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arguing a fork isn't possible (or even prablboe), just that it wouldn't affect the real bitcoin network, much less subvert it. So allow me to address your points one by one: - they would argue it should be done for some reason that may sound plausible or not to most users Not sure how they would do that, given that the increased rewards would benefit ONLY the miners, and in fact devalue everyone else's bitcoins, not to mention the following erosion of faith in the currency and whatnot. But go ahead and try to pitch such a change to us, maybe there's something I haven't thought of. - as the bitcoin network depends on their power to verify transactions the incentive to agree is quite high. Nope, it absolutely and completely doesn't (depend on the miners). If the miners wanted out they could go out, and even a couple measly computers run by end users mining the bitcoins would be enough to process all the transactions, since the protocol would lower the difficulty in the hashing algorithms (to maintain the constant 6 blocks/hour average speed). Of course, at that point those 2 people would end up becoming immensely rich off of their generated bitcoins (or transaction fees at a later date), and thusly more people (be them end-users or dedicated miners) would want in on the bounty, raising the collective CPU power again. This effect BTW is what will keep the collective CPU of the network at an average just on the fringe of profitability from mining. Good luck trying to convince the small-time miners from quitting the current network when their winnings would exponentially increase. This is all basic game theory stuff. - well ahead of any changes apply for the actual running clients, there will be a consensus of what to do, and it will be one of1. the reward is increased some amount that is generally agreed on, Here is where the argument actually starts to fall apart. It doesn't really matter whether the protocol assigns 50 bitcoins/block or 50 trillion. If the same number of miners continue to do the mining, the whole bitcoin economy will work on those amounts of money. So, instead of bitcoins being worth a little over a USD as they are right now, the exchange rate would be something like 1USD = 1 trillion bitcoins. But nothing else would really change, and miners who switched to this wouldn't actually be any richer.This is another fatal flaw of Tim's argument; the supposed incentive for wanting to do this simply does not exist, because it would only be an advantage if you could generate more coins than everyone else but still spend them on the mainstream network. If they somehow manage to convince the whole network to change to a more generous protocol (and I think I've more than explained why this would be a little more than impossible in a real world scenario), then the advantage isn't there anymore. And since the current protocol wouldn't allow forged coins to be accepted into the network, this whole scenario is pointless.I do think the protocol lacks one thing though: a way to compensate for lost coins (coins can be destroyed if the physical device where they're stored stops functioning). Currently what the creators say is that it wouldn't be a problem because the currency would just deflate to compensate for it (that's where the 8 decimal places after the point come in handy), and it's totally true, but to me that seems a) inelegantb) unsustainable over a VERY long term (I'm talking centuries here, not even decades). Theoretically there would come a time when even those 8 decimal places wouldn't be enough, and that's what bugs me.Of course maybe designing a currency meant to last more than a few centuries might sound a little too ambitious, but that's my personal gripe with the current state of the protocol. Of course it's technically still in beta, so hopefully they will address that before deeming it ready for mass consumption .Anyways, I've digressed enough.
