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RE: Warning: How Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Industry could be Defeated: Fractional Reserve Bitcoin
But you're talking about cryptocurrency exchanges like Poloniex which tend to be centralized either completely or to an extent. So, of course, these websites, these platforms, as middle men, can do things like that, similar to what central banks do with fractional reserving. You said that many people prefer the simplest things and I agree. So, people tend to prefer those exchange websites, etc, and I think that is what you said. I agree. It can be harder for people to take care of their Bitcoin private keys themselves, to have their own wallets. But my main point was in regards to cryptography itself as people can conflate between the exchange websites and the actual cryptocurrencies themselves.
I'm a developer and have been familiar with cryptography / hashing algorithms since the mid 90's having written my own (insecure but good enough) cryptography for software registration. I'm not talking about the blockchain itself, but the exchanges subverting / diverting transactions away from blockchain based proof. When you say "I don't think Bitcoin works that way", you seem to be saying that exchanges can't create central databases that never submit transactions to the mempool.
Bitcoin Theory:
If you're saying that the exchanges are or can be deceptive, then I agree. However, at least in theory, Bitcoin is supposed to be a blockchain thing that cannot be divided up and put in different places that would be isolated from the sync that Bitcoin is supposed to have.
Borg Bitcoin
I compare Bitcoin to the Borg in that they are all supposed to be connected in a sync. But I can't say that is how Bitcoin is. I don't really know if this is true but I can say this is what people say about Bitcoin.
Deceptive Exchanges
Can an exchange be deceptive? Sure. I don't doubt that they can try. I just don't know to what extent. So, I don't want to say how bad that an exchange can be. But at the same time, I also don't want to say that the actual number of Bitcoin tokens or Satoshi units can be altered. Well, I don't want to rule out that the exchanges can't create like a virtual bubble where transaction occur within the exchange that might be virtual and not connected to the actual Bitcoin blockchain network apart from when money actually exits the exchange. So, if you're talking about things that may happen within exchanges themselves, then I agree and those types of things wouldn't surprise me.
Bitcoin
I just wanted to make sure you're not saying that the exchanges would be actually changing how many Bitcoins there are. But I'm not saying what you are talking about is not a big issue.
You obviously aren't reading the article or have reading comprehension issues. It was stated clearly that it's impossible for there to be more than 21 m BTC on the blockchain. Please don't waste my time with nonsensical comments until you read.