an alternative to inflation that might be more tenable to those not wishing to breach 21 million limit: staked mining

Any miner wishing to participate in a block has to stake some large amount of btc 3 blocks in advance. When proofs of work are submitted, the winner gets all the staked btc.

Perhaps the total stake required is fixed (at 10 btc?) so that the more miners there are, the lower the average stake required.

eg. 60 miners wish to mine block 10000003. It is currently block 10000000. They each stake 10 btc. At block 10000001, the total staked amount is 600 but only 10 is required by the protocol so each miner can withdraw 9.83 btc ((600–10)/60). The total staked amount per miner is now 0.16666. At block 10000003, miner 5 submits the winning proof and receives the full 10 btc staked. The other miners leave having each lost 0.16666.