Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: Is the 21 million bitcoin limit unchangeable?
by
Stephen Gornick
on 17/03/2013, 13:57:20 UTC
If the subsidy would be abolished the purchasing power of my 100 BTC would gain 2.5% every year and the interest rate drops to 2.5%.

Well nobody knows what the change to purchasing power is if this hypothetical "economic majority forces an immediate end to the block reward subsidy" and thus that 2.5% of currency inflation that was expected in year 2024 goes away.

That's why the buyer should require that lending contracts include some language that addresses changes in the protocol that would affect the currency inflation rate.   

But it is really a moot point, I believe.  The lending from the economic majority also includes loans to miners, and miners made an investment in their capacity counting on the subsidy -- it was part of the deal.  The miners would default on their loans causing once again for the economic majority a wash between the two options.   And that's a relatively minor issue compared to the bad image it would give.  If there were any alternatives a black eye like that would be a great catalyst to move to another one which is even more resistant to that type of corruption.