4 ms·

No, hashrate majority can only introduce "soft" restrictions, not remove any hardcoded ones. Increasing the supply will fork them off into a separate chain inc

• 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.