Quote from: BurtW on June 18, 2014, 08:18:41 PM

Quote from: brenzi on June 18, 2014, 06:45:42 PM

I'm talking about bitcoin, this is covered by:

Quote from: brenzi on June 14, 2014, 07:18:48 PM

So the bitcoin community will face a choice:

Stick to the fixed supply model and get banned from legal commerce. This would destroy BTC value and bitcoiners would lose a lot of money (or more precisely: wealth) within short time.

What you suggest (gov starts its own altcoin) will only open a possibility for bitcoiners to flee the sinking boat

As discussed in this very thread and in hundreds of other threads just like this one: The total number of Bitcoins specified in the Bitcoin protocol cannot be changed. Bitcoin will end up with (slightly less than) 21 million coins, end of story. The only thing you, the government or anyone else can do to get more is to change the protocol to allow more coins but in doing so a hard branch will be created.

Even if there are only a handful of people left in the entire world mining, using and doing transaction on the original blockchain - the one with the 21 million coin limit - that chain is still Bitcoin by definition. Even if the value goes to $2.00 per BTC some of us will still mine it, use it, and support it, just like we did the last time it was $2.00 per BTC.

There are already what, over 100 alt coins? There will be more and maybe someday a government controlled and backed one. It is all good. Let the market decide which coins live and which coins die.

The protocol could be changed in the event that the miners were to agree to the changes.

Now the question of would the miners agree to this type of change, no almost certainly not.

The question of is this a realistic scenario, also no.