Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It'll be distributed
to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half
every 4 years.
first 4 years: 10,500,000 coins
next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins
next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins
next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins
etc...
When that runs out, the system can support transaction fees if
needed. It's based on open market competition, and there will
probably always be nodes willing to process transactions for free.
It didn't take year 2140 for the fees to arrive, obviously. In any case, he did consider all those scenarios playing out outside of the whitepaper:
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/16/#selection-123.0-147.66After having read pretty much everything I could find, I believe that he intended Bitcoin to be massively scaled (which is why Faketoshi is pushing this narrative) however he DID realize before leaving the forums that there was no realistic way to reach consensus past hitting critical mass.
Judging by his penultimate post, he was fearing that Bitcoin was about to, or already did hit said critical mass:
It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.
And right below this:
Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale.
Bitcoin and BitDNS can be used separately. Users shouldn't have to download all of both to use one or the other. BitDNS users may not want to download everything the next several unrelated networks decide to pile in either.
The networks need to have separate fates. BitDNS users might be completely liberal about adding any large data features since relatively few domain registrars are needed, while Bitcoin users might get increasingly tyrannical about limiting the size of the chain so it's easy for lots of users and small devices.
The timing feels right to me. Which is why I believe when he realized the fact that the protocol was already set in stone, he left. The rest is history.