Hi,
Let's be optimistic and suppose that Bitcoin does take off in a big way and goes mainstream to the point of becoming a significant actor in the world economy. In this scenario, the early adopters -- those of you who populate this forum today -- will necessarily become a minority.
Since in Bitcoin the policy is dictated by the majority of nodes (weighted against hash/sec), how would you guys react if a future majority were to decide that the current policy needed tweaking? I am thinking in particular of the policy that the total number of bitcoins is capped at 21 million. It could very well happen that the majority comes to the conclusion that the builtin cap is having nefarious effects and decides to upgrade the software such that Bitcoin will switch to a controlled inflation system (say 2%/year). How many of you would "fork" in such a scenario?
On a related note, it seems that many of you see the builtin cap as good thing. What evidence would be required to change your mind about this?
Jon.
I just can't see bitcoin taking off in a big way, when it is capped at 21 million. Imagine 21 million divided between the facebook population (lets leave country and nationality out of it) 500 million or half a billion users . That's not a lot of bitcoins to go round, it won't buy you a lot. To be honest it mirrors the goldbugs who want to base the real currency of there countries on a gold, or a gold standard. Unless the the world changes it's monetary system from a fractional reserve system to 100% reserves and bit coin does away with the cap, only then could it work.
We live in an exponential monetary system so the money supply has to be exponential in nature and character to fit in with it. If bitcoin were to ever challenge let alone replace our existing money supply it would to change to an exponential currency. The only other way would be to change the worlds money from a fractional reserve to 100% reserve system.