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Can Bitcoin's 21 Million Cap Be Changed? Source Code and Fork Analysis

Is the 21 million BTC supply cap an iron law of code, or a convention that can be changed? I spent 3 months verifying it from three angles: the Bitcoin Core consensus code, the lessons of the 2017 BCH fork, and node game theory. The conclusion: technically anyone can fork the code and change the issuance rules, but in terms of game theory it is extremely hard to change unilaterally — understanding this logic is a key step toward judging whether BTC is worth holding long-term. Written for long-term holders who want to understand the underlying logic of Bitcoin's scarcity.