How many Ether will be produced?

[g-unit]

I'm having a hard time finding a concrete answer to this question. How many ether will be produced? Is there a cap on the amount of ether that will be produced, and if so, what is it? What are the characteristics of the halvings?

I'm considering buying ether but want to know before buying it, especially because I believe ether is currently in a hype bubble.

[cryptoheadd]

Ethereum doesn't have a hard cap.

So, I'd suggest you not to hold them for a long time.

[g-unit]

Thanks for the information. That's what I suspected.

[Johny Depp]

I'm having a hard time finding a concrete answer to this question. How many ether will be produced? Is there a cap on the amount of ether that will be produced, and if so, what is it? What are the characteristics of the halvings?

I'm considering buying ether but want to know before buying it, especially because I believe ether is currently in a hype bubble.

No hard cap. No halving. Only unlimited supply.

Good for pump & dump. Bad for HODLing.

tl;dr - The technology is valuable in Ether. The token is valuable in Bitcoin. So, HODL bitcoin & learn ether.

[RoommateAgreement]

what i understood from their website, is that after a set time the mining algo is going to change from what it is right now and from then on the mining reward is going to be reduced so the creation of new coins will be slowed down but still there will be a huge amount available by then.
it says nothing about the maximum number though!!

[BitUsher]

No one knows , as Vitalik has been all over the place . It is indeed rather ridiculous for people to speculate on something without knowing the distribution rate or security algo beforehand.

[thms]

ITT FUDsters intentionally spreading misinformation

Here, directly from the Ethereum site:

Is the ether supply infinite?

No. According to the terms agreed by all parties on the 2014 presale, issuance of ether is capped at 18 million ether per year (this number equals 25% of the initial supply). This means that while the absolute issuance is fixed, the relative inflation is decreased every year. In theory if this issuance was kept indefinitely then at some point the rate of new tokens created every year would reach the average amount lost yearly (by misuse, accidental key lost, death of holders etc) and there would reach an equilibrium.

But the rate is not expected to be kept: sometime in 2017 Ethereum will be switched from Proof of Work to a new consensus algorithm under development, called Casper that is expected to be more efficient and require less mining subsidy.

https://ethereum.org/ether

TL;DR: the plan is to have about <100M ETHs, less than 5X bitcoin.

[Hannu]

hmm, how many million dollars ETH has been relased on markets? 

[cryptoheadd]

hmm, how many million dollars ETH has been relased on markets? 

Here you go:
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/

[BitUsher]

ITT FUDsters intentionally spreading misinformation

Here, directly from the Ethereum site:

Is the ether supply infinite?

No. According to the terms agreed by all parties on the 2014 presale, issuance of ether is capped at 18 million ether per year (this number equals 25% of the initial supply). This means that while the absolute issuance is fixed, the relative inflation is decreased every year. In theory if this issuance was kept indefinitely then at some point the rate of new tokens created every year would reach the average amount lost yearly (by misuse, accidental key lost, death of holders etc) and there would reach an equilibrium.

But the rate is not expected to be kept: sometime in 2017 Ethereum will be switched from Proof of Work to a new consensus algorithm under development, called Casper that is expected to be more efficient and require less mining subsidy.

https://ethereum.org/ether

TL;DR: the plan is to have about <100M ETHs, less than 5X bitcoin.

The link you cited directly supports my statements. There is only a agreed upon yearly cap with absolutely no established distribution rate. This means that legally the inflation rate can be kept at 18 million per year with an infinite supply, Or it can be reduced to 5 million a year with an infinite supply, or it can be dis-inflationary but with an infinite supply and no hard limit. No one knows , and your assumption of 100 million is just a guess. I would agree that it is indeed likely that the inflation rate will either slightly decrease in one or a few steps or have an extremely slow decreasing distribution curve based upon his statements. This is still just a guess and the coin may be infinite with no hard cap and there is no set distribution rate!

hmm, how many million dollars ETH has been relased on markets?  

Here you go:
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/

Marketcap for ICO pre-mined coins does not indicate how much has been invested into ETH. Since Eth has switched to a temporary PoW algo, post ICO coins more closely match the amount of investment into the token but not quite as the market is still very immature.

[thms]

The link you cited directly supports my statements. There is only a agreed upon yearly cap with absolutely no established distribution rate. This means that legally the inflation rate can be kept at 18 million per year with an infinite supply, Or it can be reduced to 5 million a year with an infinite supply, or it can be dis-inflationary but with an infinite supply and no hard limit. No one knows , and your assumption of 100 million is just a guess.

No, 100 million is about the amount that will be available when Ethereum switches to PoS, sometime next year. From that on, the plan is to have minimal inflation (0~2%) and validators will be earning only transaction fees, which implies almost 0% inflation.

[BitUsher]

The link you cited directly supports my statements. There is only a agreed upon yearly cap with absolutely no established distribution rate. This means that legally the inflation rate can be kept at 18 million per year with an infinite supply, Or it can be reduced to 5 million a year with an infinite supply, or it can be dis-inflationary but with an infinite supply and no hard limit. No one knows , and your assumption of 100 million is just a guess.

No, 100 million is about the amount that will be available when Ethereum switches to PoS, sometime next year. From that on, the plan is to have minimal inflation (0~2%) and validators will be earning only transaction fees, which implies almost 0% inflation.

"The Plan".... "About"..... Vitalik has been deliberately ambiguous and openly admitted that he hasn't decided upon the distribution rate or final amount . You understand that a minimal inflation of 2% a year still could mean an infinite amount of coins, right?

My statements are 100% accurate that no distribution rate is set and no one knows if there will be an infinite amount of coins or not. You need to provide an official citation that there will be a hard cap of 100 million coins or apologize to the community for spreading misleading information.

which implies almost 0% inflation.

Seriously? This isn't 2010 anymore . People know how to secure their assets. 2% /= 0%.

[thms]

"The Plan".... "About"..... Vitalik has been deliberately ambiguous and openly admitted that he hasn't decided upon the distribution rate or final amount . You understand that a minimal inflation of 2% a year still could mean an infinite amount of coins, right?

My statements are 100% accurate that no distribution rate is set and no one knows if there will be an infinite amount of coins or not. You need to provide an official citation that there will be a hard cap of 100 million coins or apologize to the community for spreading misleading information.

which implies almost 0% inflation.

Seriously? This isn't 2010 anymore . People know how to secure their assets. 2% /= 0%.

It's pointless to put a hard limit on the amount of coins. People lose passwords, people die. It's a plan because it's not implemented yet, just like many things in Bitcoin are not implemented yet. But the roadmap is clear. Implement PoS and reduce inflation to a minimum.

[dumana]

The link you cited directly supports my statements. There is only a agreed upon yearly cap with absolutely no established distribution rate. This means that legally the inflation rate can be kept at 18 million per year with an infinite supply, Or it can be reduced to 5 million a year with an infinite supply, or it can be dis-inflationary but with an infinite supply and no hard limit. No one knows , and your assumption of 100 million is just a guess.

No, 100 million is about the amount that will be available when Ethereum switches to PoS, sometime next year. From that on, the plan is to have minimal inflation (0~2%) and validators will be earning only transaction fees, which implies almost 0% inflation.

0~2% annual inflation of the Ethereum shall not devalue the Ethereum. It is similar to the world economy growth.

[BitUsher]

It's pointless to put a hard limit on the amount of coins. People lose passwords, people die. It's a plan because it's not implemented yet, just like many things in Bitcoin are not implemented yet. But the roadmap is clear. Implement PoS and reduce inflation to a minimum.

I think you are underestimating the fact that creative solutions have been created and novel knew ones will exist to keep lost tokens at a minimum and far below 2% a year.

Even if almost 2% a year was lost (extremely doubtful) that would not discount the fact that the inflation rate is steady and there is an infinite amount of coins being created while ETH exists.

Bitcoin on the other hand has a fixed and set limit of under 21 million btc, thus one should treat it as a scarce resource. ETH will no longer be unique or scarce as soon as they switch to PoS because the principle thing that is making it unique from other ETH clones is PoW hash rate securing it. Once that is removed why would someone want to by more expensive "fuel" when they can run their same app with cheaper "fuel" tokens?

0~2% annual inflation of the Ethereum shall not devalue the Ethereum. It is similar to the world economy growth.

You are correct. It is Eth clones that will principally devalue the Ethereum ecosystem. Remember, It is Dapp fuel you are buying...you can bootstrap an ETH clone to a more secure, larger  and decentralized ecosystem and have cheaper fuel at the same time.

[dumana]

It's pointless to put a hard limit on the amount of coins. People lose passwords, people die. It's a plan because it's not implemented yet, just like many things in uᴉoɔʇᴉq are not implemented yet. But the roadmap is clear. Implement PoS and reduce inflation to a minimum.

I think you are underestimating the fact that creative solutions have been created and novel knew ones will exist to keep lost tokens at a minimum and far below 2% a year.

Even if almost 2% a year was lost (extremely doubtful) that would not discount the fact that the inflation rate is steady and there is an infinite amount of coins being created while ETH exists.

uᴉoɔʇᴉq on the other hand has a fixed and set limit of under 21 million btc, thus one should treat it as a scarce resource. ETH will no longer be unique or scarce as soon as they switch to PoS because the principle thing that is making it unique from other ETH clones is PoW hash rate securing it. Once that is removed why would someone want to by more expensive "fuel" when they can run their same app with cheaper "fuel" tokens?

0~2% annual inflation of the Athereum shall not devalue the Athereum. It is similar to the world economy growth.

You are correct. It is Eth clones that will principally devalue the Athereum ecosystem. Remember, It is Dapp fuel you are buying...you can bootstrap an ETH clone to a more secure, larger  and decentralized ecosystem and have cheaper fuel at the same time.

If there is limited supply fiat coming to the digital currency world, any new coin will divert the money flow into Ethereum.

[HeroCat]

I also think that there is no precise answer to this question. In short time frame Ether price can go up of course. But keeping in mind all altcoin market every Ether buyer must take care of right time for sale. 

[andulolika]

I'm having a hard time finding a concrete answer to this question. How many ether will be produced? Is there a cap on the amount of ether that will be produced, and if so, what is it? What are the characteristics of the halvings?

I'm considering buying ether but want to know before buying it, especially because I believe ether is currently in a hype bubble.

No hard cap. No halving. Only unlimited supply.

Good for pump & dump. Bad for HODLing.

tl;dr - The technology is valuable in Ether. The token is valuable in uᴉoɔʇᴉq. So, HODL uᴉoɔʇᴉq & learn ether.

^Best answer.
Eth has some incredible bagholding there and market manipulation, darkclam is going to be same tech but improved and a fair distribution. Even xcp is trying to bring eth to the btc network.

[McDonalds5]

Dump all your ether now before it's too late when secret NSA report will be released by wikileaks.

[eightbits]

I'm mostly a lurker but, I have to say one thing.  It is so funny to see people all emotional calling anyone discussing ETH a shill.  Then see those same people just make shit up like, there is no hard cap it's unlimited supply.  If you just went to the ETH website you would see there is a yearly limit.  P.S.  US currency has no cap for real and it seems to be the strongest currency.   Of course the ETH website also says it isn't a currency meaning it isn't designed to buy things like BTC.  If it's usage is distributed Apps/Smart contracts does a cap really mattter?  I don't know the answer.  That is a serious question, not rhetorical.

I'm not pro ETH or a shill but, I am mining some with my video card.  As long as it's profitable I'll continue and as long as Microsoft keeps adding support to Azure, Visual Studio etc. I'm sure people will continue to invest.