> The rapid implementation of the patch was vital in keeping Bitcoin a viable cryptocurrency. 184 billion Bitcoin would have devalued the currency completely, leaving it at the mercy of the person holding the newly-minted Bitcoin.

It would have become worthless, sure, but I imagine that other people would have also just gone around creating additional batches of 184 billion BTC and driving the project into the ground, rather than letting one person walk off with effectively the entire thing.

This is the dumb part about today's crypto imo. It is just a type of consensus among humans. People like to say its "all math" or some fundamental property of nature but that isn't true at all. It is a constant in a text file + people agreeing on its value. I.e. if a sufficient number of people agree that "we're bumping it up to 1 billion now", that is how many there would be. The argument really is how much better is this mechanism than other stores of value? Fiat currency is also a number where some people are given a magic wand to make more of it up on the spot. Gold is something that you either store in your house and hope that it is real or have someone else store it for you (or pretend to store it). Real estate is fine until the city / government decides that you don't own the title anymore. Basically it is a comparison of one absurd mechanism vs other absurd ones but perhaps Bitcoin is less absurd in the final analysis.

I don't know if this is the central takeaway I get from this. Moreso it shows Bitcoin dodged a bullet, in that there was still a central figure or group with enough clout to roll back and fork the chain.