Bitcoin Forum

Hey I'm new to the forums and a new investor - Unf I got BTC when it was at 2400USD - but I'm in it for the long-term.
Quick question for you guys:

So the cap of BTC to ever be in circulation is approx 21million (currently approx 16 million in circulation)

Apparently the max amount of BTC able to me produced (mined) per day is 1800.

So 21million (max circulation) - 16million (current circulation) = 5 million

5 million/ 1800 (max daily mined) = 2777.77 (minumum days to reach max)
2777.77/ 365 (days of the year) = 7.6 years

This means the minimum amount of years to reach (max BTC in circulation) is 7.6 years.

I'll give it about 7.6-10 years for it to hit this point. But what do you guys think the value of BTC will be?

You're not quite right.  New Bitcoin is created when a block is mined (like a group of transactions which happens approximately every ten minutes).

Every 210,000 blocks (about four years) the reward for mining a block halves.

So all the Bitcoin will have been mined by about 2140.  However, the cap of 21 million is a hypothetical number and will not be reached, because miners can sort of choose to give themselves less.  

Also, 21 million will definitely never be in circulation because there are many lost coins, which is when Bitcoin becomes inaccessible because people forget to back up their Bitcoin.  These are still in the ledger and in existence but they can't be spent.

But do you not think that with the advances also in computing power over that time that a block will end up being processed in 5 minutes thus cutting down the time to half or less?

The block time is fixed - there is a "difficulty" to mining a block which adjusts to make sure that there is still roughly a block every ten minutes regardless of the computing power dedicated to the network (which has multiplied by a lot since Bitcoin began).

At Bitcoin's inception the block reward was 50 and the value was basically nothing.  Now the block reward is 12.5 Bitcoin and the value is over 2000 dollars each.

Well the value of bitcoin will depend on where bitcoin ends up. If bitcoin ends up becoming an asset to store for long term, Then we may see 1 BTC = $10K or above in few years down the line, But if the Scaling issue is solved and bitcoin becomes a day to day used currency, The price could end up much higher around 1 BTC = $50K within 20-50 years, Bitcoin may end up replacing many currencies. But that's a big if!

Everyday is a school day, thank you!

Seems OP is not aware of "halving". Still he is concerned only about supply of bitcoins and not bothering about demand.

The prime factor which is deciding prices of bitcoins is nothing but demand. When per day we are getting demand for more than 1800 bitcoins then we can be sure prices will skyrocket based on people's willingness to pay what ever amount. No one can be sure how much bitcoin prices will worth in near future.

there simply won't be enough demand for bitcoin as just an asset to invest in. the only way price can rise is if new demand, with new money comes in and that will only happen if real adoption happens. real adoption of bitcoin as a currency on top of being an investment.

i doubt if bitcoin can replace any currency (fiat).
bitcoin is global and decentralized while fiat is centralized and belongs to one country and they wouldn't want to change that.

By the time there are 21 million bitcoins, I'm not sure any of the currencies that it is valued in currently will even exist, and accounting for inflation over such a long period is fraught.

Using the Big-mac index, I predict that by the time there are 21 million bitcoins, a McDonalds© Big Mac© will cost 6 satoshis.

I think you should re-calculate after you did a bit more research and then come back here to rectify your statement. Take into consideration that

we have a Halving every 4 years {well.. more or less 4 years} So it might take a lot longer before all coins are mined.  The last block that will

generate coins will be block #6,929,999 which should be generated at or near the year 2140. The total number of coins in circulation will then

remain static at 20,999,999.9769 BTC.  ::)

How many of us will be around when that happens? None  >:(

More likely there won't be 21 million bitcoin in action because we know some people lost bitcoins (lost access on wallet and etc). And also it's mentioned on bitcoinwiki: The theoretical total number of bitcoins, 21 million, should not be confused with the total spendable supply. The total spendable supply is always lower than the theoretical total supply, and is subject to accidental loss, willful destruction, and technical peculiarities.
Also there is a table of future block rewards, it's not so easy to fully mine 21 million bitcoin because finally rewards are falling deeply.

First of all, I think by the time the last Bitcoin is mined there will no longer be something as primitive as a McDonalds Big Mac.  There will also probably not be a McDonalds at that point. 

However, you should be able to get a serving of food for around 6 satoshis yes.

I appreciate all your calculation stuff that you made an impact that you really are a serious investor of the bitcoin.
But if I honestly say that I don’t look at the rate of the Bitcoin mining currently and even if I look at it I don’t get my answer in the direction.
For you being an investor it is good to have such a nice analysis but for me things are quite strange. I am a trader and I don’t make long term investments so, for me the calculations are a bit different.

Wow, where is the newbies forum!

Luckily for the first 2 questioners, Satoshi was onto these problems from the start and came up with systems that are still holding up now that Bitcoin has exploded in price and popularity.
The rewards halfing are a slow move towards transactions fees supporting the network, that is the question to your next question, which would be, what happens to mining after the rewards stop.

The difficulty increases are also pretty ingenious, even if Satoshi really didn't want ASICs and mining wars to take place.  The average block time is actually less than 10 minutes except for when total network hash speed falls (I doubt that will happen for a while), but every time the difficulty is increased, it temporarily goes back to be 10 minutes on average per block.

It's good to know that real newbies are getting involved. It's also reassuring to know that Bitcoin has many of the systems in place to make it somewhat future proof (except the block size!)

Yes I agree with the current number of the Bitcoin in the market are 21 Million. With this number we will experience the inflation in the price of the bitcoin. I am saying it of the reason with the increasing demand in the bitcoin and the demand will increase with the passage of time. Which will definitely result in the increase in the price of the bitcoin.

Yes, it depends upon the bitcoin role for the community it may go above 10K in a time span of the next five to six years.

As we all know that the bitcoin price is dependent on the demand of the Bitcoin and with this demand the price of the Bitcoin is determined, now if more countries accept it the like Japan then surely it will have a huge difference in the current price and after three or four years.

That is not the way things work, if a more powerful mining rig enters the stage difficulty is going to get adjusted after some time, as you can see it is impossible to try to mine the coins faster than what is possible, if I remember correctly the last coins are going to be mined in the next century.

Honestly, with the ratio of block reward and bitcoin adoption, there will be an exponential growth of bitcoin price if we do not consider the resistance which is competition, scalability issue and government regulations.  But disregarding these resistance, there is a possibility that Bitcoin can probably reach a million dollar per coins as what of one of the article stated but it won't be happening on 5 or 10 years.  Though I am convinced that when all all the coin is mined and bitcoin is still the leading cryptocurrency, it may be worth more than $100k dollar a piece.

I believe that the price will grow high and randomly cause a big adoption from people all around the world. Possibly it would make the price prediction of most experts come to reality. So it's good to make a investment into it as much possible to profit big and be one among the elite member with the earning of bitcoin.

Everything will reach the best level in bitcoin price acquisition. In the future we hope the bitcoin price will continue to increase, regardless of the prediction of the current bitcoin price will be better than today. Because the demand for bitcoin in the future will be more and more.

That's what we all hope for in the future, but as far as the trading goes it does not just increase and increase all the time. There will come a time it'll reach to a point where we will experience bitcoin halving. But hopefully if that time comes though we should take advantage and buy bitcoin too at that time and just hold on to the bitcoins.

Now segwit2x seems activated on bitcoin, then Sweden banks as passing bill for the bitcoin with the regulated law for it to use in their country. Bitcoin will price bumping is nowadays moving like a rocket again we see in the march month.
You noticed the chart from the 2014 to now to price graph to analyse the price value and movement, if possible invest on bitcoin to reduce the mining fees.

I am not seeing few of these resistances to persist for at least next 6 months. Bitcoin has pure dominance among cryprocurrencies hence there will be no obvious competitions and recently devs are coming with segwit2x, if it is not a fit one, surely they will come again segwit3x or anything similar to that, so scalabilty is no more a stopping. Finally government regulation may give short term impacts but definitely long term impacts as bitcoin can survive without any external help.

So, literally we do not have any resistance to prevent us from having exponential growth. Those capped and scheduled supply against rapid growing of adoption will surely lead to exponential growth.

With exponential growth of prices, we can expect bitcoin prices to reach a stage where one satoshi may have value like one dollar or even 10 dollars. These are all possible probably in next 10 years itself given that there will be no big bad news in and around bitcoin ecosystem.