Ok after carefully considering all your concerns about the total coin supply we decided to do something about it. We had several options but ultimately we decided not to lower the total coin supply, instead we decided to stretch out the time it takes for all the coins to be mined. So instead of having a 10 year half life, we have increased it to 100 years, meaning it will take 100 years before half of all the coins are mined. That should mean about 1 billion coins mined in the first year.
There are several reasons we decided to take this approach, first of all it's the easiest, and it mimics the same type of coin scarcity we would get simply by lowering the total coin supply. Secondly, this type of ultra long mining period will ensure a very fair distribution of coins over a very long period of time. Thirdly, a it's a more organic solution to the problem because we don't have to mess around with any constants and it comes with some advantages such as fairer distribution.
While this solution makes sense, I think it would have been better to just lower the total supply. On the surface level, a new trader who looks at the total supply might be turned away by the 186 billion total, even if it is going to be distributed over 100 years.
Realistically, this coin won't reach age 100, I'm doubtful any crypto will. We will be playing with some other digital currency form by then.
So why not just cap it to 18 billion?
Either way, I'm excited for this launch.