Mighty Mouse
WKR
There is no single entity in charge of mining bitcoin. Mining is distributed amongst thousands of individual entities spread across the world. They’re all free to choose which cryptocurrencies to mine, and they often do shift their efforts based on market conditions. The closest thing to an “original bitcoin bubba” is the inventor of the Bitcoin protocol, who went by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and (wisely) chose to disappear a few years after launching Bitcoin. “Hard forks” have occurred multiple times and created what could be called version 2, 3, etc. of Bitcoin (e.g, Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Classic). Despite the existence of competing alternate versions, original Bitcoin remains the world’s dominant cryptocurrency.So what happens if the original bitcoin bubba (whoever that, or that company, is) decides to mine a bitcoinv2 or even a bitcoinv3?
The number 21 million is not written in stone. It’s just software.
The 21 million supply limit is indeed a software feature that could in theory be changed. Implementing that change would require majority support from miners and node operators, which IMO is unlikely to occur. Increasing the supply limit would be highly controversial and would likely hurt bitcoin’s market value, which is contrary to the financial interests of those holding and mining it.