Vitalik proposes a limit for the total amount of Ethereum

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin just came up with a new proposal that could be a great start for solving one of the network’s biggest problems: whether a limit on the amount of ETH that could be created would be set in the near future.

According to CoinDesk, the latest Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), released on April 1, the digital asset’s creator presented his latest thoughts on the matter, proposing to both developers and software users a maximum supply of ETH: 120,204,432. Basically, this is two times the amount of ether sold in its original sale, from 2014, in a forthcoming software change.

A first for the founder

This was the first time Vitalik Buterin has directly talked about the platform’s monetary exchange, one of the most delicate topics, which obviously attracted a lot of criticism, due to its lack of clarity. Investors, especially, have not once publicly doubted the potential of Ethereum, as an investment opportunity, so this can change their opinion.

When it comes to Bitcoin, it was settled that no more than 21 million tokens will be created, as per one of the main rules of the protocol, but Ethereum seems to have a more open-ended policy. Currently, up to 18 million tokens can be issued yearly, even though it was said, multiple times, that these terms could change, following a milestone change to the protocol.

In his post, Buterin said that his idea, if adopted, would eventually “ensure the economic sustainability” of the platform, after the move to a new algorithm by which coins are created.

The policy will be under development for a while

This new shift will be a perfect time to clarify everything on how those who operate the software necessary to check transactions will be rewarded int he future. On the other side, the exact terms still need to go through a clarifying process.

Finally, the founder also talked in his post about a situation in which a monetary policy isn’t decided even after the 120 million ether are issued. In this case, he proposed raising the limit to as high as 140 million tokens. But let’s not forget that this is just a proposal, at least for the moment.