Bitcoin Total Supply is Really 21Million?

[semes]

What is the actual total supply of Bitcoin really? As almost everyone knows, the total amount of Bitcoin will be a maximum of 21 million units. The mining algorithm was created in this way. Again, we know that when the 21 million Bitcoin mining is completed, miners will have to approve transfers to make money from the system. So the miners' income will be linked to the transfer amount.
 However, something that came to mind led me to a big question mark.
The amount designed for bitcoin is obvious. So after 21 million there will be no other production. All right, those who are lost? For example, I printed a 10-Bitcoin paper wallet and, in a way, that wallet was gone. So you could not get to 10 bitcoin inside. It's a bad situation, but there are a lot of people who already have that. There are many people who lose their private key. In this way the amount of Bitcoin in circulation will automatically decrease. Over the years, these lost BTCs will increase. How will Pak affect this system? Like stamp collectors, will the value increase as the quantity decreases? Or is this going to be a big problem?

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To know the maximum in the bitcoin division is good, if there is no maximum value in the use of distributed bitcoin, then bitcoin will not be controlled (error). just like real money. if it prints more than maximum. So many are making different seller money?
That's just my opinion

[mk4]

Yes. Technically the maximum is indeed 21 million. Though as the years go by the mining difficulty will continue to increase, that we probably won't hit the 21 million mark. And yes, after we hit the maximum BTC amount miners will earn solely from transaction fees.

Though there are definitely hundreds and thousands of lost BTC, there really is no way to prove if an address with bitcoin in it is lost or not, as it's possible that a certain wallet that doesn't have transactions for years could just be a holder's(or hodler's) wallet.

[Msile]

Even if few hundred thousand bitcoins are lost forever there is still enough supply of Bitcoins that it wont be scarce. Also think of the lost bitcoins as a decrease in selling pressure as they would had been sold at one point but they wont be sold anymore as they are lost. All these things have been thought about too much before being finalized.

[mobnepal]

Even if someone will loss their paper money, total supply will be all printed money not the total money - what was lost.

Same goes for bitcoin, total 21 million bitcoin will be generated and all will be assigned to addresses. If the owner of that address will loss private key than those bitcoin will be nontransferable (same like satoshi's bitcoin) but there is no way to find out how much bitcoin is inaccessible so total circulating bitcoin will be equal to total generated bitcoin. 

[Collinberg]

The total amount of bitcoin is 21 million but only over 16 million has been mined so far,with the more and more difficulty associated with mining,it might take over 50 years before the remaining 5million tokens are mined.

[Zeddyn]

That will increase the price of bitcoin because of the decrease in the amount of bitcoin and the increasing demand for bitcoin, and this also jeopardizes what when bitcoin supply runs out and we can lose bitcoin or bitcoin can be replaced with another coin.

[Lucius]

The total amount of bitcoin is 21 million but only over 16 million has been mined so far,with the more and more difficulty associated with mining,it might take over 50 years before the remaining 5million tokens are mined.

To be more precise in this moment there is in total 16,988,675 BTC mined,and it will take more then 100 years to all be mined, so that approximately around year 2140 all BTC should be mined.But that is far in future and it is not too much important for present time,there is something much more interesting for us and it will happen around year 2032.Almost 99% of total BTC amount will be mined,and we will have 4 halving to that time-considering that millions of BTC are lost/will be lost by that time,holders should profit in unimaginable numbers

Even Satoshi Nakamoto say something about lost coins :

Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more.Think of it as a donation to everyone.

[VitKoyn]

What is the actual total supply of Bitcoin really? As almost everyone knows, the total amount of Bitcoin will be a maximum of 21 million units. The mining algorithm was created in this way. Again, we know that when the 21 million Bitcoin mining is completed, miners will have to approve transfers to make money from the system. So the miners' income will be linked to the transfer amount.
 However, something that came to mind led me to a big question mark.
The amount designed for bitcoin is obvious. So after 21 million there will be no other production. All right, those who are lost? For example, I printed a 10-Bitcoin paper wallet and, in a way, that wallet was gone. So you could not get to 10 bitcoin inside. It's a bad situation, but there are a lot of people who already have that. There are many people who lose their private key. In this way the amount of Bitcoin in circulation will automatically decrease. Over the years, these lost BTCs will increase. How will Pak affect this system? Like stamp collectors, will the value increase as the quantity decreases? Or is this going to be a big problem?

That's right, the total supply is fixed 21 million Bitcoin, after that there will be no more new supply that will be added in circulation. The Bitcoins that are lost forever because of careless people and forgotten private keys is not a problem and even those lost Bitcoin will continue to increase in the long run, it is not a problem. Remember that 1 Bitcoin can be divided into smaller units called satoshi, so even we lost millions of Bitcoin in circulation while the demand are continuously increasing, it is likely that the value of Bitcoin will increase without having a problem about the supply. Even if we only have 1 million Bitcoin left in circulation.

[Hughesy26]

Even if few hundred thousand bitcoins are lost forever there is still enough supply of Bitcoins that it wont be scarce. Also think of the lost bitcoins as a decrease in selling pressure as they would had been sold at one point but they wont be sold anymore as they are lost. All these things have been thought about too much before being finalized.

I think bitcoin would be scarce, even if no one lost any.

21 million is a tiny number. That's not even enough for every millionaire to have one

Given we know people have lost their bitcoin over the years, it may even be the case that there is not enough bitcoin for all the millionaires in just the US to have just 1 btc

This is very scarce in my view!

Of course, we just need to get to the point where every millionaire wants one btc. I think we will get there, but mass adoption takes time

[GreatBug]

What is the actual total supply of Bitcoin really? As almost everyone knows, the total amount of Bitcoin will be a maximum of 21 million units. The mining algorithm was created in this way. Again, we know that when the 21 million Bitcoin mining is completed, miners will have to approve transfers to make money from the system. So the miners' income will be linked to the transfer amount.
 However, something that came to mind led me to a big question mark.
The amount designed for bitcoin is obvious. So after 21 million there will be no other production. All right, those who are lost? For example, I printed a 10-Bitcoin paper wallet and, in a way, that wallet was gone. So you could not get to 10 bitcoin inside. It's a bad situation, but there are a lot of people who already have that. There are many people who lose their private key. In this way the amount of Bitcoin in circulation will automatically decrease. Over the years, these lost BTCs will increase. How will Pak affect this system? Like stamp collectors, will the value increase as the quantity decreases? Or is this going to be a big problem?

In some way there is a limit of coins that can be mined but like with real money the amount of bitcoins which will be in real use and people will make some movements is unknow.

[Stedsm]

The value of Bitcoins will eventually increase no matter what, due to the enormous demand that's underlying this asset (based on speculation mostly).
The total number of Bitcoins is set to be 21 mln according to the protocol, but the devs might change it considering the fact that many may have lost (which will be seen as "burnt" coins) and get an exact amount in circulation after calculation. But till we reach there, can't say anything. And it's obvious that once 21 mln coins are mined completely and Bitcoin being the mainstream's main dish, it will definitely gain some quality values over time.

[aplistir]

I think bitcoin would be scarce, even if no one lost any.
21 million is a tiny number. That's not even enough for every millionaire to have one

That is a good thing. Bitcoin price will keep going up, and soon we will be talking about mBTC:s instead of BTC:s


Personally I think there are already more than 21 million "bitcoins" in "circulation".

Who knows how many "bitcoins" exchanges have already sold! They can use standard banking practices including fractional reserve banking, and sell more bitcoins than they actually have.
They can have 2 bitcoins and sell 10 to their customers.

No-one would know a thing, because too many people are actually storing their "bitcoins" in exchanges.

This can continue until enough people will stop keeping their coins in exchanges.

[DdmrDdmr]

Currently there are around 17 million bitcoins in circulation, with another 4 million still to be mined. You can see more detail here:
http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/ y https://blockchain.info/es/charts/total-bitcoins?timespan=all




Estimates place a stop to Bitcoin mining around 2.140, with current mining techniques and progressive difficulty in the mining algorithm. Quantum computers could place that date way before, but they are not ready yet and still need some years to be ready to resolve the mining process in a heartbeat.

The estimates I've seen place a 25% quota of bitcoin lost due to forgetting passwords, formatting hard drives, broken computers etc. This estimate seems rather high, rendering 4 million bitcoins orphan. It's true that people are probably more wary now days of storing them securely than before, due to their high value in comparison to when value was low and bitcoin a thing for the unconventional.
 
Miners make a large percentage of their income from validation transactions, regardless of mining new bitcoins. One would expect that over time, a progressive boost in transaction will take place due to bitcoin becoming an operative asset, in detriment of a speculative asset. If this happens, transaction price should be reduced, but benefit for validators increased overall.

What really matters in relation to bitcoin value is its potential and operative use (it's rather a speculative product too, but that should give way to a broader operative usage with time). If these factors remain and enhance over time, bitcoin price should rise in the long run, oblivious to the fact that there may be 4 million bitcoins that are unretrievable. The key is obviously the irretrievability.

If, hypothetically, they were to be recovered at some point and put into circulation at the same time, there would obviously be a price crash, but that scenario has basically 0 chances of becoming real.

[Discourze]

This is actually a very interesting question.

When bitcoins are lost to a wallet and put out of circulation, they're basically becoming a kind of "burned token". ICOs burn tokens to raise the value of every remaining token. If say they have $1mm investment on 1mm tokens then there would be a dollar parity. However, if when the money is raised the company decides they want to burn 500k tokens then each token would double in value. There would now be 500k tokens each worth $2.

Fiat currency does the complete opposite, as they print more money and devaluate the value of each note. There are other factors to consider though, like the demand for bitcoins and the overall state of the market. For the purposes of answering your question, however, lost coins would limit the supply of bitcoins making their value increase. Some people predict a single coin could be worth $250k, others (John McAfee) predict $1mm/coin in two years time. Who's right? We'll have to wait and see.

[pooya87]

Personally I think there are already more than 21 million "bitcoins" in "circulation".

Who knows how many "bitcoins" exchanges have already sold! They can use standard banking practices including fractional reserve banking, and sell more bitcoins than they actually have.
They can have 2 bitcoins and sell 10 to their customers.

first of all that is not called "circulation", circulation for bitcoin is when coins come out of exchanges and go to customer's wallets and in that sense you can not have more supply than the already available coins.

and about exchanges i have to say most of those keeping their coins on exchanges have small amounts. the big players with large amounts are always withdrawing and moving their money+coins around so i doubt that your scenario can be correct but it may, i give it a small chance.