Re: By what mechanism the total quantity of bitcoin is limited to 21 millions?
⭐ Merited by ETFbitcoin (1)
Could someone explain me how the total quantity of bitcoin is limited to 21 millions?
Please, don't tell me it is written in the program
It is. The way mining works is that the miners will mine blocks with the correct block reward and that is the way that Bitcoins are distributed. The block reward is coded into the clients and they will only accept blocks with the correct block reward and that is how they have a limited supply.Please, don't tell me it is written in the program
However, its not perfect and it is impossible for it to be exactly 21 million Bitcoins. Even if it can be, the earlier miners had poorly written client that resulted in incorrect block rewards being claimed and thus the exact value is far from 21million Bitcoins.
So is it more then 21 million or less?
Am I correct in thinking that one could hard fork and make total supply any arbitrary number?
Yes. If you modify your client to have 50 million BTC as the total supply, you will have created a fork. Only those who have modified their rules to yours will follow your chain. The other clients who do not support you will still be following the 21 Mil Bitcoin total supply rule. You will essentially have created an altcoin.