At the time of writing this I went to
http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc and it showed 6532850.00000000. If you wait for a while and refresh the page you can watch it go up by 50 at a time. They have almost made 1/3 of all bitcoins that will ever be made.
How do you mean ''that ever will be made''?
This means that there will only ever be 21,000,000 bit coins on the market. This is how Bitcoin will stay rare and not just "print" itself into worthlessness.
So if the 21mil BTC are produced, the mining is over?
No, because miners will want to collect 'fees' for the blocks. They just won't get a reward of 50btc, 25btc, etc... They will get the fees people are charged for transactions. Even if miners find that it is not worth it, then difficulty will decrease to a point to where, almost anyone could find a block and collect fees.
This type of system tries to find a happy medium according to the number of transactions and fees.
Best Regards,
The Bear
