Have you ever wondered how many Bitcoin there are?
Have you ever wondered how many Bitcoin there will be or where they come from?
If you answered yes to either of those questions this article is for you!
This post is going to break down Bitcoin by the numbers, in a simple and easy way.
Let’s get started!
How many Bitcoin are there?
Before we answer those questions, we first have to cover a few terms.
What is the difference between “Circulating Supply” and “Max Supply”?
Circulating Supply is the best approximation of the number of coins that are circulating in the market and in the general public’s hands.
Max Supply is the maximum amount of coins that will ever exist in the lifetime of the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin
Circulating Supply as I am writing this there are exactly 16,713,037 BTC in circulation.
Max Supply there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin in existence.
So, now you are probably wondering if there are only 16,713,037 BTC in circulation and there will be 21 million BTC created, where do they come from?
Mining
The Bitcoin network is maintained and secured by individuals called miners. Miners verify transactions and generate what’s called a block reward. This block reward contains newly created Bitcoin. Once the transactions are verified, they are recorded in a distributed, public, ledger. This technology is called blockchain.
Bitcoins are created at a predictable and limited rate.This means that over time, the block reward decreases and the difficulty of mining increases. The total supply of Bitcoin is capped at 21 million coins. Bitcoin is finite, and for that reason many analysts believe it is likely its value will continue to rise.
There is no way to calculate an exact date when all 21 million Bitcoin will be mined.
However some estimates put that date around the year 2140
That is the simple answer, if you want to read the more complex answer, one from the Bitcoin Wiki is provided below:
“Because the number of bitcoins created each time a user discovers a new block – the block reward – is halved based on a fixed interval of blocks, and the time it takes on average to discover a block can vary based on mining power and the network difficulty, the exact time when the block reward is halved can vary as well. Consequently, the time the last Bitcoin will be created will also vary, and is subject to speculation based on assumptions.”
“If the mining power had remained constant since the first Bitcoin was mined, the last Bitcoin would have been mined somewhere near October 8th, 2140. Due to the mining power having increased overall over time, as of block 367,500 – assuming mining power remained constant from that block forward – the last Bitcoin will be mined on May 7th, 2140.”
“As it is very difficult to predict how mining power will evolve into the future – i.e. whether technological progress will continue to make hardware faster or whether mining will hit a technological wall; or whether or not faster methods of SHA2 calculation will be discovered – putting an exact date or even year on this event is difficult.”
Bitcoin Wiki
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