Bitcoin Community Controversy Over BlackRock's '21 Million BTC Supply' Video
In a video introducing Bitcoin, BlackRock noted to viewers that the 21 million BTC supply could change in the future.
BlackRock, the asset management giant that holds nearly 525,000 BTC ($50.5 billion) through its BTC ETF, recently released a video introducing investors to the basics of Bitcoin.
The video outlines the history of money, up to its latest incarnation as "Internet money" - Bitcoin. Unlike bank notes or digital currency in an account, Bitcoin is not controlled by any central authority, but is instead maintained by an entire community through the blockchain, giving it the decentralized, transparent, low-fee, and ubiquitous characteristics that have made it famous.
BlackRock claims that there are currently more than 500 million cryptocurrency investors worldwide, with half of them owning Bitcoin and using it as a currency for trading or a store of value for long-term investment.
However, the controversial point in the video is that although BlackRock asserts that Bitcoin has a fixed total supply of 21 million units, preventing the risk of inflation or misuse, the video's description notes the following:
"There is no guarantee that Bitcoin's fixed total supply of 21 million will not be changed in the future."
This note has caused a heated debate among the Bitcoin user community over the past few days, with many opinions mocking BlackRock for not understanding one of the basic and arguably most important "dogmas" of Bitcoin, while others believe that the asset management group is deliberately spreading false information to "inflate the price".
However, one of the most influential figures in the Bitcoin community, Adam Back, has given his own perspective, arguing that this is information that the corporation is obliged to clearly note to investors because they do not have full control over this asset.
Indeed, in the Bitcoin ETF filing submitted to the SEC in January 2024, BlackRock also clearly wrote:
“There is no guarantee that the fixed total supply of 21 million Bitcoin, expected to be reached in 2140, will not be changed in the future, although the possibility of this happening at present is low. If a hard fork upgrade that increases the total supply of Bitcoin above the 21 million BTC mark is approved, this could negatively affect the price of Bitcoin.”
In addition to the community agreeing on a hard fork to increase the total supply of BTC, there are still other ways to create more Bitcoin. In August 2010, the network encountered a bug called “value overflow”, causing the total supply of BTC to swell to more than 184 billion units before being promptly fixed by the anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto.
Some Bitcoin developers have proposed solutions to prepare for the year 2140, when the network reaches its maximum supply of 21 million BTC, meaning that no new Bitcoin will be produced in each block. This will generally cause miners to lose a certain amount of rewards for validating transactions and maintaining their network, switching to relying entirely on block transaction fees. Developer Peter Todd proposed reissuing BTC that have been identified as lost or permanently burned, still respecting the maximum supply of 21 million but will optimize cash flow and maintain financial incentives for miners.
In the event that the network’s validation activity collapses due to a lack of miners, the proposal suggests raising the total supply above 21 million to support this crucial part. However, the support rate for the proposal, called “tail emission”, is not high.
However, there are also opinions that history has shown that nothing is “immutable”, but can always change depending on the majority opinion.
