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It will not become "more and more difficult ensuring that the amount of money will continue to increase". The amount of money will not increase at all, period,

by ufmace 10y ago

It will not become "more and more difficult ensuring that the amount of money will continue to increase". The amount of money will not increase at all, period, past the designed-in limit of 21,000,000 total bitcoins. There is no ensuring anything, the rate of creation of new bitcoins was programmed in from the start and cannot be changed. Most hardcore bitcoiners seem to subscribe to a macroeconomic theory that holds that allowing a Government entity to create more of a currency is a bad thing, and that the economy would be better off if the amount of currency in circulation was fixed by external factors. I find more persuasive the theory that the total value of economies tends to naturally grow, and the total value of currency in circulation must increase at a controlled rate to create a small but positive inflation in order to have a stable economy. When there are artificial limits on the creation of currency, the value of goods created by the economy grows, but the total currency in circulation does not, so you get deflation, which slows spending and investment, and shrinks the economy again.

wolfgke 10y ago
> The amount of money will not increase at all, period, past the designed-in limit of 21,000,000 total bitcoins. Only if no majority (of hashing power) decides to change this "limitation". EDIT: Or if there are sufficiently many people who want more bitcoins they might even consider a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain without having a majority of hashing power.
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  No, hashrate majority can only introduce "soft" restrictions, not remove any hardcoded ones. Increasing the supply will fork them off into a separate chain incompatible with the majority of users.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > No, hashrate majority can only introduce "soft" restrictions, not remove any hardcoded ones. If there really is a strong wish from the majority to increase the maximum number of bitcoins, I see no technical reason why one couldn't implement a solution on the blockchain for this. Just, say, introduce some marker in the block indicating that this block follows a new block format that allows larger coin numbers than the existing hardcoded limit. Probably reading such a block would not be possible using a "classic" client. I can even imagine that lifting the hardcoded limit could be possible without making the blocks invalid to "classic" clients, but this would involve more work (for ane explanation of how this might be implemented I would have to research into the block format).
    - Natanael_L 10y ago
      That's why there's a version tag in blocks. This would be a hardfork event where all clients must switch simultaneously to the new block format and rules.
      - wolfgke 10y ago
        > This would be a hardfork event where all clients must switch simultaneously to the new block format and rules. Indeed, but a hard fork is possible (cf. debate about block size). There actually just good "social-economic" reasons not to do a hard fork, but nothing in the Bitcoin technology prevents them.

by ufmace 10y ago

wolfgke 10y ago

> The amount of money will not increase at all, period, past the designed-in limit of 21,000,000 total bitcoins. Only if no majority (of hashing power) decides to change this "limitation". EDIT: Or if there are sufficiently many people who want more bitcoins they might even consider a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain without having a majority of hashing power.

Natanael_L 10y ago
No, hashrate majority can only introduce "soft" restrictions, not remove any hardcoded ones. Increasing the supply will fork them off into a separate chain incompatible with the majority of users.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > No, hashrate majority can only introduce "soft" restrictions, not remove any hardcoded ones. If there really is a strong wish from the majority to increase the maximum number of bitcoins, I see no technical reason why one couldn't implement a solution on the blockchain for this. Just, say, introduce some marker in the block indicating that this block follows a new block format that allows larger coin numbers than the existing hardcoded limit. Probably reading such a block would not be possible using a "classic" client. I can even imagine that lifting the hardcoded limit could be possible without making the blocks invalid to "classic" clients, but this would involve more work (for ane explanation of how this might be implemented I would have to research into the block format).
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    That's why there's a version tag in blocks. This would be a hardfork event where all clients must switch simultaneously to the new block format and rules.
    - wolfgke 10y ago
      > This would be a hardfork event where all clients must switch simultaneously to the new block format and rules. Indeed, but a hard fork is possible (cf. debate about block size). There actually just good "social-economic" reasons not to do a hard fork, but nothing in the Bitcoin technology prevents them.