Comment by npoc

If anyone creates a different bitcoin version with double the number of bitcoins, that new network would be worthless.

Not only would no-one have confidence that the same thing wouldnt happen again, but the value of the bitcoin in this new version would be half that of the old system. No one who holds bitcoin (the people who count here) would agree to use the new version. It would be dead in the water.

Even if it did manage to gain traction (which it wouldn't), the people still using the old version would prevail due to their use of harder money, just as bitcoiners are prevailing over fiat-holders.

It's like trying to change the text of the bible - something of that order of difficulty but still much, much harder due to the enormous incentives to carry on using the previous harder version.