Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: Is the 21 million bitcoin limit unchangeable?
by
porcupine87
on 17/03/2013, 00:40:39 UTC
So it kind of seems like really the economic power is in those who want to hold bitcoins, a[...] rather than in those who already hold them...

Glad I'm not the only one to think that theory needs revision.

I raised a question on StackExchange on that:

Is Bitcoin's Economic Majority those who already own coins or those who will buy or keep coins?
 - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/8285/153'

I also added that to the Wiki article's discussion page:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Talk:Economic_majority

Indeed. If only the people decide, who holds bitcoin, why wouldn't they abolish the coinbase tx completly, I mean now.



Now if the 21 million limit changes, the outcome of the prediction changes too. Think of it this way: if you own 100,000 bitcoins and you know there won't ever be more than 21 million bitcoins, then you currently own 0.47% of the whole "bitcoin pie". Now if the upper limit changes to 210 million (thus the pie getting bigger), then your share of the pie suddenly shrinks to 0.047%.

Yeah, and if one person ownes 0,47% of all gold (+ earns 0,47% of the new mined gold), he ownes 0,47% of all gold. But owning gold or bitcoins makes no one rich. Spending it does!