Thread

1. seymon · 1789644245 · focus · HN ↗

   I hope they still have the private key.

   1. osigurdson · 1789648222 · focus · HN ↗

      It is an interesting fact about Bitcoin in general. There are 21M tokens in total AND some percentage are lost every year. Run this simulation long enough and there will be very few active Bitcoins remaining.

      1. jackb4040 · 1789651244 · focus · HN ↗

         Worth pointing out that the monetary policy of bitcoin is not written in stone; all you need to change it is a majority of hashpower. The current chain of bitcoin mainnet includes hard forks, like this one due to miners&#x27; manual intervention over a software bug that was exploited: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.bitcoin.it&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures#CVE-2010-5139" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.bitcoin.it&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposu...

         1. notpushkin · 1789656701 · focus · HN ↗

            &gt; all you need to change it is a majority of hashpower

            Or rather the majority of actual users. Hard forks occur because people install and use the updated clients. If 90% of the miners decide to mine on the “bad” chain, but 90% of users switch to the “good” one instead, the “good” would likely still win out in terms of market cap and recognition (and the miners would naturally have to follow).

            1. jackb4040 · 1789662748 · focus · HN ↗

               I think for most bitcoin users, the main usability concern wrt forks is being on the most secure chain; i.e. hashpower. If you&#x27;re willing to trade being on the most secure, most historic chain for specific technical features then you&#x27;re probably on an altchain already. In practice every hard fork in history the chain with the most hashpower has retained the ticker, meanwhile the users are never organized enough to do anything but follow that decision.

               1. notpushkin · 1789726566 · focus · HN ↗

                  &gt; every hard fork in history the chain with the most hashpower has retained the ticker

                  The opposite is also true – most miners have stayed on the “official” chain :-) I do agree that having more hashpower helps, but ultimately all users (including miners) determine the price on the market.

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