Last week, some commotion started in the Bitcoin scene around the latest video published by Blackrock (Decrypt article). Although a bit hidden, Blackrock expresses that the max supply of 21 Million Bitcoin is not guaranteed and may be subject to change. Those who know Bitcoin sufficiently enough, know this topic is not new.
When I mentioned this to a crypto investor the other day, he responded: "When that happens, that marks the end of Bitcoin!". He may be right, but he may also not be.
The chances such changes to Bitcoin will be made, increase with institutions of any kind, taking larger positions in BTC. Sure, they are not mining, hence they will not have direct control in the consensus governance of the blockchain itself, but they are named accounts. As are the miners (pools, data centres); Named account as well.
Named accounts can easily create plans together out-of-sight-of-everyone, plans in their favour.
What do I mean by 'Named Accounts': these are named individuals, companies, institutions, governments of which contact details are available.
@edjeInterestingly, the three guys running the BTC podcast I so much love (Satoshi Radio, a Dutch podcast talking about Bitcoin and crypto in general), have one guy who is a true original Bitcoin guy. Not necessarily he is a BTC maxi, but someone who believes in the original intend of Bitcoin. He is not against institutions stepping in persé, but he realises Bitcoin isn't exactly what Satoshi meant with his whitepaper. Almost every week he discusses this topic in one or the other way.
Out of the three hosts, he is also the guy who experiments the most in crypto space. Like he also went down the rabbit hole of pumpfun and such like that. Love that, since that reflects so much with what I do; Experiment with much of what is around in crypto space.
Another interesting thing he did, he launched a Bitcoin mining pool last summer (with a different setup to a normal pool; a block mined by a miner in the pool receives the entire block rewards, ie the rewards are not split across all miners in the pool) as part of a one time only project to get the podcast community to get into BTC mining, using BitAxe hardware (approx 200$ costs to buy). Within days he got 350 orders and suddenly the pool became of a size that waved around in the Bitcoin world. Had to laugh, not against him but in favour of him. How a Dutch podcast host (addressing only the people who master the Dutch language) running now for 5 years or so, with a few hundred to thousand regular listeners, results in many eyes around the world pointing at his initiative. An initiative launched by a single who did this out of love for Bitcoin and his strong belief for the everyday person to contribute to mining to counter the big ass, more or less centralised, setup of Bitcoin mining across the board.
Best would be millions of people, perhaps even a billion people will run a BTC miner. The best setup not only for Bitcoin network but for any other blockchain. Best is to distribute mining more or less evenly across millions to billions of people. Anything needs to be done, to make such happen. Preferably even without needing a pool to still have chances to receive same benefits as the bigger miners get. Since all this increases the certainty, bad actors of any kind are not able to screw around with the foundation of a blockchain (and its associated money).
Bitcoin is getting (or already is) in the danger zone imho, even though many arguments can be made, nobody will act abusive because it may cost them dearly. But nothing is guaranteed. Like, when the majority of bitcoin holders want changes, they may be able to convince each other and subsequently push through the changes they want and hold the floor in case the other group start to exit. The more 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% total supply holders around, the more centralised mining and even data centres are, the higher the chance of 'centralised' control over the blockchain and the Bitcoin currency itself.
The more Michael Sailor's, Salvador's, Butan's, Trumps/USA reserve's are favouring Bitcoin and take increasingly larger positions, the chances increase the control over Bitcoin as a blockchain and as a currency ends up with the powerful few who will drive both, the blockchain and the currency in directions of their preferences.
When such a scenario plays out, in whatever timeframe, even when this is in eg 50 years from now, we end up with a currency much like a Dollar, a Euro or whatever fiat currency we can think of. However, now controlled by an undefined group of people and institutions.
Not for Bitcoin, not for any other blockchain and its associated currency. This is one of the reasons why I find it so important for a blockchain it allows people to run a miner on everyday hardware, like a laptop, a smartphone, a Raspberry Pi or something like that. Cheap and affordable hardware for the majority of the world's population.
