Bitcoin Forum

We know there will be at some point in time (estimated ~2150) a total amount of 21 million BItcoin in circulation. (minus lost bitcoins etc but all bitcoins will have been mined in the year 2150 or so

So right now we have a life expectancy of about 80 years.

So even if you are born 50 years from now you most likely won't be around when the last bitcoin is mined = when all bitcoins are in circulation.

We even know at what rate we can mine Bitcoin

So my point is, this leaves us in our lifetime with an infinite supply of Bitcoin.

No one will ever have all the bitcoin in the World, therefore, Bitcoin has an infinite unlimited supply to us.

Same as with Gold. We still find and dig and mine for Gold daily, so we have a daily increase of actual Gold we can use.

Same as Ethreum- it doesn't matter that ethereum doesn't have a hard cap because same as with Bitcoin it will be constantly mined during our lifetime.


This is why I say Bitcoin has an infinite supply to every human being alive today

I don't agree with your definition of infinite. Bitcoin is finite, according to the software behind it, and has relatively low inflation that decreases over time. It is this scarcity that drives people to bitcoin. If bitcoin's supply were infinite, there's be no reason to abandon fiat currencies for it.

You must be trippin high while writing this post  ;D
Bitcoin's supply is finite. The last bitcoin will be mined as they say somewhere around the year 2150.
The circulation will of bitcoin will be all the bitcoins mined + number of bitcoins in active wallets.
There are some bitcoins lost ( people who lost their private keys, Satoshi's bitcoins [if he doesn't access them at all], bitcoins sent to oblivion etc.. ).
So, I can't find any reason to call the supply infinite.

You cannot define something infinite and limit it to a certain time which in this case is our lifetime. Perhaps you can simply say we cannot mine all bitcoins in our lifetime.

Bitcoin isnt infinite at all.Bitcoin is afinite type when it comes to supply count.If bitcoin has infinite supply to be mined then we cant see the price go up for sure,thats the main reason why bitcoin remains at the top because of  low supply only around 21million coins can be mined.Bitcoin is indeed finite in supply no more questioning it.

Actually the truth might differ , since we are growing old new people are being added in our population day by day that means now we have to compete with more people and less amount of Bitcoins is present , therefore what I think is no matter if we are getting coins continuously or not the main thing is new traders are getting added regularly which means that your analogy might not stand corrected.

We couldn't really say that it is infinite because we all know that it is limited,
Even if we wouldn't be around when the whole supply has been mined it isn't still infinite.
I know what you are trying to say but it is still wrong to say that it is infinite while we know the fact that it is limited .
It is like saying that we are immortal when we know the fact that we would die too.

You have a different definition of "infinite" which may not be coinciding of the generally accepted notion of the term especially in connection with bitcoin. It is called finite because there comes a time (though it is still far away into the future) when there will be no more bitcoin to mine and so what can be in circulation is the number of bitcoin existing at that time and nothing more. We have nothing to worry on this because bitcoin is being traded everyday there will always be sellers on the market...the problem is if we have no money to buy bitcoin and that means our wallet is finite likewise.

I am not sure which university you graduated to come up with a verdict like this  ::), never compares ETH the coin without a hard cap and gold with bitcoin and the level of your expertise in comparing apples to oranges is evident with your post and my personal opinion to the OP is the first four words of your user name  :P. If something is limited how can you ever preach that it is infinite since you view that is the case in your lifetime, it is time to consult a psychiatrists because your brains are tired thinking too much about it  :D.

OP, your username for this forum suggest that you are not a supporter of Crypto currencies... right? Infinite supply does not matter, if you are going to live to an age of 100 or to 1000, because infinite supply means that it would go on forever, even after you are not around anymore. You obviously want it to be around for your children, when you leave this world.  ;)

There are only a limited supply, because it is spread over a predetermined period and then it stops. <So it cannot be infinite, if you know the predetermined end of the supply.>  ::)

You need to do a bit of research on what "infinite" actually means. The hard limit is strictly 21 bitcoins. Not because it will take us a very very long time to reach somewhere close to that limit, it doesn't mean bitcoin is infinite.

I don't understand how you have a math knowledge, but it's very clear that you don't understand the number issue between Gold and Bitcoin. Yes, we have no idea how long the gold mining can last. Things are different for Bitcoin! Bitcoin will be 21 million pieces! There will be no +/- 1!

I believe infinite and lifetime have different meaning.  So please OP do not misinterpret the term infinite and associate it to lifetime.  

Bitcoin is not made for a certain generation only making its use case limited.  I believe the finite on that terms does not intend to interprete with a reference of  certain generations life span but rather the number of Bitcoins to be mined.  The term infinite here is objective not subjective. So the answer will be NO, bitcoin supply is not infinite.

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So we can bring it down to :

Subjective : you are right about Bitcoin infinite supply  in a certain generation since it can be mine during those generation life span.  But you will be wrong on the later generations.


Objective : you are wrong because it is stated that Bitcoin is limited to 21M coins. 

Well why i said this was because a YouTuber called TOne Vays argues that ethereum is garbage because it doesn't have a hard cap.

Bitcoin doesn't have a hard cap to us either because we won't be around by the time the last bitcoin is being mined.

It doesn't matter if something has a hard cap of 21 million, 3 trillion or no hard cap at all.

Its like saying we run out of water in the year 2500.
So no matter what anyone will do we never run out of water. it will be around till the year 2500.

Same as with gold, we know that there is a finite supply of gold on this planet BUT knowing what technologies we have available for gold ming we can say that we will never run out of finding gold n that planet- saying we have an infinite amount of gold.

Like money- we might not personally have an infinite supply of money but the supply of money is still infinite.

So my point is BItcoin, Ethereum and Gold all have an infinite supply and are being created infinite at least during our lifetime and even people born 50 years from now will never be able to run out of ming neither gold nor bitcoin nor ethereum- its a fact

Actually it is not unlimited but we are currently still living within the bitcoin boundary where every day bitcoin is successfully mined and every day the number of bitcoins decreases if you define unlimited bitcoin means the number of bitcoins will not decrease even though every day miners are mined, I am here just trying to straighten out the paradigm that is not right so sorry if your opinion in my opinion is not right.

if you have 3 apples but you can't eat them because you have no teeth, that doesn't mean you have infinite supply of apples.

the important thing about bitcoin is that it has a cap and that cap means you can't ever have as much as you want or print as much as you want like you do with fiat (paper money).

additionally since you are comparing it with ethereum (although ETH is indeed unlimited), the distribution is important. for example compare the supply of bitcoin and ethereum. bitcoin is at 17 mil but ethereum is above 100 million.

same with gold, it is limited but you can't suddenly extract a million ton gold overnight. it takes time to find new supply and enter it in circulation.
for cryptocurrencies a good cap and a good distribution design with ensure the supply is produced and distributed properly and helps with the price rise but a bad design and no cap will end up like no cap coins that keep losing value.

You are wrong friend ,bitcoin total supply is 21million pieces and that's that ,no more no less ,and now tell me how many humans we have in the world that won't be able to pick out every single bitcoin left ,some are even holding thousands that's why bitcoin is getting more scarce

No one can argue with you since you used infinite in subjective way.

http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/thinking/claims.html

Most of the answer here is objective so both idea will never meet whatever explanation from both side is.  This will just create an endless discussion and won't end.   

you are changing the definition of the concept of being capped and having finite supply so yeah with your own personal and different definition of the word, you are correct but with that same logic everything else is infinite!
but with the same definition, your lifetime is also infinite and you will never die because i change the definition of infinite life to those who don't die by the end of today and if you stayed alive then it means you are immortal thanks to my tiny scope!!!

You clearly do not understand what infinite means :(

Ok, I got rules and regulation crap, I see you clearly understand that Bitcoin is finite so I am not gonna touch that point. But I do not think Bitcoin is infinite from any angle. Suppose we know that we cannot get all the money in the world so there is no point that for you the money is infinite because it is not. The money is counted on a community basis and not an individual basis. So even if you have 10 BTC today by the time of mining the last Bitcoin you will have hardly 0.001 BTC in your hand because of the scarcity of the coin. Everybody will get only some portion of the coin.

Bitcoin's whitepaper clearly says 21 million bitcoins is the total circulating supply. I don't know how you mean to say its infinite when the monopoly of these bitcoins are oh so obvious they have given it a value of more than 5000 USD.

You already indicated that only 21 Million of bitcoins can only be mined right? So it's not infinite.

But I know what are you talking about, some people say that by 2150 all the bitcoin will be mined and by this time we are not around right? so in our lifetime mining bitcoin is really infinite even if we mine daily.

The OP word of "Infinite" is not the infinite technically but as an expression.

As long as there’s a stated maximum number of bitcoin, the supply will never become infinite. It just happen that we have more supply in the market while the demand are still low but in the future maybe we will start to feel that the supply is not enough for everyone.

When I was starting here in this forum, I did a research about bitcoin. And as you have mentioned, I also found out the same—that the amount of bitcoin is just around 21 million. If there is a particular number set such as the aforementioned value, then I don't think it is appropriate to call bitcoin as "infinite". Because infinite means no limitations, no endings. However, in bitcoin's case there is.

Anyway, it seems like what you meant with that is something in connection with our lifetime. In that context, I can see your point. Thanks to @joeperry for making it clear. Now, I understand what OP is trying to say.

I agree, infinite by it's own definition means  no bounds or limits but bitcoin has which is 21 million thus you can't say it's infinite. Bitcoin nowadays is very hard to mine thus it may take a couple more years to mine all the 21 million so I agree with you about us not being able to mine all of it in our lifetime.

Imagine one day ... 0,00000001 btc (1 satoshi) would not be the minimum standard and other decimals will be added :) likewise 0,000000000001 btc (1 millisatoshi)
Of course, you can split infinite of times a number, but the total supply will be even the same.

Actually, with the implementation of Lightning Network, sub satoshi payments (fractions of satoshi, that is) are already theoretically possible, since micropayments are suited for that. The bitcoin wiki already describes a 10th of a satoshi for payment purposes.

So yeah, while LN is practically still in beta stages, that already is a reality just not yet in practice.

So no. Bitcoin is not infinite in supply. But theoretically, it is divisible to limitless fractions. Least that's how it seems in my mind.

You can't call something limited, infinite at the same time just because we can't used it all up no matter
how long it takes something to be used up as long as it has a limitation you can call it infinite even if we
have a supply of bitcoin for several lifetime eventually it will ran out.

Without Limited supply,Bitcoin would not be precious . 21 Million will be max supply but circulatory supply will not be 21MLNs. Cause some holders will die, some will lose their private keys, some people will not be able to enjoy their btc due to acute illness. And that will make constant demand for btc and always the supply will be limited. Thereby BTC price will grow with times. Hope OP will get basic ideas regarding btc supply and demand .
I think OP failed to describe his thinking, may be he was trying to say something different but failed. Everyone in this forum should at least know the basic of btc and other cryptos.

The supply isn't infinite, just because most of us won't live that long to see Bitcoin reach 21 million doesn't mean it's infinite for us. It's true one can't own every Bitcoin because of several reasons like many people own a portion and it's impossible to buy everything because there's no accurate number of Bitcoins in circulation.

To describe your meaning of infinite is there's enough supply for all of us to share because everyday there's new Bitcoins being mined but the amount is specific and that's not infinite.

Bitcoin supply is finite, maybe when years pass if there is in need for more and more bitcoin to the growing population surely advancement in technology will happen taking the bitcoin get used by more people. If there is infinite number of bitcoins surely there won't be any demand for bitcoin which will loss its value.

bitcoin amount will always remain, but the less the number of bitcoins that can be mined, the more blocks you have to pass or in other words, it'll be harder to get bitcoin through mining

I also not agree with term infinite, because as is wrote on whitepaper bitcoin supply is 21 million and because of this and huge demand the price grow and will grow more every time when bitcoin has halving.

That's faulty logic. The supply can't be infinite since it's literally limited to the amount of circulating bitcoins. Right now, that is ~17.7 million bitcoins.

What you're pointing to is that the supply is still inflating and will continue to do so throughout our lifetime. That's true, and it's why I hesitate to call Bitcoin "deflationary" at this time.


Bitcoin takes things a step further than Gold. We can't know what the true gold supply really is -- we can find new areas of supply or new cost-effective ways to mine currently unreachable gold. There is no theoretical limit to the amount of gold. With Bitcoin, there is a predictable limit that we are constantly approaching.

That is exactly one of the problems of Bitcoin. The number is limited and as far as I know that can't be changed..It's expect for demand to rise once this number is achieved and consequently the rise of price is expected too but there is still time until that and no one can't know exact scenario. But Bitcoin supply can't be infinite, that is for sure.

Interesting question. Technically they do.

Okay I get it into where you are going but it doesnt make sense actually.
There is no point into what you are explaining here.

Infinite for this lifetime and finite to those who will be  born 30 years from now. So what? It is still finite. Pfft.

lol NO, technically the amount of bitcoin will be created is finite, practically it is infinite for us people who lives at early stage of bitcoin development, but it will eventually reach 21 million anyway so that's kinda obvious.
There's nothing we can do about that since that's already decided from early on and we are talking about decentralized currency here.

Bitcoin is tradable and i didnt think before that there a person who choose to hold it after so many time and absolutely no one will stock their bitcoin for a long long time coz they are investor and they need to get profit even at worst market so the circulation of bitcoin is still ongoing everytime.

splitting something into smaller portions doesn't change its supply. imagine you have a bar of gold and you break it in half, you didn't increase the supply of gold you just broke it into smaller components. so when speaking of supply you really can't talk about divisibility.
also on-chain is the important part which will have 1 satoshi as its smallest unit.

You can split it infinitely through forks, but the total amount will never be infinite. :)
Even gold is finite. Just because there is a lot of gold undiscovered, it doesn't mean they are infinite for now. The same we can say about unmined bitcoins.

Technically Bitcoin is finite and limited because Satoshi set it to only have 21 million coins to mine but if the time comes that the last Bitcoin will be mine I think the value of it will become so big then maybe the fraction of it would increase also, 0.00000001 or 8 decimal places is the least use payment that I encountered since I started using Bitcoin.

now we experience Rush money.  meaning is inflation.  scarcity and the bank's world will be destroyed in the near future. 
so if BTC will end in 2150. I think BTC will disappear before the year 2150. And the transaction used is gold.  so in my opinion fiat is the first currency that will disappear.  then BTC and then gold will survive.

Bitcoin supply is finite and has to make the proper balance in the market with its mined value. Bitcoin is traded every day either with crypto or with fiat so it depends upon the circulation at the existing supply.

Then we're in agreement. Supply is limited for all practical purposes. What will be really interesting for me actually is what happens to this smallest denomination of 1 satoshi if (or should I say, when) Bitcoin were to be one day valued at 1 million USD? It's not too far away, according to a few people, and if Bitcoin maximalism has its way, then it could even happen in my lifetime. That's 1 satoshi at parity with a US cent.

Probably not enough to get people worked out, but with some countries still able to provide for value for that 1 penny, does this mean sub-satoshi payments off-chain will, sooner or later, be just a way of life?