If you look at it from another perspective, assuming people will dump to profit the other half, which is likely, then they are likely to sell at 60% of the value of the NEM coin if it were to be 4B. Maybe 70% if they are lucky. But that may also create a larger distribution spread as there may be more entrants.

There are two things to consider here.

One is that NEM is quite fairly distributed with probably 1500 people owning (we assume many will own 2 NS and above). Doubling it and then letting them sell into the market can only spread the holdings more evenly. This is so unlike many other coins. It will create some velocity in the coin which bodes well. What we want is dilution of the holdings rather than hoarding. Doubling, if it is linear (which is not often the case), is effectively halving the value of a coin. It does not translate to halving the market capitalization. Hence there is no question of value dilution.

Secondly, if you look at a matured market like the equity market, there is frequent splitting of stocks with no adverse effects. The reality is tens of thousands are owning those stocks and the announcement logistics are more of a nightmare compared to our assumed 1500 stakeholders. Announcement are normally made with 1 or 2 months' notice at most. Their procedure is even worse than ours. We are automated and one can see the doubled value in the account on day 1. There is no such thing as having to register by such and such a date as in the stock market to be eligible for a second share split.

Further, in almost all stock splits the value is seldom less than half but on the contrary, they usually end up between 20% to 40% more in absolute value. That's the point I am getting at. It is almost for sure that the market capitalization of NEM will go up in value if we have more NEMs in circulation. Of course as I mentioned earlier in my post, we can never prove this because once rolled out, it will not be able to tell you if could be otherwise.

Have a think about that rather than pleasing anyone for the sake of superstition. Superstition may have been the reason for change initially, but if one were to ponder deeper into it, it gives us better insight into what it might be if we were to really increase it for another reason.

I don't think there is any confusion that we need to be worried about.


Edit:

It never occurred in my mind that we should increase the number of coins. Superstition is never part of me. I even have my telephone number ending with a "dead" 4. I didn't care and I just took the number although I had the option to change it then. But back to topic, I never usually write off anything outright without giving much thoughts to it.

To say that 8B is controversial is also an overstatement. Most who objected to it do not have any solid quantitive reasons and there were far fewer objecting it. No one challenged my rationale with the same quantitative analysis that I have been putting up. Of course I wasn't suggesting 8B. In fact, I was suggesting much more! But since 8B was thrown around, I am ok with that as a "somewhere in between sort of number". Like I said, it is even better if it is 80B instead. But the argument is to raise the number of coins substantially. And this is what I put forward as being something we should think about.