Tail emission produces stable money supply

A fixed perpetual block reward ("tail emission") produces effectively zero monetary inflation, because ongoing coin loss offsets the constant issuance — making it a sound-money-compatible fix for the security budget.

For (strongest version as argued): Coins are permanently lost at some ongoing rate (keys destroyed, outputs burned, estates unrecovered). A constant absolute issuance against a growing supply is a declining percentage rate, and in the limit the circulating supply stabilizes where loss equals issuance — zero net growth. The result funds perpetual mining security from what is effectively a redistribution of dead coins to security providers, rather than dilution of active holders. Monero has run this design in production since mid-2022.

Against (strongest version as argued): The equilibrium argument leans on an unknowable parameter — the loss rate — which is neither constant nor measurable, and which improved custody tooling deliberately drives toward zero. Whatever the math, replacing "21 million, hard cap, never changes" with "zero net inflation under assumptions" abandons Bitcoin's single most legible monetary promise; the credibility cost of changing the schedule once likely exceeds any security benefit, because the precedent that issuance is adjustable is itself the damage. Alternative designs (fee-market maturation, security-tax on spends) address the same problem without touching the cap's optics.

Nuance: The mathematical core (constant absolute issuance → asymptotically zero percentage inflation; supply equilibrium if loss rate is positive and stationary) is not disputed; the fight is over the empirical loss-rate assumption and over whether monetary-credibility costs dominate. On Bitcoin this is a hypothetical: no tail-emission BIP has meaningful traction, and the claim usually appears on stage as either a strawman or a thought experiment.

Common misstatements: "Tail emission is inflationary forever" (percentage rate tends to zero; the supply-equilibrium point is the actual dispute). "Bitcoin is adding tail emission" (no such proposal has traction). "Monero's supply is uncapped like fiat" (issuance is fixed at 0.6 XMR per block by rule, not discretionary).