There are not even 21M BTCs, I'd say max.17M BTCs available at a given time

[virtualdn]

What many people forget is that many bitcoins were already lost, some aren't mined yet and others will be lost in the future.

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge. There are >51M people who are millionaires right now, they won't even be able to own 1 BTC each. So having values like $500K per BTC will seem pretty normal, people will dream for $40K per BTC in the future.

[1713971862]

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[1713971862]

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[1713971862]

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[Charles-Tim]

You mean when all Bitcoin are already mined? Yes, there can not be 21 million Bitcoin, some are lost already truly. And any Bitcoin lost forever is a gain for those having the one not lost, because the reduction in circulatory supply, the higher the price. Although the limited supply (and lost Bitcoin) will help in the price valuation, but also increasing demand will be the another major factor to increase the price. As more people know more about bitcoin, they will buy and the price will increase.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

What many people forget is that many bitcoins were already lost, some aren't mined yet and others will be lost in the future.

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge. There are >51M people who are millionaires right now, they won't even be able to own 1 BTC each. So having values like $500K per BTC will seem pretty normal, people will dream for $40K per BTC in the future.

Considering bitcoins that are being lost day by day I assume that BTC is already a deflationary asset. Every 5 seconds someone in the world dies ... "Today, more than 21.2 million adults, or about 14% of the U.S population, own cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum" https://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-reveals-crypto-biggest-investors-132102315.html

It means that every hour 120 people who owns crypto dies ... Well maybe less than that because of determinants of age groups. How many of them didn't tell their relatives priv keys to every single wallet they own? I feel like most of them. Does your wife, parents, kids have access to all your hot/cold wallets? I think that every single crypto owner takes a little bit of crypto with him to the other world. This numbers are huge.

[blockman]

people will dream for $40K per BTC in the future.

Just like the scene that we have today, people should've bought when bitcoin was around $3k. As for the possible normal price of bitcoin of $500k in the future will have a lot of factors that will contribute on it. What we're seeing is like the start of it. And we have cycle for halving and that's more of the most contributions that we're going to have for that valuation to come. It's true that even owning 1 BTC out of the circulation is already a wealth that you can hold and hope for in the future and this concept is what I'm following.

[ranochigo]

Even if we assume that Bitcoins were never lost, the final value wouldn't be 21 million either. Bitcoin's supply decreases exponentially and the theoretical maximum value of 21 million will never be reached due to the smallest denomination being
a satoshi.

Remember, if everybody seems rich, then no one is rich. Barring something like a mass adoption happening, a 500K Bitcoin would mean something like a 10 trillion market cap. Bitcoin would have to be having a great demand in the first place.

[odolvlobo]

What many people forget is that many bitcoins were already lost, some aren't mined yet and others will be lost in the future.

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge. There are >51M people who are millionaires right now, they won't even be able to own 1 BTC each. So having values like $500K per BTC will seem pretty normal, people will dream for $40K per BTC in the future.

The actual number is arbitrary and irrelevant.

Bitcoin's supply decreases exponentially and the theoretical maximum value of 21 million will never be reached due to the smallest denomination being a satoshi.

The supply does not decrease. It increases approximately every 10 minutes until it nearly reaches 21 million. The supply only decreases when the amount lost exceeds the production, which is unlikely to happen until the subsidy goes to 0.

[ranochigo]

The supply does not decrease. It increases approximately every 10 minutes until it nearly reaches 21 million. The supply only decreases when the amount lost exceeds the production, which is unlikely to happen until the subsidy goes to 0.

Sorry. I meant rate of increase in supply.

That is for the general trend at least. It is impossible to accurately measure the coins that were lost.

[Darker45]

Bitcoin is already scarce even if everything is already available in circulation right now. 21 million Bitcoin is still considered a low supply. The world is made up of billions and billions of people and narrow money alone is already worth tens of trillions. If you include everything, it may even reach beyond a quadrillion. So there's really so much room to grow for Bitcoin's price. Not to mention that only a very small portion of the world's population and wealth are currently into Bitcoin.

Losing Bitcoin is unavoidable. Satoshis will be lost on a daily basis, and once lost, it is lost forever. There is no way a new batch of Satoshis will be minted to replace those lost Sats. On this basis, we may consider Bitcoin as a deflationary currency. That's in terms of supply.

[mk4]

The reason why we still use the 21 million cap when talking about bitcoin is the same exact reason why you use the word "probably" when talking about the 17 million cap assumption. While I think something like 17-18m is more probable due to the lost BTC, 21m is simply just a more factual metric. While 17m-19m is likely, we really don't have data on how much BTC are actually lost. We only know that they ain't moving, but not necessarily "lost".

[BlackHatCoiner]

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge. There are >51M people who are millionaires right now, they won't even be able to own 1 BTC each. So having values like $500K per BTC will seem pretty normal, people will dream for $40K per BTC in the future.

Yes, that's true. Having a bitcoin may be sound as a great wealth in the next decade(s). As for the number 21,000,000, as said, it was never exactly that many. Specifically, excluding the genesis block that didn't create a spendable output, after the 34th halving, there will be exactly 20,999,999.9769 in circulation, where millions of them will have been lost.

The supply does not decrease. It increases approximately every 10 minutes until it nearly reaches 21 million. The supply only decreases when the amount lost exceeds the production, which is unlikely to happen until the subsidy goes to 0.

A study shows that it does, actually, decrease. Specifically Timothy Peterson claims that 1,500 bitcoins are lost each day, meaning that on average the supply decreases with around 400 bitcoins every day. Since the genesis block, around 4% of the available supply of bitcoins has been lost each year. Lots of years later, when the block rewards some thousands of satoshis, this loss may be seen more clearly.

[odolvlobo]

The supply does not decrease. It increases approximately every 10 minutes until it nearly reaches 21 million. The supply only decreases when the amount lost exceeds the production, which is unlikely to happen until the subsidy goes to 0.

A study shows that it does, actually, decrease. Specifically Timothy Peterson claims that 1,500 bitcoins are lost each day, meaning that on average the supply decreases with around 400 bitcoins every day. Since the genesis block, around 4% of the available supply of bitcoins has been lost each year. Lots of years later, when the block rewards some thousands of satoshis, this loss may be seen more clearly.

The author doesn't explain how they arrive at 4% per year, so it can't be checked. Either way, I think a flat rate of 4% per year is not realistic. In 2012, a loss of 4% per year would be worth $42 million. But now, a loss of 4% would be $29400 million. It seems unlikely that as the value of a bitcoin has increased by a factor of 400, the losses would increase by a factor of 700 because people would be more careful as the value rises.

[pooya87]

probably

This is the only word that mattered in your post.
In other words you are making a random guess based on your gut feeling and what you hope for to be true. Otherwise you have no other logic for the number you have come up with.
Conclusion: 17 million is an arbitrary number.

[Tina H]

The OP is right. The total number of bitcoins is only 21 million. This means that when all of us are mined and no bitcoins are lost, there will only be 21 million bitcoins in the world. However, how many people are there in the world? As of 2021, the world's population is close to 7.6 billion. This means that if Bitcoin really becomes the world's currency one day, then the value of a Bitcoin will reach a very high, incredibly high level. I look forward to that day.

[avikz]

What many people forget is that many bitcoins were already lost, some aren't mined yet and others will be lost in the future.

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge. There are >51M people who are millionaires right now, they won't even be able to own 1 BTC each. So having values like $500K per BTC will seem pretty normal, people will dream for $40K per BTC in the future.

I would agree to your statement except the speculation part. Bitcoin will go up in price owing to its scarcity, is a known fact. That's the reason why we have not seen whales coming out of this market. Whales are HODLing for a better future.

The number of lost bitcoins is an assumption. There is no way to find the actual number of lost bitcoins. So the actual number of lost bitcoins can be much higher than what is reported. So there's no way to know the actual number of actively circulating bitcoin in the market.

I too look forward for a day when bitcoin will be able to give me a great life.

[Lucius]

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge. There are >51M people who are millionaires right now, they won't even be able to own 1 BTC each.

There may be 100 million millionaires at the moment or in the future, but that doesn't mean they will all want to own Bitcoin - because if only 10% of today's millionaires bought 1 BTC it would look like this:

- 5 000 000 x $40 000 = $200.000.000.000 = 5 million BTC removed from market = insane!

Even more absurd is the fact that 8 billion people should one day own a BTC, and 45% of them don't even have internet access at the moment. We can throw in as many numbers as we want, but for most Bitcoin is still atomic physics and if you stop 100 people on the street and ask them to explain what Bitcoin is and how it works, I don't think 95% will have an answer - while others will know at least something, but it all comes down to 1-2% of those who use it in some way today.

When you say “in the next years” you should actually say in the next few decades when it comes to mass adaptation.

[tranthidung]

The reason why we still use the 21 million cap when talking about bitcoin is the same exact reason why you use the word "probably" when talking about the 17 million cap assumption. While I think something like 17-18m is more probable due to the lost BTC, 21m is simply just a more factual metric. While 17m-19m is likely, we really don't have data on how much BTC are actually lost. We only know that they ain't moving, but not necessarily "lost".

The initial total supply of Bitcoin (~21 million, it is a rounded number) and its halvings every four years are enough to imagine about its scarcity. The more lost Bitcoin will only make it looks more scarce but scarcity is not only factor that makes the value of Bitcoin.
Scammers can make a shit coin with total supply at 21,000 but it does not cause a price of that coin will be 1,000 higher than Bitcoin.

In 2020, before the bearish break-out of Bitcoin, YFI is the hottest in crypto market. It joins the market when people were mad with DeFi and gives people a feeling that it is extremely scarce. In September of 2020, YFI has a price above $40,000 when Bitcoin was trading around $10,000. 

YFI's total supply

[ranochigo]

A study shows that it does, actually, decrease. Specifically Timothy Peterson claims that 1,500 bitcoins are lost each day, meaning that on average the supply decreases with around 400 bitcoins every day. Since the genesis block, around 4% of the available supply of bitcoins has been lost each year. Lots of years later, when the block rewards some thousands of satoshis, this loss may be seen more clearly.

I can't really find the methodology other than the mention of relating the price and the economic mechanisms doesn't always hold true for something as volatile as Bitcoin where economic decisions are not always as rational as they seem. The paper isn't peer reviewed as well, I'll take that with a pinch of salt. Modelling rate based on historical figures doesn't make any sense either.

[stompix]

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge.

Except for the scenario where it drops back to 100$ and it would be no such big deal
I've always wondered why people see all the fiat currency switching to bitcoin, look at the market right now, there is a lot of money going into a lot of other different coins, with every step we take towards going full mainstream you will see a lot of money being poured into altcoins also, but at the same time, you will see a lot of money not being invested in it.
And just for fun, how would people that own billions in stocks transfer all their wealth into bitcoin?

Yeah, probably in 10-20 times owning an entire BTC would mean quite a lot even for the western world but it won't make you part of an "elite" society.

Oh, and about lost coins, remember how surprised everyone was when coins that never moved since 2009 came back to life:
https://www.coindesk.com/50-btc-just-moved-for-first-time-since-2009-but-it-doesnt-look-like-satoshi

[tranthidung]

I can't really find the methodology other than the mention of relating the price and the economic mechanisms doesn't always hold true for something as volatile as Bitcoin where economic decisions are not always as rational as they seem. The paper isn't peer reviewed as well, I'll take that with a pinch of salt. Modelling rate based on historical figures doesn't make any sense either.

Models are not perfect and many factors in models will be changed. In the past, especially in early years after the genesis block, many people lost their Bitcoin because they considered it is a joke. Mine it, buy it for fun, and don't know the importance of private key or they simply don't believe that Bitcoin will have price at thousands of dollar.

In the past, the available educational resources about Bitcoin is limited. This education limitation contributes to the number of Bitcoin was lost.

Nowadays and in the future, things are and will be changed

• Abundant resources to teach, warn them about the importance of seed or private key.
• Price of Bitcoin is expensive and they will be more serious with their Bitcoin.
• Consequently, people will learn more, and be more careful with their private key that in turn make the rate of lost Bitcoin will be lower

[Chato1977]

What many people forget is that many bitcoins were already lost, some aren't mined yet and others will be lost in the future.

So scarcity is a great factor, but 21M Bitcoins is not even the true number, we will probably never have more than 17M active coins at a given time for >8 billion people! Imagine what owning 1 single BTC will mean in the next years, owning a single Bitcoin will mean a lot, it's gonna be huge. There are >51M people who are millionaires right now, they won't even be able to own 1 BTC each. So having values like $500K per BTC will seem pretty normal, people will dream for $40K per BTC in the future.

People won't need to have 1 bitcoin because sooner 1 dollar per satoshi will make people richer than what they are now..

Like mine , I will be more happy having my 0.1 bitcoin for life (though I'm adding some more little by little)

but of course altcoins will save the day so consider having them also.