It's inflationary, since more bitcoin are mined every ten minutes or so.
Sure, the code says that it will stop when 21 million are mined, but there's no real guarantee that the code won't change before we reach that point. Or, the blockchain might fork (again) and now there are double the coins.
If you don't trust a coin to operate according to your expectations (e.g. a 21M limit), you can verify the source code and/or run a node yourself. This way you can yourself guarantee that all transactions happening on the network (that your node is part of) operate according to rules that you agree with.
There are already multiple forks of Bitcoin, yet it doesn't seem to change market's perception and valuation of the original Bitcoin.
It's inflationary, since more bitcoin are mined every ten minutes or so.
That's not how it works… think about it.
How can bitcoin be inflationary when the number of coins being produced decreases every 4 years?
There's a fixed supply—over 88% of all the bitcoin that'll ever exist have already been mined.
Yes, every 10 minutes or so, 6.25 new bitcoin come into existence but every 4 years, the block subsidy is cut in half and will continue to be cut in half until the final block is mined. The next halving is May 7, 2024.
Sure, the code says that it will stop when 21 million are mined, but there's no real guarantee that the code won't change before we reach that point.
There's over $500 billion (and growing) in market capitalization that is based on the limit being 21 million bitcoin and not ever changing. This was already litigated by the bitcoin community.
Or, the blockchain might fork (again) and now there are double the coins.
Again, this isn't how it works.
There could be dozens of forks; that doesn't matter. Only the longest chain with the most work on it matters. All of the hashing power would continue on the one true bitcoin chain while the forks languish.
Bitcoin is open source; anyone can download the source code, make a few changes and launch a new chain. But it would get virtually zero support.
You may not be aware of the number of bitcoin forks that have been attempted and failed… Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin XT… you might want to do some reading: https://www.exodus.io/blog/bitcoin-fork/
The limit could only be changed through consensus. It‘s s democratic process. People holding BTC would have no incentive to devalue their own holdings, so they are unlikely to agree with raising the limit. This is why people treat the 21M cap as fixed.
Sure, the code says that it will stop when 21 million are mined, but there's no real guarantee that the code won't change before we reach that point. Or, the blockchain might fork (again) and now there are double the coins.