Another false statement:
"Bitcoin's supply is fixed"
False, it's capped not fixed at 21M but if you add decimal places more lowest denomination Bitcoins get dispersed and we get closer to 21M.
Discussion
I don't follow you on that one, the supply is 2.1 quadrillion sats, not 21M bitcoin, so there's no inconsistency with the denomination. All 2.1Q sats can be dispersed (dust is a separate issue)
2.1 quadrillion Sats will not be dispersed.
Almost 2.1 quadrillion will be dispersed.
The more decimal places added the closer we'll get to 2.1Q.
We'll never actually get there though.
There’s been discussion about how “just add more decimal points” is not possible. Sats are the basic unit, not BTC. Adding more decimals is just like doing a 10:1 stock split. Just a thought.
Sats are the lowest denomination.
If you increase the decimal places, Satoshis are no more the lowest denomination.
Why wouldn't it be possible?
There's extra halvings in place already.
There are no decimals in bitcoins denominations, in reality. Value is stored as integers values, as sats.
In reality there is decimals, look at the code.
In your reality, which is wallet software / front ends you're correct.
I don’t wanna argue with you and I probably won’t keep digging into the GitHub further but the value of a transaction in bitcoin is denominated in satoshis. Which is an integer value.
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/transaction/utxo/
Here the amount field for spending a utxo is denominated in satoshis.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/consensus/amount.h
Also see this post from John Carvallo where he advocates renaming satoshis to bitcoin because of the point I’ve been making here.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/the-unit-denomination-of-bitcoin-does-not-need-to-change
What say you?
I see where you have taken this discussion now.
Adding decimals just puts the lowest denomination to a smaller amount of the Bitcoin network.
You're saying there are no fractions of the smallest denomination - well duhhhh.
You keep saying adding decimals and I keep saying multiply by 10
You're taking this conversation to a different place.
I'm just talking about lowering the value of the smallest denomination getting us closer to the 2.1Q cap.
Stephan Livera is also wording this here in a half truth and is the only point I'm trying to get accross.
"There will never be more than 2.1Q sats"
This is a true statement, but...
"There will never be 2.1Q sats"
This is also true,..but
"There will never be 2.1Q sats, only as close as you can get to it with each "decimal" place added in the code."
This is the fullest form of truth.
Forgot to add the Stephan Livera quote:
Yup sure I agree you have some true statements here. My point is irrelevant.
Just pointing it out because “adding decimals” is something relatively easy to do, where “multiply the base unit by 10” is hard.
Soft fork vs hard fork. Mostly just saying the mathematical truths you are saying about halvings and getting closer to the satoshi limit is somewhat impractical.
Yes, very impractical & might never be necessary.
If smallest denomination is never changed then the cap is not even trending to ~21M Bitcoins...
Supply = <21M BTC
You're right in that it's technically less than 2.1Q, but that's because there are no decimal places even to halve 1 sat at the last reward epoch. Sat is the actual unit technically, not a whole coins.
20,999,999.9769 BTC
This is Bitcoin's (current) hard cap.
No matter what we did it'll never get to 21M, even though in the code I'm pretty sure it starts with that number, making the Bitcoin denomination exist but only to Bitcoin itself - the users' only interaction is with Satoshis.
(Take away 50BTC from the genesis block if you want the total Satoshis that were ever spendable.)
If you don't understand this, you should continue studying Bitcoin until you do.