StarkWare CEO proposes replacing Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap with a 4% annual issuance rate

Odaily reported that StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson suggested replacing Bitcoin's hard cap of 21 million coins with a 4% annual issuance rate. He argued that the current hard cap is "unreasonable" because private keys will be lost over time — "as time tends toward infinity, all private keys will be lost." Ledger estimates that around 4 million Bitcoins have been permanently lost. Ben-Sasson stated that a 4% annual issuance rate roughly matches the global population growth rate. The proposal sparked opposition within the community, with critics arguing that the fixed cap is core to Bitcoin's value and that Bitcoin can be divided down to 2.1 trillion satoshi units, which is sufficient to address the issue of declining available supply.