Quote from: Quick on April 07, 2013, 05:14:19 PM

As software that can be changed, someone controls bitcoin. I am interested to know who can change it.

In particular, I am interested in knowing if the 21 million can ever be changed? And if not, why?

I looked around Google for a while but didn't find anything that definitively answered those questions. I personally don't think the 21 million should ever be changed. And I would like the answer to be that it is impossible to change it, but I don't think that is the case.

If the dev team has some significantly good reasons that they should change the 21 million limit, then they might. Key thing is convincing the majority of the dev team to do so, and the reasons would have to be very good, as essentially the 21 million limit is almost a de facto promise.

I would recommend that they not do this, but have alternative currencies. The moment bitcoin becomes inflationary past the 21 million limit then the perception is that the promise has been broken, and is now just another centralized bank/Federal Reserve that can inflate at will.