Starknet founder wants to abolish Bitcoin's 21 million coin limit

Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of Zcash and one of the key figures behind Starknet, is questioning the fixed Bitcoin limit of 21 million coins. According to him, the world will gradually lose access to more and more coins as private keys are lost, which ultimately makes the maximum limit meaningless. He advocates a new monetary policy with a maximum annual issuance of 4%.

Bitcoin is available at OKX and Bybit.

Lost keys make the limit meaningless

Ben-Sasson argues that fixing the Bitcoin supply at 21 million is pointless because private keys are lost over time. As time goes on, more keys disappear, and with them access to the corresponding coins. In his reasoning, if you look far enough ahead, eventually all keys will be lost. The actually circulating amount of Bitcoin therefore steadily decreases, regardless of what the code says.

According to him, this is not just a theoretical problem. He also points to a growing security issue on the horizon, though he does not elaborate on it in his message. His conclusion is that the current approach is unsustainable in the long run and that a fundamental revision of the monetary policy is needed.

Proposal: a maximum of 4% issuance per year

Instead of a hard cap on the total supply, Ben-Sasson advocates a clear monetary policy with an absolute upper limit on future issuance. Specifically, he proposes setting a maximum issuance rate of 4% per year. He links that percentage to the growth of the world population, which he considers a reasonable upper bound. That way, he argues, there will always be enough Bitcoin in circulation for everyone.

Ben-Sasson’s proposal touches on one of the most fundamental principles of Bitcoin: the fixed limit of 21 million coins is seen as inviolable by many supporters. Any adjustment would therefore represent an enormous change for the protocol and the community. The Bitcoin price stands at $62K at the time of writing, a decline of 1.9% over the past 24 hours.