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> The supply is finite Until It isn't. Miners will one day decide to hardfork bitcoin to increases the mining rewards, hence increasing the supply. They will

> The supply is finite Until It isn't. Miners will one day decide to hardfork bitcoin to increases the mining rewards, hence increasing the supply. They will of course need to prepare the narrative, and say "it is for the good of bitcoin". It might be in 10 years, or in 50 years. But on a long enough time-scale, you can be sure of one thing: Bitcoin will change, because it's man-made and because it's mutable/forkable.

tnel77 4y ago
Has that worked in the past? While they could obviously create their own fork, they can’t force people to actually use it.
- toinewx 4y ago
  [flagged]
- root_axis 4y ago
  It's entirely political. The miners and related business interests that profit off of bitcoin have a lot of influence and a lot of clear incentives, but any message signed by Satoshi could completely alter the direction of bitcoin.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  I hadn't really considered this before, but I think there's a good chance they'll do something to increase their take-home if bitcoin becomes cheap enough relative to the mining reward that its security becomes threatened. Right now there are lots of people mining bitcoin at a paper loss due to speculation. If they go out of business after a few years, or are forced to sell because "number goes up" doesn't happen, there will be an exodus of mining power, which could then lead to the Bitcoin network being vulnerable to double spend attacks (these have already happened a number of time on networks with less hash power, like Ethereum Classic [not ethereum]) If double spends looked imminent, or started occuring, I think it would make sense to fork to increase the block reward. Of course, bitcoin has forked before and it becomes a political issue. Personally, the big block wars (and subsequent Bitcoin Cash split) was where I got off the Bitcoin train. But if a fork happened, and the network that didn't adopt the higher block reward started getting 51% attacked, I do think people would move over to the new network (and that would become "bitcoin")
- zirgs 4y ago
  If nobody mines the old fork then users will have to switch.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  No, but lets say a the big traditional instances do not accept the non-forked chain. Only the forked one. How good would that chain be for your average new user that is forced to accept transactions on the new chain.
Geee 4y ago
That's a good thing. It means that they found a sound argument for it. Sound argument has to be something that keeps bitcoin alive and valuable to users. Bitcoin always follows the path which makes it survive. It can mutate, but only if the mutation makes it stronger.
tenuousemphasis 4y ago
>Miners will one day decide to hardfork bitcoin to increases the mining rewards, hence increasing the supply. This line of thinking is a fundamental misunderstanding of who holds the power to change the rules of a system like Bitcoin. It's not the miners, they just enforce the rules. Economic actors are the ones who agree on which rules miners enforce. That hard fork the miners created? It's worthless, just like every other time miners have tried to change the rules.

tnel77 4y ago

Has that worked in the past? While they could obviously create their own fork, they can’t force people to actually use it.

toinewx 4y ago
[flagged]
root_axis 4y ago
It's entirely political. The miners and related business interests that profit off of bitcoin have a lot of influence and a lot of clear incentives, but any message signed by Satoshi could completely alter the direction of bitcoin.
pcthrowaway 4y ago
I hadn't really considered this before, but I think there's a good chance they'll do something to increase their take-home if bitcoin becomes cheap enough relative to the mining reward that its security becomes threatened. Right now there are lots of people mining bitcoin at a paper loss due to speculation. If they go out of business after a few years, or are forced to sell because "number goes up" doesn't happen, there will be an exodus of mining power, which could then lead to the Bitcoin network being vulnerable to double spend attacks (these have already happened a number of time on networks with less hash power, like Ethereum Classic [not ethereum]) If double spends looked imminent, or started occuring, I think it would make sense to fork to increase the block reward. Of course, bitcoin has forked before and it becomes a political issue. Personally, the big block wars (and subsequent Bitcoin Cash split) was where I got off the Bitcoin train. But if a fork happened, and the network that didn't adopt the higher block reward started getting 51% attacked, I do think people would move over to the new network (and that would become "bitcoin")
zirgs 4y ago
If nobody mines the old fork then users will have to switch.
Ekaros 4y ago
No, but lets say a the big traditional instances do not accept the non-forked chain. Only the forked one. How good would that chain be for your average new user that is forced to accept transactions on the new chain.

Geee 4y ago

That's a good thing. It means that they found a sound argument for it. Sound argument has to be something that keeps bitcoin alive and valuable to users. Bitcoin always follows the path which makes it survive. It can mutate, but only if the mutation makes it stronger.

tenuousemphasis 4y ago

>Miners will one day decide to hardfork bitcoin to increases the mining rewards, hence increasing the supply. This line of thinking is a fundamental misunderstanding of who holds the power to change the rules of a system like Bitcoin. It's not the miners, they just enforce the rules. Economic actors are the ones who agree on which rules miners enforce. That hard fork the miners created? It's worthless, just like every other time miners have tried to change the rules.