42 Million EarthBucks

2024-05-08 · Ryan X. Charles

I briefly intended to make the total amount of EarthBucks equal 42, but then learned there is another project called 42 coin, which already did the same thing ten years ago. So I took a poll to reconsider the number of tokens, and by and large the anonymous poll respondents tend to believe 42 million is the best number.

I agree with 42 million for the following reasons:

  • It is close to Bitcoin, making it easy to compare.
  • It is a slightly more memorable number than Bitcoin, due to the Hitchhiker’s Guide (HHGTTG) reference.
  • It small enough that when the coin has a small value in the early days, it will likely have a value that is comparable to fiat currency (although this is impossible to predict precisely).
  • According to Scronty, 42 million is the value Bitcoin was supposed to have originally [1].

Thus, all considered, I have decided to go with 42 million EarthBucks.

Poll results

Discord poll results:

  • 42 (0)
  • 42 million (5)
  • 42 trillion (0)

Twitter poll results:

  • 42 (6)
  • 42 million (14)
  • 42 trillion (10)

Telegram poll results:

  • 42 (4)
  • 42 million (11)
  • 42 trillion (6)

Total:

  • 42 (10)
  • 42 million (30)
  • 42 trillion (16)

Appendix 1: Bitcoin’s Origins

From: Bitcon’s Origins

Maximum Mineable Bitcoin

I said, “There has to be a top maximum limit to the amount of bitcoin that’s able to be mined. Just like setting limits in a computer game.”

“So what should we make the top limit ? A billion bitcoin ? A trillion ?” (2) asked.

I said, “Due to being able to break bitcoin up into incredibly small bits we won’t need to have trillions or billions of mineable bitcoin. It’d be more like farads as opposed to ohms.”

“Say what again ?” (2) asked.

I said, “In electronics we use farads to represent capacitance and ohms to represent resistance. Ohms are small values. We use a 1kohm resistor with an LED to make it light up. Farads are absolutely huge values. We usually use values that are milli, micro, nano and pico - a thousandth, millionth, billionth, trillionth of a farad. So a bitcoin will be like a capacitor. When the network starts running bitcoin would be almost worthless and we’d be using whole bitcoins. However, as time goes by and more folks enter the system, creating more demand, we’ll begin using the smaller and smaller bitcoin values. A range of values: millibitcoin, microbitcoin, nanobitcoin, and picobitcoin. The nanobitcoin would be 9 decimal places and picobitcoin 12 decimal places so if the system ever gets that much demand we can make it use 9 and 12 decimal places instead of the original 8.”

“Ok,” (2) said. “Its range of values will have a spread similar to capacitors. How many of them if not billions and gazillions ?”

“Well,” I said. “This technology is supposed to be the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, right ? That would mean there should be 42.”

“42 what ?” (2) asked. “Surely not just 42 bitcoin ever ! Even with the large range of smaller and smaller values there wouldn’t be enough divisible bitcoin to cover the value of all property in existence. 42 thousand ? Hundred thousand ? Million ?”

I said, “A million sounds about right, I think. 42 million. With the divisible range up to 8 decimal places that would allow up to 4,200,000,000,000,000 or 4.2 quadrillion bitcoin bits. Before we reach that limit the divisible number of bits can be increased by allowing the use of additional decimal places.”

“42 million bitcoin still sounds low to me.” (2) said, “Are you sure ?”

I said, “A maximum mineable bitcoin of 42 million.”


Earlier Blog Posts

Signing In with a Key and the RPC API
2024-05-05 · Ryan X. Charles
Client-Side Key Management
2024-05-01 · Ryan X. Charles
More Thoughts on Network Architecture
2024-04-27 · Ryan X. Charles
Questions about Forks and Reorgs
2024-04-26 · Ryan X. Charles

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