Bitcoin devs can reverse 21M supply cap but can’t force changes – analyst

Bitcoin (BTC) developers can theoretically remove the 21 million BTC supply limit from the source code, but miners cannot accept such a change, an analyst said.

One of the fundamental principles of the Bitcoin network, which is designed to provide the 21 million Bitcoin hard limit, is scarcity – the difference between limited resources and unlimited needs.

Bitcoin's 21 million supply limit was written in open source code by anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, and is publicly available on GitHub, although it is not explicitly stated in the code.

The restriction is found by searching for the “validation.cpp” file and entering the code section called “GetBlockSubsidy”. Mining “halves every 210,000 blocks; That happens about every 4 years,” he says. The mining indicates that due to the 33 bitcoin halvings scheduled to occur every four years, the reward for miners will eventually drop from an initial subsidy of 50 BTC to zero.

Like other codes, Bitcoin's source code is modifiable, meaning that the 21 million limit could theoretically be changed. However, such a change must be accepted by miners to be effective, said Joseph Tetek, a bitcoin analyst at the Trezor hardware wallet.

“Devs can introduce whatever they like, but they can't force the changes on anyone,” Tetek said.

“The main claim in what is accepted is the node runners – the people around the world who run Bitcoin full nodes.”

The analyst In 2017, some developers, miners, and exchanges cited related historical precedents involving a “block war” in which they sought to increase Bitcoin's block size from its original 1 megabyte size.

“Node runners rejected such a change, as it would lead to greater centralization of Bitcoin,” Tětek said. According to the estimates obtained from the website, there may be more than one million unique individuals on the global Bitcoin mining scale.

Some commenters in the Bitcoin community echoed similar sentiments on the Bitcointalk cryptocurrency forum, with many expressing their belief that miners would not support the removal of Bitcoin's 21 million supply cap.

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“Network participants won't run that code and it will have to go to a hard fork that no one can understand,” Bitcointalk user Kakmaker wrote. He added:

“Bitcoin is not like a fiat currency, you can't just open the money printing presses and increase the supply … you need consent from the participants in that network.”

The comments come from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in an interview on CNBC on January 17, questioning the 21 million bitcoin supply cap and questioning BTC's use cases such as “sex trade, tax evasion, anti-money laundering” and BTC. They responded by crushing.

Dimon's hostile stance on Bitcoin hasn't stopped JPMorgan from getting involved in crypto. On December 29, JPMorgan Securities was named as one of the authorized participants in BlackRock's exchange-traded fund to track bitcoin.

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