"Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people" | Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin creator
On February 6, 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, made a profound statement on the scarcity of Bitcoin in relation to the world’s population. He said, “Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people.” This quote highlights the built-in scarcity of Bitcoin, which is designed to have a maximum supply of 21 million coins. Nakamoto’s observation underscores the potential value of Bitcoin as a digital asset in a world with a growing population.
The fixed supply of Bitcoin contrasts with traditional fiat currencies, which can be printed without limit and are subject to inflation. Nakamoto’s vision for Bitcoin was to create a decentralized currency that could not be controlled by any single entity and would have a predictable supply, making it resistant to inflation and manipulation. The scarcity of Bitcoin is one of its defining characteristics and is often compared to precious metals like gold, which also have a limited supply and are used as a store of value.
The whole quote from Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin is as follows:
"Eventually at most only 21 million coins for 6.8 billion people in the world if it really gets huge.
But don't worry, there are another 6 decimal places that aren't shown, for a total of 8 decimal places internally. It shows 1.00 but internally it's 1.00000000. If there's massive deflation in the future, the software could show more decimal places.
If it gets tiresome working with small numbers, we could change where the display shows the decimal point. Same amount of money, just different convention for where the ","'s and "."'s go. e.g. moving the decimal place 3 places would mean if you had 1.00000 before, now it shows it as 1,000.00."
