KEY TAKEAWAYS
- There are only 21 million bitcoins that can be mined in total.
- Once bitcoin miners have unlocked all the bitcoins, the planet’s supply will essentially be tapped out.
- Currently, around 18.5 million bitcoin have been mined; this leaves less than three million that have yet to be introduced into circulation.
- Once all Bitcoin has been mined the miners will still be incentivized to process transactions with fees.
The Supply of Bitcoin Is Limited to 21 Million
In fact, there are only 21 million bitcoins that can be mined in total.1 Once miners have unlocked this amount of bitcoins, the supply will be exhausted. However, it’s possible that bitcoin’s protocol will be changed to allow for a larger supply. What will happen when the global supply of bitcoin reaches its limit? This is the subject of much debate among fans of cryptocurrency.
Currently, around 18.5 million bitcoin have been mined. This leaves less than three million that have yet to be introduced into circulation.
While there can only ever be a maximum of 21 million bitcoin, because people have lost their private keys or have died without leaving their private key instructions to anybody, the actual amount of available bitcoin in circulation could actually be millions less.
Bitcoin Mining Rewards
The first 18.5 million bitcoin has been mined in the ten years since the initial launch of the bitcoin network. With only three million more coins to go, it might appear like we are in the final stages of bitcoin mining. This is true but in a limited sense. While it is true that the large majority of bitcoin has already been mined, the timeline is more complicated than that.
The bitcoin mining process rewards miners with a chunk of bitcoin upon successful verification of a block. This process adapts over time. When bitcoin first launched, the reward was 50 bitcoin. In 2012, it halved to 25 bitcoin. In 2016, it halved again to 12.5 bitcoin. On May 11, 2020, the reward halved again to 6.25 bitcoin. This effectively lowers Bitcoin’s inflation rate in half every four years.
The reward will continue to halve every four years until the final bitcoin has been mined. In actuality, the final bitcoin is unlikely to be mined until around the year 2140. However, it’s possible the bitcoin network protocol will be changed between now and then.
The bitcoin mining process provides bitcoin rewards to miners, but the reward size is decreased periodically to control the circulation of new tokens.
The rate that bitcoin are produced cuts in half about every four years. Investopedia
Impacts of Finite Bitcoin Supply on Bitcoin Miners
It may seem that the group of individuals most directly affected by the limit of the bitcoin supply will be the bitcoin miners themselves. Some detractors of the protocol claim that miners will be forced away from the block rewards they receive for their work once the bitcoin supply has reached 21 million in circulation.
But even when the last bitcoin has been produced, miners will likely continue to actively and competitively participate and validate new transactions. The reason is that every bitcoin transaction has a transaction fee attached to it.
These fees, while today representing a few hundred dollars per block, could potentially rise to many thousands of dollars per block, especially as the number of transactions on the blockchain grows and as the price of a bitcoin rises. Ultimately, it will function like a closed economy, where transaction fees are assessed much like taxes.
Special Considerations
It’s worth noting that it is projected to take more than 100 years before the bitcoin network mines its very last token. In actuality, as the year 2140 approaches, miners will likely spend years receiving rewards that are actually just tiny portions of the final bitcoin to be mined. The dramatic decrease in reward size may mean that the mining process will shift entirely well before the 2140 deadline.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the bitcoin network itself is likely to change significantly between now and then. Considering how much has happened to bitcoin in just a decade, new protocols, new methods of recording and processing transactions, and any number of other factors may impact the mining process.
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2. - 8 minutes later at 22:31 Sun Feb 21, 2021:
The reason they make Crypto Currency and Bitcoins was due to complain by customers in Gold Country club that they were being overcharged by clerks who recorded the transactions manually.
For that reason, we decided to propose the implementation of a new electronic data transaction system which would record those previously manually dealt with transactions with that new system
We charged around $30,000 for it, and it was to be deployed in about 3 days or so, including training for employees and so on.
It would help to monitor the transactions more accurately, and, would be possible to analyze errors faster, and so, to solve the problems faster by increasing the level of accuracy of data.
Furthermore, it did not deal with the legal aspect of the system, since, back then, legal feasibility was not an issue in system design and decision from the administrative staff to make a decision to pay for the new system.
All the legal aspect was left to their lawyer to deal with, back then.
Now, legal feasibility is part of system design, since, lawyers also interfered against those systems designs transactions and sought to forfeit intellectual property rights of the rightful creators of those solutions, so, had to be integrated in the new system as internal entity, and not only as external entity as they were before.
So, those electronic accounting system, and, spreadsheets, were the first crypto-currency systems, methods, and, yes, accounting systems which were more accurate, and also faster and more cost-efficient than previous risk of errors from clerks, while making the verification of their transaction easier to detect and to prove how and why they would try to falsify reports.
They think as lawyers and judges do, that it’s ok to misrepresent someone as bad and criminal, because, they decided to, however, while falsifying reports of their crimes, and while falsifying the reports of the actions of those they falsely accuse and indict and imprison and seek to team up against to justify to forfeit their rightfully created work, which work they have to prove in courts, and register copyright for, and apply for patent for, to deserve protection from legal systems, who would otherwise steal from them and make money from their actions against them.
It’s illegal to ignore, to tolerate it, and to connive to do so, and to hide and conceal it by harboring those who do so and did so, and try to justify to do it to others while terrorist abuse it.
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3. - 11 minutes after the 2nd update above, 29 minutes later at 22:51:
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CC
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4. - 11 hours later, 10 hours after the 3rd update above, at 09:05 Mon Feb 22, 2021:
Priceline - Shatner Fired (Shatner and Nimoy)
266,731 views • Jun 30, 2006
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4.2 :
Harrison Ford Broccoli Joke
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RARE BOX:sparkles:
