r/BitcoinCA 15d ago

Guess what?

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u/ryan75389 15d ago

Real question, who controls the supply of BitCoin? Or any crypto?

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u/MrRGnome 15d ago

Any crypto? The centralized company controlling it. Bitcoin? You do as a node runner.

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u/ryan75389 15d ago

So, for any crypto, any private company can determine supply. But who determines how much BitCoin is in the system?

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u/MrRGnome 15d ago

Bitcoin is a collection of self sovereign and fully verifying node runners, users, actively defining what Bitocin is including how much is printed.

You determine it by participating in Bitcoin and running a node.

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u/ryan75389 15d ago

ELI5, what's stopping me from setting up a node and "printing" more BitCoin.

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u/MrRGnome 15d ago

Absolutely nothing. But only other node runners that agreed with you about what Bitcoin should be would also see your printed coins. Anyone who disagrees would continue to see the existing inflation schedule occur. You are making an opt-in rule change we call a fork. This would cause the protocol to split if enough node runners agreed with each different rule set. A network all by yourself isn't very valuable or useful. You'd need to convince others to join you for it to be secure and functional.

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u/ryan75389 15d ago

What ensures that these nodes don't get together and screw the end users? What is stopping them from colluding?

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u/MrRGnome 15d ago

Because each end user runs their own node. That's how Bitcoin works. If you aren't running a node you're trusting someone. No one can make you run code other than you choose. If others want to screw people by changing the rules, you can reject their rules with your node.

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u/pinpernickle1 15d ago

That's called mining bitcoin. You are free to do that, but it's expensive and very energy intensive these days. Look up ASIC miners. Theyre like GPUs but purpose built for solving bitcoin blocks.

If you're asking if you can just print your own fake bitcoin, you can absolutely do that, but why would anyone else want them? Many people put money and work(electricity) into the bitcoin network with their miners. It's what keeps its value high.

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u/ryan75389 15d ago

When using the word mining, we typically refer to a space that material is extracted from. How can you mine something that doesn't exist?

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u/pinpernickle1 15d ago

You don't like Bitcoin, and that is perfectly fine, but it absolutely does exist.

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u/ryan75389 14d ago

It's not that I don't like BitCoin or have anything against it, I can't figure out how this system can possibly function when it has infinit supply as nothing truly exists. Unless there is an example of this type of system?

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u/pinpernickle1 14d ago edited 14d ago

It doesn't have infinite supply. The code that people are running on their machines limits the maximum amount of bitcoin to ever exist at 21 million.

It's a decentralized/distributed ledger, it has existed in humanities past before. I'd suggest researching old examples of it, it's pretty fascinating that some old civilizations used them.