Zcash co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson suggests Bitcoin could abandon its 21M coin hard cap, reigniting debate on supply guarantees.
Macro & Markets ·
Eli Ben-Sasson, Zcash co-founder, has argued against Bitcoin's fixed 21 million coin supply cap, stating that the limit "doesn't make sense" because cryptographic keys will inevitably be lost over time. He proposes instead a monetary policy with a maximum issuance rate—suggesting 4% annually as a reasonable upper bound tied to human population growth—to ensure sufficient circulating supply as keys become permanently inaccessible.
Ben-Sasson frames the shift from a hard cap to a fixed issuance rate as a safeguard against eventual scarcity caused by key loss. He also references an unspecified "security problem, looming large on the horizon," though he does not elaborate on its nature or timeline. His proposal reflects a substantive challenge to one of Bitcoin's foundational design constraints.
The remarks add to periodic debate over Bitcoin's monetary policy, though it remains unclear whether this represents emerging consensus among developers, whether any formal proposal process has been initiated, or how the broader Bitcoin community views such a structural change to the protocol.