Is the total amount of Bitcoin 21 million a "religious" belief?

A common topic in the cryptocurrency world has resurfaced recently: the expansion of Bitcoin.

According to a report by Trustnodes on February 24, Peter Todd, the main advocate of Bitcoin's 1MB block, said that Bitcoin's 21 million supply cap is "actually just a 'religious' belief."

This news caused great controversy in the industry. Jiang Zhuoer, a senior figure in the cryptocurrency industry, quickly commented on the news, believing that this was a solution that the Bitcoin Core team would inevitably propose.

Here, let me first introduce some basic background information. Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, and a group of early developers selflessly contributed to and served it. After Satoshi Nakamoto left Bitcoin, the development rights of Bitcoin were gradually taken over by the Bitcoin Core team. Peter Todd is one of the developers of the Bitcoin Core team.

So what does the subtext of Peter Todd's "religious belief" in the message released by Trustnodes mean? In the eyes of some people, this belief has no reasonable reason and is not rational, but irrational, that is, religious. So the extended meaning is that there is no need to stick to the 21 million upper limit.

In Jiang Zhuoer's opinion, this is a way for the Bitcoin Core team to test everyone's reaction by making such a statement, and to prepare for the future expansion of Bitcoin. Furthermore, Jiang Zhuoer believes that this is the inevitable path for the Bitcoin Core team. Because the Bitcoin Core team has always been very persistent in keeping the size of the Bitcoin block at 1MB.

If the size of Bitcoin's 1MB block remains unchanged, then the development will encounter a rather embarrassing situation:

As the Bitcoin halving progresses, the block rewards are getting smaller and smaller, and miners will increasingly rely on the transaction fees contained in the blocks. The 1MB block greatly limits the number of transactions that can be accommodated in each block, which also limits the transaction fees.

In this case, if the price of Bitcoin does not continue to rise, the profits of miners participating in mining will become smaller and smaller. The miners' smaller and smaller profits will force miners to gradually withdraw from Bitcoin mining. With fewer and fewer miners participating in mining, the Bitcoin network will become more and more vulnerable to attacks.

So how to break this deadlock? At present, there seem to be only two options:

The first is to expand the block capacity so that a block can contain more transactions and thus more transaction fees, so that miners can get enough returns even when the block rewards are getting smaller and smaller;

The second is to change the block halving strategy and continue to give miners relatively abundant block rewards.

BCH and BSV chose the first strategy, while Bitcoin Core rejected it.

In Jiang Zhuoer's opinion, the only option for Bitcoin Core now is the second strategy, which is why Jiang Zhuoer immediately commented on the news and firmly believed that Bitcoin Core would take this path sooner or later.

Judging from the current situation, at least I think that after this halving, the block reward of Bitcoin will become 6.25. Such a reward can still maintain miners' mining. But after several rounds of halving, when the block reward becomes less, whether Bitcoin can continue to attract miners is indeed a question that everyone should pay attention to.

Back to Bitcoin, in my opinion, the significance of the issuance cap of 21 million coins is no longer a specific number, but a mark that has been deeply engraved on Bitcoin. Once this mark is removed, the soul and belief in Bitcoin will be shaken.

If one day the issuance limit of Bitcoin is really changed to 21 million, I will abandon Bitcoin without hesitation and invest all this money in Ethereum.

Today's Fear & Greed Index (FGI) is 41

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Global Blockchain Index (GBI) 10621.05

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Risk warning: Investing involves risks. The content is only personal analysis and is for reference only. It does not constitute investment advice. Maybe what I said is wrong, so you have to be careful.