitcoin continues to grow in popularity and mainstream adoption, then it'll survive way beyond the year of 2100. Miners will be living off Bitcoin's fees, as prices become a lot more higher than what they are right now. With years of success, Bitcoin can remain a truly unstoppable store of value for the whole wide world to enjoy. Raising the max supply beyond 21 million coins will only make matters worse. Just my thoughts

Well, I am talking about if the cap is increased, I think a lot of people would be hating the idea and might not support the crypto if that ever happens. I know that it will not happen and I am just saying that if it happens, just a big "IF", I think it could be at that purpose, thanks for that explanation though and yeah, I also disagree with the idea.

Why people only think about increasing the bitcoin supply if there is a scalability concern. The developers can easily make more decimal places in the bitcoin and replace the satoshi to other even more shorter value like 1/100 of a satoshi and that can actually do the trick and solve the bitcoin supply problem, even in the future when the bitcoin price could reach let's say $100 million then the smallest divisible value, i.e. A Satoshi would be equal to $1 and we can then add more decimals to the bitcoin value so the smallest value then can become 1/100 satoshi i.e. 1 cent which is economically a good choice than to just increase the hard cap of bitcoin.

In February 2019, news.bitcoin.com published this article.
Proposal to Increase Bitcoin’s 21 Million Supply Sparks Debate
Bitcoin’s Fixed Supply – Arbitrary or Mandatory?
https://news.bitcoin.com/proposal-to-increase-bitcoins-21-million-supply-sparks-debate/

I agree with you that scalability is the concern.
however, with this proposal, you shouldn't think that this debate is far away to happen.
something that you think most likely not gonna happen usually has more probability to happen than you think.

I think it could still be possible by having an announcement first to all the bitcoin users of their plan. It could be arrange actually by having another bitcoin v.2 that will be merge to bitcoin v.1 when both crypto will have the same market price. We can expect a good supply after it will be merged. However, I am not sure if this will work and only the bitcoin dev can say something about merging if its possible.

Yes, bitcoin is still bitcoin and the community will no longer support it and those who make the amount of bitcoins increase will no longer be trusted. Increasing the number of bitcoins is worse than a 51% attack, it will pull the value of bitcoin to zero. I think if the DEV team is going to do so, then Satoshi Nakamoto will appear again and prevent that from happening.

If the number of bitcoins will increase, there must be a bitcoin founder first and until now the inventor of bitcoin has not yet been found, meaning that addition to bitcoin is not possible and bitcoin is still 21 million in supply.
So changes in the future will continue to occur, but not to add to the supply in terms of price, it is speculative, maybe in the future there will be a lot of demand and the higher the price because of the scarcity of bitcoin will become a stable coin if it reaches the amount of supply.

Agree with your thought. If the amount of BTC does not increase, then the demand for it will continue to increase day by day. So, I hope no one wants to increase Bitcoin’s amount.  If the amount will increase, we will see a big change in the Bitcoin market. may be the price will drop badly . If the price of BTC goes down, it will not be good for us. We all wants a stable bitcoin market.  In this time, if the price of BTC will rises then its spread will be increased too, people will be more interested on it. And we need it for the bright future of BTC.

Not sure what you are talking about, suppose the developers wants to increase the maximum cap we have right now, it does not mean that they are holding the coins but they will alter the miners incentives and it will have a natural process like we have now rather than creating the coins for the developers to hold  . No one is thinking about raising the cap as there is no need for it and the story about greed is just absurd.

It is still bitcoin, but not the crypto currency this community will support if that even happens. Talking about this, I remembered the incident in the past where a lot of bitcoin is made. I am not saying that this will happen again but I think if the max supply will arise in the future it will be for profit and greedy reasons and I can certainly say that I am not alive at that time.

Indeed. The whole community exist for this reason, to have continuous movement in the system and keep it regulated as well. Bitcoin, it is what it is, it has its own movement and distribution. And by 2100, I bet there has been many changes and improvements with Bitcoin and its community.

I don't think there is any need to increase the number of bitcoins in the future because it is contrary to what Satoshi Nakamoto created. The community will not allow that, bitcoin needs to keep 21 million to ensure scarcity. If you look for ways to expand the number of bitcoins, then bitcoin will no longer be bitcoin.

It is unlikely that any of us will be around to see the subsidy drop to 0, but some of us may witness the point at which there is only 1 bitcoin left to be mined (in 80 years), and most of us will be around to see the subsidy drop below 1 BTC per block (in 10 years).

This is what I sometimes think about, can miners survive only with the proceeds from transaction fees in the future, if the block reward is gone, which means the bitcoin market has reached the max supply. Then with blockchain technology that is still new and still in the free development stage, can it be possible to add max supply and not damage the block chain of bitcoin itself. Maybe for mining problems it can be solved with a hard fork if the bitcoin price can adjust, I mean here miners still benefit. The hard fork also makes the max supply take a long time, coupled with a solution using mBTC.