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BTC 
ZEC Zcash co-founder questions the 21 million Bitcoin supply cap
Zcash co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson questioned the 21 million Bitcoin supply cap, arguing that the lost private key will gradually reduce the amount of Bitcoin that can actually be circulated on the market. Ben-Sasson pointed out that the long-term problem lies not only in the current lost coins, but also in the direction of this trend. The private key may be misplaced, destroyed, or permanently sealed, making the relevant coin visible on the chain but unusable. He believes that on an infinite time scale, all private keys will eventually tend to be lost.
This proposal does not advocate unlimited supply. Ben-Sasson supports monetary policy with clear caps, but recommends changing the design from a fixed terminal cap to a fixed maximum issuance rate. He cited 4% per year as an example and linked it to population growth and long-term mobility.
Bitcoin supporters oppose scarcity challenges
The response touches on one of Bitcoin\'s core monetary principles. The 21 million cap identifies Bitcoin as a scarce asset, and changing it will require a very high level of coordination among nodes, miners, wallets, exchanges, custodians and holders. This governance threshold has been at the heart of the recent Bitcoin debate. Michael Saylor believes that protocol changes require the agreement of nodes, miners and holders, and regard verification, computing power and economic value as three different levels of consensus. The same issue has also influenced the current OP_RETURN and inscription controversy. Bitcoin users have debated narrower rule changes than the money supply, such as BIP-110 and chain fork risks. Any changes to the Bitcoin issuance model would face higher political and economic barriers because they would touch on the asset\'s core scarcity commitments.
Bitcoin supporters also believe that lost coins increase scarcity rather than weaken it. Inliquid bitcoins reduce the effective supply and make the remaining usable coins scarcer. The divisibility of Bitcoin also provides the network with 2100 trillion coins. Even if the entire Bitcoin is more difficult to obtain, smaller units can still be circulated.
Zcash mode enters discussion
The debate overlaps with Zcash\'s own monetary policy work. The proposed \"cyber sustainability mechanism\" retains Zcash\'s 21 million cap while smoothing issuance and allowing funds that have been withdrawn from circulation to be reissued through future block rewards. This model differs from Ben-Sasson\'s Bitcoin vision because it does not increase the overall cap, but instead attempts to recycle removed ZECs for future offerings while keeping the total supply limit unchanged. Zcash has addressed supply verification issues from another perspective. Project Tachyon is formalizing Zcash\'s Ironwood shielding pool to reduce the risk of hidden counterfeiting in private transactions. Bitcoin\'s debate remains focused on whether its fixed monetary rules should be considered untouchable. [TAG Ben-Sasson\'s proposal turns the issue of missing private keys into a monetary policy debate, but any move to remove bitcoins from the 21 million cap would require users and economic infrastructure to accept a new version of bitcoin.
