Why Did Satoshi Nakamoto Choose 21M as Bitcoin’s Maximum Supply?

[cheezcarls]

Bitcoin’s maximum supply was set at 21M on day one by Satoshi Nakamoto. What was his reasoning for this benchmark?

Bitcoin is famous for being a deflationary currency. Its total circulating supply is capped at 21M and can never be altered. Although many have discussed the reasons for instituting a maximum cap, few know about why Satoshi chose 21M as the benchmark.

Source link here

We all know that every single coin or token has their own benchmark for a certain of reasons. But for me, lower supply means huge demand for that coin or token.

But the almighty Bitcoin? Satoshi has his own reasons too.

For a total supply of 21 million BTC, it gives them the advantage to be on a huge demand for individuals, companies, startups, banks (who embraces crypto and blockchain) and institutions.

If you have your own reason or opinion why Satoshi Nakamoto chooses 21 million as its benchmark, kindly share it here. Thanks!

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[Bitfox22]

I seriously doubt there is any hidden meaning. Maybe just whimsy or a personal lucky number. 

...or he's a big fan of blackjack

[MURONDI]

No one knows the exact reason why Satoshi chose 21 million as a total bitcoin supply, maybe 21 million has a certain meaning, logically the coins which have a small supply of prices will be expensive, but that does not guarantee, there is also altcoin which has a small supply but no value.

[Shasha80]

If we talk about satoshi nakamoto then we all agree he is a genius who can create something useful for the future, which is bitcoin.
Looking at satoshi is genius, it is clear that he will not arbitrarily choose 21M as the maximum supply of bitcoin He must have his own
calculations as to why it must be 21M, only he knows the reason. It is very difficult for all of us to guess it. But actually than we are
dizzy thinking about it that clearly will never get the right answer, except satoshi himself who explained it to us all. We better focus on
thinking about something productive, like think of the right strategy to make a profit in the crypto world with bad market conditions like today.

[blckhawk]

He might have do his calculations and averaged out current monetary system's supply, and also decided the smallest amount (unit) available to somehow match the need of a payment system that could handle smallest to large sums of transactions, because that's what he envisioned it for (an alternative way of payment). And as we can see, 1 satoshi could handle even smallest USD cents, and even though it's too small of an amount, it could change depending on how USD/BTC price trades, which I can consider as future-proofing.

[peter0425]

For a total supply of 21 million BTC, it gives them the advantage to be on a huge demand for individuals, companies, startups, banks (who embraces crypto and blockchain) and institutions.

well you have answered your question already and i think this is the most appropriate reason why did satoshi chooses 21 million instead of much more or lessen,but what ever his intention is?the important thing is the mining is not that easy to dig the total supply.

If you have your own reason or opinion why Satoshi Nakamoto chooses 21 million as its benchmark, kindly share it here. Thanks!

21 million is enough volume because of the mining system that taking more and more time as the coins getting mined ,because if he make 100 million then maybe the world was already gone yet all the bitcoin is still in digging.lol

[Bitcoin_Arena]

We all know that every single coin or token has their own benchmark for a certain of reasons. But for me, lower supply means huge demand for that coin or token.

Define low supply?
210K bitcoins could be low supply compared to 21 Million... 210 million could also be low supply compared  to 21 Billion bitcoin. What am trying to say is low supply of BTC has nothing to do with huge demand. We have had coins have a much lower supply but still they are worthless to this date.

[crwth]

I did check on the internet, different theories, and the most informational that I found is in Quora.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-only-have-21-million-Bitcoins#

The idea of having a finite supply makes it more valuable, and knowing the limit makes people feel FOMO and maybe increasing its value even more, so in my POV, having different amounts of supply, 21M, 22M, 50M, etc. As long as you know that it's finite, it has the same effect. I would say the same with how long it would be to mine. But still, in terms of max supply, it is worth it to have that and prevent additional production of coins. Suitable for the economy and transparent, in a way.

[btc_angela]

Maybe you guys should see this, and old thread (2015) but worth reading.

Why 21 million bitcoins? Why was ~that~ number chosen?.

[tsaroz]

How did Satoshi Nakamura come up with 21 million, for his (their?) limit to bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto settled on a target time of 10 minutes per block with an initial subsidy of 50 BTC set to halve once every 4 years.

4 years / 10 minutes ≈ 210 000
50 + 25 + 12.5 + 6.25 + ... = 100
210 000 * 100 = 21 million

So, the question could be why did he chose 50. Why not 100 or any other number. 4 years too could be arguably unique. But there are several reasons why 4 years and 10 minutes fit.

[Darooghe]

No one knows the exact reason why Satoshi chose 21 million as a total bitcoin supply, maybe 21 million has a certain meaning, logically the coins which have a small supply of prices will be expensive, but that does not guarantee, there is also altcoin which has a small supply but no value.

The number's not arbitrary. it's the mathematical result of Bitcoin's emission schedule. he picked round numbers for block times, block halvings, and satoshi divisibility. 10 minute block times, 4-year block halvings, 8 decimals of divisibility. Do the math and that means the halvings occur every 210,000 blocks, and can only happen so many times before we're halving "down from" 1 satoshi. At that point, since partial satoshis don't exist on the blockchain, it just stops the block reward altogether. therefore 21 million is a result of choosing certain values for block times, block halvings, and satoshi divisibility, and those values happened to be rather easily understandable, round numbers.

[Leonardo7]

Considering the population of the world, I feel the finite supply of bitcoin should have been somewhere around 500M or 1B BTC, this could have still been expensive and have a huge demand without any rival. Well, he was a genius and has his own reason best know to him. As long as it has a definite supply, then it's okay.

[Ucy]

I guess he factored in the world's population. He believed 21 millions is enough for billions?
The idea is to encourage scarcity and deflation.  The creators of Bitcoin understood what sound money should be. They imitated gold scarcity I guess. It needs to be both Medium of exchange and Store of Value. 
Sound money also has to be long-lasting, valuable, scarce, deflationary, divisible, hard to counterfeit, etc

[bitcampaign]

he could have counted the number of world population divided by some existing bitcoin users later, thus creating a number of 21 million, no one knew about it, but whatever he created satoshi knew the need for bitcoin could be owned by everyone

[slaman29]

If we talk about satoshi nakamoto then we all agree he is a genius who can create something useful for the future, which is bitcoin.
Looking at satoshi is genius, it is clear that he will not arbitrarily choose 21M as the maximum supply of bitcoin He must have his own
calculations as to why it must be 21M, only he knows the reason. It is very difficult for all of us to guess it. But actually than we are
dizzy thinking about it that clearly will never get the right answer, except satoshi himself who explained it to us all. We better focus on
thinking about something productive, like think of the right strategy to make a profit in the crypto world with bad market conditions like today.

Actually he did arbitrarily choose it. He admitted it here on this forum before (too lazy to look for it). It was not a totally random number for sure, but he didn't give it tooo much thought. The system behind bitcoin itself was already complex enough that it should not have mattered.

And for me, I still think 21 or 42 or 11 million would not have made such a big difference, because 8 decimals.

[jseverson]

If we want to take Satoshi's words for it:

My choice for the number of coins and distribution schedule was an educated guess. It was a difficult choice, because once the network is going it’s locked in and we’re stuck with it. I wanted to pick something that would make prices similar to existing currencies, but without knowing the future, that’s very hard. I ended up picking something in the middle. If Bitcoin remains a small niche, it’ll be worth less per unit than existing currencies. If you imagine it being used for some fraction of world commerce, then there’s only going to be 21 million coins for the whole world, so it would be worth much more per unit. Values are 64-bit integers with 8 decimal places, so 1 coin is represented internally as 100000000. There’s plenty of granularity if typical prices become small. For example, if 0.001 is worth 1 Euro, then it might be easier to change where the decimal point is displayed, so if you had 1 Bitcoin it’s now displayed as 1000, and 0.001 is displayed as 1.

So yeah, there are a lot of theories, and some may actually convenientrly make sense, but at the end of the day Satoshi himself said it was an educated guess.

[rdluffy]

21 Million is listed to sucker the mathematically challenged, into thinking bitcoin is scarce.
Had Satoshi limited the smallest denomination to 1 bitcoin, then 21 million would be accurate.
Had Satoshi limited the smallest denomination to ¼ bitcoin, then the supply would be 84 million.

But he made the smallest denomination .00000001 .
That means the bitcoin supply is actually 2.1 Quadrillion .

Plus others are talking about increasing even further below the 8th decimal place,
LN is moving to 12th decimal place, so they are inflating the supply, with the pretense the supply is limited.  

I never stop to think about in satoshis, and you're totally right, the amount of BTC is not SO HUGE, with 21millions, a lot of them lost (unavailable due to lost keys), but if you think in satoshis we have a good number, only determined by the price

[Lucius]

One more completely useless article which is asking questions to which the creator himself gave the answer, but this is clearly not enough to prevent so-called journalists from writing about such things, and also OP to promoting his site or site he is working for.

jseverson is posted Satoshi answer to this question, and any discussion on this topic is completely unnecessary.

[alyssa85]

Bitcoin’s maximum supply was set at 21M on day one by Satoshi Nakamoto. What was his reasoning for this benchmark?

Bitcoin is famous for being a deflationary currency. Its total circulating supply is capped at 21M and can never be altered. Although many have discussed the reasons for instituting a maximum cap, few know about why Satoshi chose 21M as the benchmark.

Source link here

We all know that every single coin or token has their own benchmark for a certain of reasons. But for me, lower supply means huge demand for that coin or token.

But the almighty Bitcoin? Satoshi has his own reasons too.

For a total supply of 21 million BTC, it gives them the advantage to be on a huge demand for individuals, companies, startups, banks (who embraces crypto and blockchain) and institutions.

If you have your own reason or opinion why Satoshi Nakamoto chooses 21 million as its benchmark, kindly share it here. Thanks!

It's an accidental result of him choosing ten minute blocks and 50 bitcoins per block initially, halving every four years.

If he'd chosen 100 bitcoins per block and five minute blocks, it would have changed the end amount of bitcoins generated.

As to why he chose 50 bitcoins per block - I think he thought it was a nice number, if you start with 100 bitcoins per block you reward the early miners too much.

[CarnagexD]

If we talk about satoshi nakamoto then we all agree he is a genius who can create something useful for the future, which is bitcoin.
Looking at satoshi is genius, it is clear that he will not arbitrarily choose 21M as the maximum supply of bitcoin He must have his own
calculations as to why it must be 21M, only he knows the reason.

Calculations? given that bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, there are no such thing as calculation on his part cause there are no other variables to consider. So most probably 21 million was just an estimation or the number 21 has a personal meaning to him, though we'll never know it. Another thing is, he might did not choose the number of total bitcoin but is all an accident.

It is very difficult for all of us to guess it. But actually than we are
dizzy thinking about it that clearly will never get the right answer, except satoshi himself who explained it to us all. We better focus on
thinking about something productive, like think of the right strategy to make a profit in the crypto world with bad market conditions like today.

I must agree, instead of talking who the real satoshi is or where is he's at now, let us just be productive on what he did, bitcoin. I'm sure if he's alive until this very moment, he must be proud of the people who appreciates bitcoin. Perhaps he is already dead, no one really knows.

[BitcoinMoses]

Bitcoin’s maximum supply was set at 21M on day one by Satoshi Nakamoto. What was his reasoning for this benchmark?

Bitcoin is famous for being a deflationary currency. Its total circulating supply is capped at 21M and can never be altered. Although many have discussed the reasons for instituting a maximum cap, few know about why Satoshi chose 21M as the benchmark.

Source link here

We all know that every single coin or token has their own benchmark for a certain of reasons. But for me, lower supply means huge demand for that coin or token.

But the almighty Bitcoin? Satoshi has his own reasons too.

For a total supply of 21 million BTC, it gives them the advantage to be on a huge demand for individuals, companies, startups, banks (who embraces crypto and blockchain) and institutions.

If you have your own reason or opinion why Satoshi Nakamoto chooses 21 million as its benchmark, kindly share it here. Thanks!

Why Satoshi chose 21 Million ? Only Satoshi can tell you that for sure. You do not need to speculate he chose 21 Million ?
The truth is there is a secret about it. Very big secret. A mathematical secret that no body knows beside myself. 

[BitcoinMoses]

If we talk about satoshi nakamoto then we all agree he is a genius who can create something useful for the future, which is bitcoin.
Looking at satoshi is genius, it is clear that he will not arbitrarily choose 21M as the maximum supply of bitcoin He must have his own
calculations as to why it must be 21M, only he knows the reason.

Calculations? given that bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, there are no such thing as calculation on his part cause there are no other variables to consider. So most probably 21 million was just an estimation or the number 21 has a personal meaning to him, though we'll never know it. Another thing is, he might did not choose the number of total bitcoin but is all an accident.

It is very difficult for all of us to guess it. But actually than we are
dizzy thinking about it that clearly will never get the right answer, except satoshi himself who explained it to us all. We better focus on
thinking about something productive, like think of the right strategy to make a profit in the crypto world with bad market conditions like today.

I must agree, instead of talking who the real satoshi is or where is he's at now, let us just be productive on what he did, bitcoin. I'm sure if he's alive until this very moment, he must be proud of the people who appreciates bitcoin. Perhaps he is already dead, no one really knows.

Satoshi is watching at the bitcoin talk forum. Alex Finney died and his cousin Harold Finney. Robin Hood Died and his prototype Karl Marx. Satoshi is here in his forum and reading and writing and posting messages in this forum. He is out there visible but unseen. SNA is playing a very funny chess game with Satoshi. Leave him alone, or he will leave you alone.

[romero121]

This isn't a random pick, this is completely a planned and calculated number. Satoshi who has thought about such an innovation will surely have a reason for the number. Now this might not be known, but surely in future when everything gets mined we'll come to know about the real meaning for choosing 21M.

Until something gives clarity we'll get to see more and more predictions that gets associated with the maximum supply limit of bitcoin.

[Wintersoldier]

This isn't a random pick, this is completely a planned and calculated number. Satoshi who has thought about such an innovation will surely have a reason for the number. Now this might not be known, but surely in future when everything gets mined we'll come to know about the real meaning for choosing 21M.

Until something gives clarity we'll get to see more and more predictions that gets associated with the maximum supply limit of bitcoin.

I do really think that the first thing that comes out of his mind is 20Million BTC. But if you are in his shoes, and you also think that the technology you could create could be revolutionary, then why not add a 1 Million BTC for yourself? I do not think that satoshi do not own that huge amount of cryptocurrency if everything was all planned, then that should also be included to the overall plan.

[demanze]

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the maximum supply is. If you double the supply, each bitcoin loses half its fiat value, but the market capitalization remains the same.

Of course, $6000 bitcoin probably has more psychological effect than $1 bitcoin.

[xiboothrezi]

If we realize how smart Satoshi designed all this, there must be a fundamental reason with the calculations that Satoshi had predicted before. Or it becomes a kind of twist ending where number 21 could be just a favorite number from Satoshi, or it becomes a kind of secret code, who knows?
We can only enjoy this opportunity well, accompanied by various mysteries that make this bitcoin trip not monotonous.

[GeorgeFeb]

BlackJack gambler!

[slashz9]

The number's not arbitrary. it's the mathematical result of Bitcoin's emission schedule. he picked round numbers for block times, block halvings, and satoshi divisibility. 10 minute block times, 4-year block halvings, 8 decimals of divisibility. Do the math and that means the halvings occur every 210,000 blocks, and can only happen so many times before we're halving "down from" 1 satoshi. At that point, since partial satoshis don't exist on the blockchain, it just stops the block reward altogether. therefore 21 million is a result of choosing certain values for block times, block halvings, and satoshi divisibility, and those values happened to be rather easily understandable, round numbers.

can you share where you got that information, I want to see it, I think it's not a coincidence or just random, there must be something and you explain it.

I guess he factored in the world's population. He believed 21 millions is enough for billions?
The idea is to encourage scarcity and deflation.  The creators of Bitcoin understood what sound money should be. They imitated gold scarcity I guess. It needs to be both Medium of exchange and Store of Value.
Sound money also has to be long-lasting, valuable, scarce, deflationary, divisible, hard to counterfeit, etc

maybe because of the small amount it could be worth millions of $ bitcoin in the future, say 10-40 years into the future.

[Wintersoldier]

If we realize how smart Satoshi designed all this, there must be a fundamental reason with the calculations that Satoshi had predicted before. Or it becomes a kind of twist ending where number 21 could be just a favorite number from Satoshi, or it becomes a kind of secret code, who knows?
We can only enjoy this opportunity well, accompanied by various mysteries that make this bitcoin trip not monotonous.

I see, Satoshi all planned all of this that is why when it became successful, he already got out of the public without his identity getting exposed. With that all being said, the 21 million supply is also limited for a reason no other person know why. But for me, it is more than his favorite number, and I think there's are deeper reason behind it. So, we will find out when we already mined the total 21million, and we'll see what will gonna happen next. Is the bitcoin price will boost up forever? Or people will stop mining and no transactions could be efficient enough in the latter future?

[unbanked_peon]

To understand why that number was selected I would suggest its a byproduct.

My question is at what point in the reward era did he foresee qubits becoming a concern?

[Diirtmaan]

Perhaps he somehow mathematically considered that 21 M would be enough. Unfortunately only Satoshi Nakamoto knows the truth

[Dabs]

It's related to the total money supply of the world at the time bitcoin was launched. Something like the M1, so that 1 satoshi is roughly either 1 cent or 10 cents or something similar.

Hal Finney wrote:

Imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all the wealth in the world.

Current estimates of total worldwide household wealth that I have found range from $300 trillion to $100 trillion. With 20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million.

[akirasendo17]

I think the reason for this is because over supply of everything tend to be abuse, by the people around us
imagine in foods vegetables, meat, produce a lot of them and the price will go down, because there
are lots of it, that is going to be rotten, in a if you have lots of sales person but no production people
its a problem, same with the coin, i think satoshi thinks that if there are like 100 billion the price will not
get where it is now, less supply, more demand

[PointHope]

JOHNNY CASH

"I turned 21 in prison, doing life without parole"..

[garyrowe]

Bitcoin’s maximum supply was set at 21M on day one by Satoshi Nakamoto. What was his reasoning for this benchmark?

Bitcoin is famous for being a deflationary currency. Its total circulating supply is capped at 21M and can never be altered. Although many have discussed the reasons for instituting a maximum cap, few know about why Satoshi chose 21M as the benchmark.

Source link here

We all know that every single coin or token has their own benchmark for a certain of reasons. But for me, lower supply means huge demand for that coin or token.

But the almighty Bitcoin? Satoshi has his own reasons too.

For a total supply of 21 million BTC, it gives them the advantage to be on a huge demand for individuals, companies, startups, banks (who embraces crypto and blockchain) and institutions.

If you have your own reason or opinion why Satoshi Nakamoto chooses 21 million as its benchmark, kindly share it here. Thanks!

If the decimals are put into consideration, the 21mil total supply is actually perfect for its mass adoption. Even if the entire world is to embrace bitcoin it will be enough to circulate amongst everyone. For me the supply of bitcoin is actually more than the 21million as it can be broken into fractions

[bettercrypto]

This isn't a random pick, this is completely a planned and calculated number. Satoshi who has thought about such an innovation will surely have a reason for the number. Now this might not be known, but surely in future when everything gets mined we'll come to know about the real meaning for choosing 21M.

Until something gives clarity we'll get to see more and more predictions that gets associated with the maximum supply limit of bitcoin.

Definitely!
It is not just a coincidence but a planned output. Maybe he thought that bitcoin will become the central commerce soon. However, he wanted that bitcoin to be volatile so that the price would go up. What he had thought might happening right now. And 21M coins for me is absolutely exact number of supply for bitcoin. We don't need to argue with it.

[JC btc]

This isn't a random pick, this is completely a planned and calculated number. Satoshi who has thought about such an innovation will surely have a reason for the number. Now this might not be known, but surely in future when everything gets mined we'll come to know about the real meaning for choosing 21M.

Until something gives clarity we'll get to see more and more predictions that gets associated with the maximum supply limit of bitcoin.

Definitely!
It is not just a coincidence but a planned output. Maybe he thought that bitcoin will become the central commerce soon. However, he wanted that bitcoin to be volatile so that the price would go up. What he had thought might happening right now. And 21M coins for me is absolutely exact number of supply for bitcoin. We don't need to argue with it.

Yes, I think this is based on his calculation that only intelligent people will fully understand why he came up to 21M as total supply and also wondering why he's not even selling at least 1 of his Bitcoin as of the moment, what's his real motif to this, this makes people panic knowing that Satoshi has almost million of Btc stored in his wallet that he can sell anytime.

[enhu]

BlackJack gambler!

Bingo. lol

It was on his reply if we read about his conversation with the few people in crypto during his time here. 50 BTC issued to miners for every 10 minutes and will gradually decline every halving which will result to 21M BTC for its total supply. It won't be a problem to have just these number after all BTC is divisible to 8 decimals which right now we can receive just about 0.00000001 satoshi if purposely sent to a wallet.