Bitcoin Forum

I have read 2140 as well as 2040, even 2114 once.
which is the correct answer? there's a lot of conflicting numbers.

just for you  :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

The EXACT date is impossible to predict.  It will depend on how much hashing power comes online and how fast it comes online.

If blocks were to be solved exactly 10 minutes apart, it would be 2140.  It suppose it could be anywhere from ten years earlier than that to ten years later.

We are already past the half way mark (11mil+ already mined). This means that we can only mine 10 million in the next 128 years.

Am I missing something? That doesn't sound right.

As you get closer to the last coin, the difficulty increases exponentially - meaning you'd need virtually infinite computer power to solve it. Add to that, the reward for finding a block reduces by half every x number of years. By the time we get even remotely close to mining the last coins, it won't be worth the power required.

The correct answer is: never.

The year 2140 is only based on the software's current precision, which divides bitcoins up to 1/100,000,000th. This would imply that around year 2140, the block reward would become zero. However, long before 2140, the precision will be increased (to support smaller fractions of bitcoins, or floating point or whatever) so mining can continue forever.

Mining is never "done" and the actual 21 million will never be reached (although it comes arbitrarily close).

The block reward is reduced exponentially.

Every four years, half of the remaining bitcoins (that's 21 million minus the ones already in existence) are being mined.

That's nonsense. Difficulty only depends on the current hashing power of the network, to ensure that one block is being mined roughly every 10 minutes.

Not really - first of all that totally depends on the actual value of a bitcoin at that time, and second, as the block reward becomes smaller and smaller, the transaction fees will become a more and more imporant incentive for miners.

OK, so it is basically an upside down bell curve.

But guys... that is VERY bad. It technically speaking means that in our lifetime we'll only see around 15 mil (very wild guestimate) in our lifetimes. The last 5 million coins wil take FOREVER to mine.

Correct:

https://i.imgur.com/BIhuirx.png (https://i.imgur.com/QS4doDk.png) (click = large)

Why is that bad? Remember, mining gold also becomes increasingly difficult. And similarly, it will take FOREVER to dig up the last gold out of the earth.

Knowing that we'll only at most ±15 million also means we know it's guaranteed to be scarce, thus valuable. So get your bitcoins now while you still can afford them :)

And yet it is right.


You are correct about the fact that the block subsidy "reduces by half" (approximately every 4 years).  The rest of it you have some learning to do.


There is no guarantee that this will happen.  It might, but it very well might not.


Mining is never done because it will be supported by transaction fees.  In the current design the exact amount of bitcoins created can be calculated, it will be exactly: 20999999.97690000 BTC

Due to the accidental permanent destruction of a few bitcoins by a bug in some mining software, the total unspent outputs in the blockchain will actually be a bit less than that.


Not forever.  15 million will be mined before the end of 2017 (how old are you? I expect to see 20 million mined within my lifetime, in the next 15 years).  It will about 136 years from now until the last bitcoin is mined based on the current implementation.  Why would that be bad?

Well, it is good in a way that it creates scarcity. So if you own bitcoins right now, those posts on how bitcoin is undervalued bitcoin is are spot on correct.

Bad because 15 mil isn't a lot. Bitcoin wants to be a global currency, and if people really get into the swing of things (ie, bitcoin ATMS - already been done, bitcoin at every online merchant) then there just isn't enough. If just 1 billion of the 6 billion people on the planet start using bitcion, 15 mil for the next few years is nothing. And how many of those coins are under a "digital mattress", stashed away for a rainy day?

Sure I get it, we will all work with 0.00001 bitcoins to buy hosting and tip each other on reddit with 0.00000001 bitcoin - you counted my zero's didn't you :)

And that's the problem. It becomes unmanageable and can you imagine the amount of typos people will make. 7 zeros... no wait 6 zeros.  Aaah damn I just paid 10 times more than what I was supposed to.

Dont' stone me but my bets are on Litecoin. 84 mil still isn't enough, but it is at least a bit better.

The software isn't based on "bitcoins", that's just a nickname that we humans use to make it easier to deal with really large amounts.  At the software level everything is represented in "Satoshis" (0.00000001 BTC) as integers.  Basically, the clients all move the decimal over 8 places to the left and call it a bitcoin before displaying it to you, because that was a lot easier to deal with when purchasing a pizza for 10,000 BTC.  Can you imagine if you had to spend 1,000,000,000,000 units to buy the pizza (did you count the zeros)?


That's a bit like looking at a "penny" and calling it "0.00001 Grand".

Humans have a habit of creating nicknames for common amounts of currency.  Examples: 100 grand, 3 Benjamins, a sawbuck, 13 pennies.

There are already common suggestions for using metric units for the smaller amounts, as well as creating nicknames for every 1/100 of the previous nick name (example bitCents).

Time will tell what nicknames actually end up adopted, but my guess is that it won't be long before 0.00001 bitcoin to buy hosting is listed as 0.01 mBTC (milliBitcoin) or potentially even 10 uBTC (microBitcoin).  No need to count zeros there.

In the end, there will be nearly 2,100,000,000,000,000 (2.1 quadrillion) units, and we can all call them "Satoshis" or whatever other nickname the world settles on decades from now.

Obviously, when amounts like 0.00001 BTC become mainstream, we'll simply use smaller units in everyday practice. Like "milliBits" or "milliCoins" as suggested in this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=170015).

Thank you Danny, that does put my mind at ease and is great advice in terms of investment. I've been putting all my resources into Litecoin and your post helped me realize.... exchanging 1 LTC for 0.02 bitcoin is actually a lot. 0.02 bitcoin seems so little, but in microBitoins (which we'll all have to adopt very soon if prices keeps shooting through the roof) 0.02 bitcoin is actually A LOT!

Guess it comes down to that we have to re-adjust our thinking and stop looking at bitcoin in terms of the 2 decimal system.

I enjoyed this conversation, gave me a lot to think about!

@Jace - saw your post after I made the post above. Thank you for the link. It does clear things up!

The gamblers already use ksats. Kilo Satoshis.

I personally don't mind using bitcoins with 8 decimal places. I've gotten used to it. Besides, you're not going to pay much attention to any value below the minimum transaction fee of (currently) 0.0001.

Most bitcoin will have been mined out by the 2030s. By current reckoning, the last satoshi will be mined circa 2140, assuming that bitcoin still exists then and hasn't been subdivided even more.

The actual last bitcoin? We'll be gone by then.  ;)

But most bitcoins will have been mined long, long before that.  :)

And? Thats why the difficulty is adjusting every 2016 mined blocks...

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply

This one looks better.

By the year 2020 there will be 17718750 bitcoins at the start of the year.
By the end of 2024, there will be 20 million bitcoins.

The last million bitcoins will then be mined over the next hundred years.

Or another way of saying it is:
99% of all bitcoins will have been mined by 2032. The last one percent will be mined for a hundred years.

I don't know how many ASICs or peta or exa hashes we will be, but bitcoin can only rise in value compared to how it is used today. So today, bitcoins are relatively cheap, even at $130 USD.

I don't know how you arrived at that date.

I found this on stack exchange:

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10486/when-will-the-last-bitcoin-be-mined
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/8823/how-many-bitcoin-are-mined-per-day

Very far from our friend's date "June 24 2020".

That statement is wrong, because no matter how many halvings there are, the supply will never exceed 21 million. The block reward goes down to zero eventually, but we're all dead by then, that's 140+ years from now.

2032 is the most realistic date of consideration that for all practical purposes almost all the bitcoins have been mined. The next one hundred years will produce less than a million, so miners are probably going for transaction fees by then. They are already going for it right now.

I'd say by 2036 or 2037 we will see the true value or at least the perceived value of bitcoins, and it will only go up from there as there is no more supply but that depends on how much demand there would be (the rest of the world?)

So 15 years from now ...

Actually, it's rather likely that it will be less than 130 years from now.  I'd guess it to be close to 125 years.


"Almost all" is not a very specific number.  I'd say that for all practical purposes almost all the bitcoins have already been mined, since the annualized rate of inflation of the supply is already less than 4% per year.


That's true before 2032.  We should hit that point as soon as 2026.


Maybe sooner?

Yeah, considering that the maximum is almost 21 million but will never reach it, 20 million is a good "almost all". I guess 2020 is also close enough. So between 2020 and 2026 is "almost everything". Or 90%.

which is the same estimate of satoshi about no volume or big volume he was referring to this by any chance

however there are chance that in the future some hard fork change this, it's  unlikely but possible

still the miners  from 2020 already will mine more because of the fee than the block reward

It is right. It's because the amount of bitcoin created from each block reward earned reduces in size, by half, every four years. It's this reduction in the supply that produces the long tail in bitcoin production.

Someone commented earlier that block reward halving is conducted at an exponential rate, this is incorrect. The rate is constant...50% reduction every 4 years. Exponential implies there's some increase or decrease to the rate.

While the rate of the halving is constant, the number of bitcoins produced (the supply) is slowly reducing due to the halving. This gradual slow down in supply, with a demand that just remains the same as it is today, will generate an increase in price. It's quite an incredible thing to think about!


If only 11 million Bitcoin has been mined out of a total 21 million possible, how can you (in "practical terms") consider almost all the bitcoins have been mined. That's literally not true. Are you being sarcastic?

11 million?  Where did you get that number?

Check your math.

Bitcoin has existed for almost 9 years.

During the first 4 years a total of:
210000 blocks * 50 BTC per block = 10500000 BTC

That's 10.5 Million bitcoins already mined before the end of 2012

During the next 4 years a total of:
210000 blocks * 25 BTC per block = 5250000 BTC

That's another 5.25 Million bitcoins mined before August of 2016

Add those together and we find that 10.5 + 5.25 = 15.75 Million bitcoins were already mined before August last year.

As of the time I am posting this, another 53264 blocks have been mined since the reward was cut down to 12.5 BTC per block last year.

53264 blocks * 12.5 BTC per block = 665800 BTC

So...

• For the first ~4 years there were 10.5 Million BTC mined at a rate of 50 BTC per block
• For the second ~4 years there were 5.25 Million BTC mined at a rate of 25 BTC per block
• For the most recent ~1 year have been 0.6658 Million BTC mined at a rate of 12.5 BTC per block

That's:

10.5 Million BTC + 5.25 Million BTC + 0.6658 Million BTC = 16.416 Million BTC mined.

Due to a bug in the early days of mining, the actual number of bitcoins that will be mined will be a bit less than 20999999.9769, but I'll use the theoretical 20999999.9769 maximum since I can't remember exactly how many less it will be.

16.416 million already created / 20.9999999769 maximum ever created = ~78.17% of all bitcoins have already been mined.

I'd say 78.17% is "almost all".

Here's another thought...

Approximately 52500 blocks are created per year.  Since the block reward is currently only 12.5 BTC, this means that in the next 365.25 days there will be ONLY:
52500 blocks per year * 12.5 BTC = 656250 new BTC created

That's only 0.65625 Million BTC.  Since there are already 16.416 Million BTC in existence the inflation rate (inflation of supply) over the next year will be:

0.65625 Million new BTC  /  16.416 Million BTC in existence = 3.998%

That inflation rate will decrease every time a new block is created until it eventually reaches 0% somewhere around the year 2140.  In otherwords, the inflation of BTC supply will NEVER again be more than 4%.  How many countries can confidently say that about their currencies?

You're right. I relied on a number that someone else posted in this thread and did not verify that it was accurate before my original post.

I just checked https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins (https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins) and verified their estimate of 16.4M Bitcoin in existence.

And with that number I agree with you - 78% of the total have been mined.

I suppose we can agree to disagree on what exact percentage is fair to call it "almost all". For me, it's not "almost all" until we exceed 90% mined. But I don't want to get into semantics here.

Additionally, I never questioned your supply inflation rate of 4% (current) and declining in the future. I'm well aware of the math.

Thanks for calling me out!

His "almost all" was 78%, or maybe 80%.

My intention for "almost all" was 90%, and a couple more halving eras and we are close to 99%.

2024 is the year we hit 90%.
2036 is the year we hit 99%.

2028 we have 19 million mined, the last million is the one that will take "forever".

Someone else?  I just looked through the thread and I don't see any reference to 11 million bitcoins prior to your post?

Did I over look it?  Had I seen it, I would have corrected them before you ever got a chance to rely on their number.


Which is EXACTLY the point I was trying to make when I said:

Dabs gave an example arguing that they will be "almost all" mined when it reaches 99%.
I gave an example of why it could be argued that they are already "almost all" mined.
An equally valid argument could be made that "almost all" were mined when the first halving happened at 10.5 Million.
Or perhaps it isn't really "almost all" until the transaction fees per block exceed the block subsidy?


Yep.  That works too.  Should hit that in less than 5 years.


Too late.


My point was that an inflation rate of less than 4% could be used as a "almost all" threshold just as easily as 90% or 99%, or 80%, or any other arbitrary number.


Specifically, my "almost all" was when the inflation rate dropped below 4%.


Like I said above... Less than 5 years to reach that point.


Correct. Specifically it should be approximately 18 years.  That would be a bit less than 5 more halving eras.


More like 2021, maybe 2022.


It should take a bit less than 18 years. So, while 2036 is possible, I wouldn't be surprised to see it in 2035.


Nope.  Should hit 19 million by 2022.


Correct.  We will hit 19999999.9769 in 2026.  Then that last million to get from 19999999.9769 to the final 20999999.9769 will take from 2026 until approximately 2140.

2027 is when we start going to the moon, mars, another galaxy, or whatever the speculators like to picture. I'm betting (no money, just saying) the media is going to publish an article about the 20th million bitcoin, and it will get coverage by the major networks, maybe CNBC and CNN, a bunch of finance and investing websites and blogs and podcasts ...

So about 9 or 10 years from now ...

I'm going to "save" one bitcoin a year and stuff it in some tungsten wallet (or paper wallet).