Mining Reward Block 2,100,000+

[thom88]

I was wondering what the Bitcoin protocol does when we reach block 2,100,000. As of now, block reward is halved every 210,000 blocks. Now this works fine so far with 8 decimal places but with block reward being 0.09765625 BTC until block 2,099,999 and its then halved, we get the value 0.048828125 which has 9 decimals. 1 too many.

So technically, really just technically, the reward isn't halved by then but either less or more?

I am just curious and fully aware that the 0.000000005 does not make any significant difference even if 1 BTC is in the millions but still.

Anyone knows what will happen? roundig? 

[franky1]

a few points to correct
one coin is not produced per block. meaning block 2,100,000 will not be the block with the final 'created' coin reward

there are 210,000 blocks per halving. and there are 32 halvings. meaning ~block number 6,930,000

after that, its just pure transaction fee as the reward
however thats in year 2140~.. and also for maybe 100 years prior to that(2040) people wont be concentrating on the block reward 'created' coins. as the amounts would be less than a single coin from 12 years time. where as the transaction fee's would be over 1btc(as they are now)

think of it as created coin as salary and fee as commission.. and your pay structure just shifting whereby the commission oversteps how much salary you get untill you just forget about caring about the salary because you are getting most of your income from commission. and then one day when you are 140years old.. your earnings is just pure commission

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply#Projected_Bitcoins_Long_Term

...
also technically.. there is no btc in bitcoin. there is no decimal point
yep. thats right you will find no 8decimal number in any raw blockdata or raw tx
the 'btc' value is a division of satoshi amount /100,000,000 that is done purely at the user interface level

at binary level and data level everything is measured in satoshi units, well actually its starts as binary then converted to integer, then converted to btc
NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND

todays 6.25 btc is actually 625000000
in binary 100101010000001011111001000000

next halfs 3.125 btc is actually 312500000
in binary 10010101000000101111100100000

the halving is removing 1 binary bit from the end
so
1001010100000010111110010000 = 156250000
100101010000001011111001000 = 78125000
10010101000000101111100100 = 39062500
1001010100000010111110010 = 19531250
100101010000001011111001 = 9765625
10010101000000101111100 = 4882812
1001010100000010111110 = 2441406
100101010000001011111 = 1220703
10010101000000101111 = 610351

as you can see 9765625->4882812  does not have 2.5
as you can see 1220703->610351  does not have 1.5

[o_e_l_e_o]

Anyone knows what will happen? roundig?  

The half a satoshi per block will be lost, and the block reward will go from 0.09765625 BTC to 0.04882812 BTC.

This will happen multiple more times over the rest of bitcoin's future. For example, starting at halving number 13 the reward will progress as follows, losing half a satoshi each time:

0.01220703 BTC
0.00610351 BTC
0.00305175 BTC
0.00152587 BTC
0.00076293 BTC

Because of these cumulative losses, the maximum supply of bitcoin is not 21 million, but rather 20,999,999.97690000. Or at least, it would have been this number if other bitcoin had not been irretrievably lost along the way.

[thom88]

Anyone knows what will happen? roundig?  

The half a satoshi per block will be lost, and the block reward will go from 0.09765625 BTC to 0.04882812 BTC.

This will happen multiple more times over the rest of bitcoin's future. For example, starting at halving number 13 the reward will progress as follows, losing half a satoshi each time:

0.01220703 BTC
0.00610351 BTC
0.00305175 BTC
0.00152587 BTC
0.00076293 BTC

Because of these cumulative losses, the maximum supply of bitcoin is not 21 million, but rather 20,999,999.97690000. Or at least, it would have been this number if other bitcoin had not been irretrievably lost along the way.

thanks a lot. that is a very clear and logical answer. So indeed we will never have 21 million coins that way.

[hugeblack]

Even if the fees received from txs are small, many people and institutions will make mining to confirm that Bitcoin is decentralized regardless of the fees they collect.

Mining is an economic activity associated with profits, in the past was an easy mining and small profits, the difficulty has become difficult to mining with traditional devices, yet people purchased specialized devices because of profits.

[DannyHamilton]

So indeed we will never have 21 million coins that way.

You can just ignore the nonsense from Charles-Tim, franky1, and hugeblack.  Clearly they didn't pay attention to what you were actually asking (although at least franky1 did point out how at a technical level the "halving" actually works and why the extra half a satoshi simply disappears).

As o_e_l_e_o has pointed out, and you have come to realize, it was never intended that there would be exactly 21,000,000 Bitcoins.  The more accurate phrase would be that there will never be more than 21,000,000 bitcoins, since no matter what the number is it will always be less than that.  There have on occasion been miners (or mining pools) that have failed to create the maximum allowed block reward in their blocks.  Therefore, the actual total will end up being less than the 20,999,999.9769 Bitcoins that were theoretically possible when Bitcoin first started.

[o_e_l_e_o]

There have on occasion been miners (or mining pools) that have failed to create the maximum allowed block reward in their blocks.  Therefore, the actual total will end up being less than the 20,999,999.9769 Bitcoins that were theoretically possible when Bitcoin first started.

There are other considerations too. For example, the very first block reward of 50 BTC can never be spent, as the coinbase transaction from the genesis block was never added to the transaction database. There have been two instances of a miner overwriting the block reward from a previous block and therefore effectively permanently burning 100 BTC, before this bug was fixed. There have been a not insignificant number of coins sent to OP_RETURN outputs or other outputs which are provably unspendable. And as you say, a number of examples of miners failing to claim the full block reward and/or the full amount of fees, resulting in them also being irretrievably lost.

It would be very interesting for someone to go through the entire UTXO set and total up the number of provably lost coins which could be subtracted from the maximum possible supply.

[BlackHatCoiner]

For example, the very first block reward of 50 BTC can never be spent, as the coinbase transaction from the genesis block was never added to the transaction database.

The first block reward doesn't take part in the 21M rule as it doesn't take part in the first epoch. First halving occurred in block 210,000 and since the system halves the reward every 210,000 blocks, then genesis (AKA block 0) is excluded.

That's probably why Satoshi configured those coins as unspendable.

It would be very interesting for someone to go through the entire UTXO set and total up the number of provably lost coins which could be subtracted from the maximum possible supply.

I'm not sure if coinmarketcap.com has had the correct supply: 18,836,593 BTC (as of block 703,865)

210000*50 + 210000*25 + 210000*12.5 + 73,865*6.25 = 18,836,656.25 BTC.

These 63.25 BTC aren't counted and are, most probably, provably burnt.

[franky1]

So indeed we will never have 21 million coins that way.

You can just ignore the nonsense from Charles-Tim, franky1, and hugeblack.  Clearly they didn't pay attention to what you were actually asking (although at least franky1 did point out how at a technical level the "halving" actually works and why the extra half a satoshi simply disappears).

As o_e_l_e_o has pointed out, and you have come to realize, it was never intended that there would be exactly 21,000,000 Bitcoins.  The more accurate phrase would be that there will never be more than 21,000,000 bitcoins, since no matter what the number is it will always be less than that.  There have on occasion been miners (or mining pools) that have failed to create the maximum allowed block reward in their blocks.  Therefore, the actual total will end up being less than the 20,999,999.9769 Bitcoins that were theoretically possible when Bitcoin first started.

though technically there are no btc..
here is the real technical

bitcoin at binary base level has no btc. its units of measure for the human translation of 50btc is
100101010000001011111001000000000 units of measure produce every block in 2009-2011
5000000000 satoshi(not btc)
5000000000 smallest units of account was the real rule for the first reward.

however some silly people in the development team stupidly think that it is ok to make it so that
although in
2009-2012 100101010000001011111001000000000 (50)
2012-2016 10010101000000101111100100000000 (25)
2016-2020 1001010100000010111110010000000 (12.5)
2020-2024 100101010000001011111001000000 (6.25)

these silly people want to make it so that there are 4 more decimals (12 instead of 8 )
aka MORE units of account. more sharable units. more measures to hand around
meaning changing the hard rule to become
6.25btc 100101010000001011111001000000
6.25btc 1011010111100110001000001111010010000000000

which can break bitcoin in many ways about backward compatibility and forward compatibility of reading transaction values and reward rule amounts

also breaks the scarcity hard rule that was promised never to be tampered with or broken

but this also means 13 more halvings. not only changing how many decimals of "btc" coins are produced as of final halving.
but also change the end date of final halving by 52 years and also changing the maximum UNITS OF SHARABILITY (aka sarcity)

so while danny and o_e_l_e_o in some subsections of the forum pretend the max cap is just under 21mill coins and pretend to be smart by mentioning the limit in precise decimal amount. in other sections of the forum they promote breaking these rules to be compatible with other networks.. funnily then breaking their own math of how many decimals will be final..

i personally hope they stop promoting a rule change else where that will break their own decimal math. and i hope bitcoin binary value does not break rules. meaning without changing anything about the binary halving or binary value. their decimal computation of 20,999,999.97690000 remains true of the final real amount ever possible.

[BlackHatCoiner]

which can break bitcoin in many ways about backward compatibility and forward compatibility of reading transaction values and reward rule amounts

How can it break it?

Once we came into this agreement of four more decimals, the code would change, but Bitcoin wouldn't break. Satoshi (sat) wouldn't be the base unit (as it is in the source code), but another one which is a thousand times less than that. Transactions signed after this change could have a prefix which would indicate that the user signs based on the new milli-toshi base unit. Any transaction's amount which was signed without this prefix, like the ones before the change, would be considered as a thousand times greater.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I'm not sure if coinmarketcap.com has had the correct supply: 18,836,593 BTC (as of block 703,865).

CMC is currently showing me a circulating supply of 18,836,656 BTC, which fits with your calculation of all the block rewards added up, so no, it is not showing the actual circulating supply. It also shows the incorrect max supply of 21 million.

There have also been a lot more than 63.25 BTC that have been provably permanently removed from the supply. Given that I linked to a single block which provably burned over 2,600 BTC, combined with 100 BTC overwritten, 50 BTC from the genesis block, at least 30 BTC failed to be claimed by miners, and all the other provably unspendable and OP_RETURN outputs, then the real number would be at least 3,000 BTC.

[franky1]

which can break bitcoin in many ways about backward compatibility and forward compatibility of reading transaction values and reward rule amounts

How can it break it?

Once we came into this agreement of four more decimals, the code would change, but Bitcoin wouldn't break. Satoshi (sat) wouldn't be the base unit (as it is in the source code), but another one which is a thousand times less than that. Transactions signed after this change could have a prefix which would indicate that the user signs based on the new milli-toshi base unit. Any transaction's amount which was signed without this prefix, like the ones before the change, would be considered as a thousand times greater.

the binary rule.. the real base rule.. the binary measure will be broken
but you think its ok because you can hide the break using user interface level code to hide the break with 'prefixes'

you are clamoring onto ideals that the hard rule is actually the soft rule of the user visual of btc.. without realising or admitting that the real rule is binary.

changing the binary of 6.26btc means that old nodes see the new measure as being more then 6.25 btc under their rules.
and new nodes see the old 6.25btc as being less than 6.25btc if some cludgy user prefix code is not added to hide the change

and yes it requires alot of cludgy code to translate and hope to not break the binary rule by having cludgy math express numbers different at human interface level

if you think you can have cludgy user interface code to hide the rule break than you are pathetic.
the other pathetic thing is how you defend such an act of editing bitcoins hard rule to be alt-net compatible. when these silly altnets you want compatibility with have no consensus nor longevity nor loyalty. and so it should be these altnets that should have the cludge to be bitcoin compatible

if other networks cant work with bitcoin. then other networks should not continue to operate as they have failed. if other networks want compatibility.. they should change. without breaking bitcoin to make other networks succeed

[DannyHamilton]

As is typical, franky1 has now gone completely off topic from the original question.

Like I said, you can ignore him, he tends to be more interested in pushing an agenda and fear-mongering than actually answering questions and educating.

[franky1]

As is typical, franky1 has now gone completely off topic from the original question.

Like I said, you can ignore him, he tends to be more interested in pushing an agenda and fear-mongering than actually answering questions and educating.

as always this question of "what if in 2140" and "what about 9th decimal" has been asked many many times. and so instead of just the obvious answer.. i go one step further and actually include details of CURRENT present tense issues that impact such issues of the topic, in the future.

the simple question has now been asked and answered. and now its for further lessons about more indetail stuff.. shame danny does not want people talking about the finer details of bitcoin. seems he does not want people to learn about the indepth goings on of bitcoin.. wonder why

but danny wants me ignored because i talk about issues that are in plan/discussion of change in the present and that affect the future of this topics question which he does not want people reading

but hey. this is a discussion forum about bitcoin not a "shut up about bitcoin and promote altnet" so i will continue discussing things that affect bitcoin

yep my comments change your highlighted
20,999,999.97690000 which should be achieved in 2140
to actually be
20,999,999.99999570 btc (user interface cludgy math total) by 2192
or technically
2,099,999,997,690,000 minimal sharable units changing to
20,999,999,999,995,700,000 minimal sharable units by 2192

meaning the topic creators question has more then one answer and result to his question

oh and the funny part..
discussing things dev want to be kept a secret(by ignoring/banning user discussion of such) is not 'fear mongering' its actually called transparency. and informing. because some people actually want to know about things being proposed that can break and change bitcoin.

pretending it can cause fear must be an admission by danny that what has been discussed is something people would fear. meaning danny and his ilk should not be secretly pushing to proceed in letting such a thing happen.
but if what was discussed had no impact and affect. then its not fear mongering. (so why call it fear mongering?)

so danny do you really approve of the change to the binary values and the need for cludgy code and math to translate and convert at user level and have alot more bug fix code to prevent back-forward compatibility issues just to get your altnet to work with bitcoin?
or
have i got you wrong and you want the binary measure to stay as is and not have "extra decimals" at user interface level, meaning you want to keep bitcoin values as is?

if its the second i apologise as pigeonholing you into the certain group. if its the first. then people need to know this stuff

[thom88]

There have on occasion been miners (or mining pools) that have failed to create the maximum allowed block reward in their blocks.  Therefore, the actual total will end up being less than the 20,999,999.9769 Bitcoins that were theoretically possible when Bitcoin first started.

There are other considerations too. For example, the very first block reward of 50 BTC can never be spent, as the coinbase transaction from the genesis block was never added to the transaction database. There have been two instances of a miner overwriting the block reward from a previous block and therefore effectively permanently burning 100 BTC, before this bug was fixed. There have been a not insignificant number of coins sent to OP_RETURN outputs or other outputs which are provably unspendable. And as you say, a number of examples of miners failing to claim the full block reward and/or the full amount of fees, resulting in them also being irretrievably lost.

It would be very interesting for someone to go through the entire UTXO set and total up the number of provably lost coins which could be subtracted from the maximum possible supply.

I actually did go through all the transactions with an own blockchain parser i have created (this is why i ended up asking this question) and I have found around 3500 BTC (roughly) to be sent to a non spendable output. That was just a high level rough observation, might me much more.

it was simply the difference between balances of all public keys (addresses) as of the time of running the query minus all block rewards ever issued. not sure if that is accurate enough.

[DannyHamilton]

... the actual total will end up being less than the 20,999,999.9769 Bitcoins that were theoretically possible when Bitcoin first started.

... There have been a not insignificant number of coins sent to OP_RETURN outputs or other outputs which are provably unspendable. And as you say, a number of examples of miners failing to claim the full block reward and/or the full amount of fees ...

... I have found around 3500 BTC (roughly) to be sent to a non spendable output. That was just a high level rough observation, might me much more ...

That sounds like a reasonable number, but you're right it probably is a bit more.

In addition to the two links provided by o_e_l_e_o above, a similar review of spendable Bitcoins was done back in 2014. You may want to look through that thread to see what was found at that time and how the user went about it:

In validating a UTXO parser I started looking at various outputs which are provably unspendable.  As of block #305303 2,745.22283996 BTC have been provably lost.  The total number of coins lost is higher potentially much higher but most of those losses can't be proven.   Funds sent to outputs that can never be redeemed can be provably shown to be lost.

Code:

Category       NumOutputs    AmountLost
-----------------------------------------
BugOpFalse            23   2,609.36304319
BugP2Pool            182       0.60280235
BugInvalidOpcode      14       0.04520008
BugInvalidPubKey  17,112       0.00242288
BugParseError          1       0.00040000
ZeroValue *        3,080       0.00000000
MissingFromUTXO **   ---     135.20897146
-----------------------------------------
Total             20,412   2,745.22283996 BTC

* Zero value unprunable outputs are not invalid outputs but they are undesirable.  I was surprised to see there are over three thousand in the UTXO.  In the future the creation of new zero value outputs (with the exception of the prunable OP_RETURN) could be made invalid and potentially even these outputs pruned off by a hard fork.

** As of block 305,303 the coin supply is limited to 12,882,575 BTC.   This is based on the max subsidy per block and the block height.  However the UTXO (set of all unspent outputs) is only 12,882,439.79102854 BTC.  Some of the difference may be due to OP_RETURN outputs (which are unspendable by protocol) having a value set.  This could be accidental or intentional.  Another source of lost coins is due to miners taking less than the maximum block reward which in effect "de-mines" an amount of coins equal to the difference between the allowed reward and the taken reward.