Quote from: franklin2058 on August 12, 2019, 04:16:28 PM

Quote from: Saint-loup on August 12, 2019, 04:01:52 PM

Quote from: Losvienleg on August 12, 2019, 03:41:20 PM

Based on what I am used to hear, I would have first said that it is not possible to change the total supply.

But after thinking a bit about it, two things came to my mind, and at the same time, the answer to your question.

1) Total supply is just a parameter, so according to me (as I said, I have never thought about this precise issue before, nor heard anyone talking about it!), the sole people who would have the power to change it are the miners, and no one else.
That is for the your answer.

2) But now let's go a bit further.
On the other hand, I am pretty sure this is a situation that will never happen. Just see how simpler improvements led to great debates!
So the only way for the total supply to be realistically increased, is through a hard fork.

How would it be possible for the total supply to be increased: through a miner vote.
Will it ever happen on the main chain? No, that is sure at 99.99%.

I don't think there is a parameter in the code, I think it's just the result of the rewards of each mined block, considering the halvings until the last one at block 6 930 000 in 2140, that gives this amount of almost 21million of BTC.

Ok, then let me reformulate my question. Currently the block reward is 12.5 btc, can we change that?

Yes I think we could change that. Some other crypto currencies based on the Bitcoin code like Dogecoin, have no halving at all...
So I think theorically with a hard fork we could change the future block rewards, but since Bitcoin is famous for having a so called hard coded max supply of 21million, it would not be Bitcoin anymore and we would certainly get a contentious split like for BCH and BSV.

And you franklin2058, what do you think?