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> But Bitcoin is hard capped at 21 million coins Bitcoin is not an immutable law of nature. If the coin minting cap is reached, all that needs to happen is for

by kibwen 1y ago

> But Bitcoin is hard capped at 21 million coins Bitcoin is not an immutable law of nature. If the coin minting cap is reached, all that needs to happen is for miners to start running a fork with a higher cap. Tada, more coins conjured out of the ether, just like all the previous ones. If you want enforced scarcity, you need to be tied to something physically scarce.

rcxdude 1y ago
It would require the market to move as well to consider those new coins worth anything, though. Miners do not have enough control of the chain to make such changes on their own.
KetoManx64 1y ago
The miners can totally start mining a fork, in fact they can start doing so today, but it doesn't matter because nobody will use their fork and then they will have lost out on their hundreds of millions of dollars of investments into mining equipment. The node operators play just as critical of a role in Bitcoin as the miners.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  It's not the node operators either, it's the people who transact on the chain that determine the value of the coins. The miners can disrupt the ability of the chain to transact to some degree, but they can't make people think their fork is worthwhile (why anyone still thinks BTC has much long-term value is beyond me, but...).
  - KetoManx64 1y ago
    Yes! Thank for that correction.
- mindcandy 1y ago
  > in fact they can start doing so today In fact they already have. There are 10s of thousands of forks of Bitcoin. Only a handful ever got significant attention. And, the original is still much larger than all of the forks combined.
  - ab5tract 1y ago
    Right, but a counter point is the etherium fork. Only a handful of people stayed on the “classic” chain after that first DAO turned out to have a massive extraction bug in it.
  - windward 1y ago
    The original died in 2010. It was replaced with a very significant, large fork.
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  "I tell ya, everything will be perfect again if everyone would just migrate to BCv6."
Sargos 1y ago
all that needs to happen is for countries to destroy their nuclear weapons all that needs to happen is for governments to stop burning fossil fuels all that needs to happen is for researchers to publish boring papers replicating others results all that needs to happen is for fishermen to stop overfishing Coordination problems seem easy but never really are. The chance of all the miners just suddenly agreeing to do something all at once is pretty low to impossible.
- mapt 1y ago
  A million times this. The point of a hypothetical suggestion is to direct a specific course of action. I am simultaneously amazed at how complex the 'hypothetical' construct is, and also how many people aren't able to reason around them... since this is basically what our big brains are for. If you assume everybody involved just stops responding to their current incentives, you can solve any coordination problem, in a manner of speaking. But it's useless as a battle plan. Operationalizing a change demands that you pick a party you're talking to, and with full view of their capabilities and limitations, modify their current course of action in the smallest possible way that accomplishes a change.

by kibwen 1y ago

rcxdude 1y ago

It would require the market to move as well to consider those new coins worth anything, though. Miners do not have enough control of the chain to make such changes on their own.

KetoManx64 1y ago

The miners can totally start mining a fork, in fact they can start doing so today, but it doesn't matter because nobody will use their fork and then they will have lost out on their hundreds of millions of dollars of investments into mining equipment. The node operators play just as critical of a role in Bitcoin as the miners.

rcxdude 1y ago
It's not the node operators either, it's the people who transact on the chain that determine the value of the coins. The miners can disrupt the ability of the chain to transact to some degree, but they can't make people think their fork is worthwhile (why anyone still thinks BTC has much long-term value is beyond me, but...).
- KetoManx64 1y ago
  Yes! Thank for that correction.
mindcandy 1y ago
> in fact they can start doing so today In fact they already have. There are 10s of thousands of forks of Bitcoin. Only a handful ever got significant attention. And, the original is still much larger than all of the forks combined.
- ab5tract 1y ago
  Right, but a counter point is the etherium fork. Only a handful of people stayed on the “classic” chain after that first DAO turned out to have a massive extraction bug in it.
- windward 1y ago
  The original died in 2010. It was replaced with a very significant, large fork.
shadowgovt 1y ago
"I tell ya, everything will be perfect again if everyone would just migrate to BCv6."

Sargos 1y ago

all that needs to happen is for countries to destroy their nuclear weapons all that needs to happen is for governments to stop burning fossil fuels all that needs to happen is for researchers to publish boring papers replicating others results all that needs to happen is for fishermen to stop overfishing Coordination problems seem easy but never really are. The chance of all the miners just suddenly agreeing to do something all at once is pretty low to impossible.

mapt 1y ago
A million times this. The point of a hypothetical suggestion is to direct a specific course of action. I am simultaneously amazed at how complex the 'hypothetical' construct is, and also how many people aren't able to reason around them... since this is basically what our big brains are for. If you assume everybody involved just stops responding to their current incentives, you can solve any coordination problem, in a manner of speaking. But it's useless as a battle plan. Operationalizing a change demands that you pick a party you're talking to, and with full view of their capabilities and limitations, modify their current course of action in the smallest possible way that accomplishes a change.