how many bitcoins will there be ?

[vortexz]

I've heard a while ago that there will be a limited numer of bitcoins available and that at some point all bitcoins will be mined.
is that true ?
how many bitcoins are still out there to be mined and by what year will all be mined ?

[1714829739]

1714829739

[1714829739]

1714829739

[shorena]

I've heard a while ago that there will be a limited numer of bitcoins available and that at some point all bitcoins will be mined.
is that true ?

Yes.

how many bitcoins are still out there to be mined and by what year will all be mined ?

The total amount of bitcoin is hardcoded to be 21 million BTC at max. The mining rewards half after a certain amount of time, which will result in almost 21 million btc sometime in the next century (year ~2140)

[pringbit]

Exactly 21 millions, take a look at the bitcoin wiki, you will find some interesting informations:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

[AceWallen]

Exactly 21 millions, take a look at the bitcoin wiki, you will find some interesting informations:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

keep in mind, however, that this hard limit can always be changed by altering the source code, should devs decide to do that. in the case of such a fork, it would be up to the miners to prevent the new fork from developing, and to keep the old code intact.

highly unlikely, but just throwing it out there.

[notlist3d]

Exactly 21 millions, take a look at the bitcoin wiki, you will find some interesting informations:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

keep in mind, however, that this hard limit can always be changed by altering the source code, should devs decide to do that. in the case of such a fork, it would be up to the miners to prevent the new fork from developing, and to keep the old code intact.

highly unlikely, but just throwing it out there.

We will see I highly doubt they would do a fork at this point..... but guess you never know.  I think you have a better chance winning lottery

[BeginToMine]

That would couse a huge drop in value of BTC if devs would try to change amount of total BTC possible to mine.

[santaClause]

Exactly 21 millions, take a look at the bitcoin wiki, you will find some interesting informations:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

This number will technically be a little bit less due to the fact that some TXs have outputs that were sent to unspendible addresses.

[oceans]

In answer to your question on how many there are still out there to be mined I am not sure a solid answer can be given on that but as stated above I do know that there are 21 million out there so I would imagine with bitcoin not being too popular at the moment there may still be quite a lot to be mined but I could not say that for sure.

[jeroenn13]

Fixed 21 million BTC will be mined.

[minerpumpkin]

Exactly 21 millions, take a look at the bitcoin wiki, you will find some interesting informations:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

keep in mind, however, that this hard limit can always be changed by altering the source code, should devs decide to do that. in the case of such a fork, it would be up to the miners to prevent the new fork from developing, and to keep the old code intact.

highly unlikely, but just throwing it out there.

Devs could do whatever they want. It is up to the miners and the network though, whether those changes really become reality! That's the beauty of Bitcoin everyone can decide what he agrees to or just leave it be.

[ensurance982]

Yeah, 21 million like the other people already stated. It's amazing to think about how more than half of those coins are already in existence even though only about 5 years have passed since Bitcoins initial conception. The last coins will me mined decades from now... It's crazy!

[MinerHQ]

21 mil whole ones, infinity decimal ones

[DannyHamilton]

The total amount of bitcoin is hardcoded to be less than 21 million BTC . . .

FTFY

Exactly 20999999.9769 millions, take a look at the bitcoin wiki . . .
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

FTFY.  Note that some have been permanently destroyed, so the total in existence when all mining is complete will be less than 20999999 BTC.

keep in mind, however, that this hard limit can always be changed by altering the source code, should devs decide to do that. in the case of such a fork, it would be up to the miners to prevent the new fork from developing, and to keep the old code intact.

Bitcoin operates on the consensus of the users, not the majority of the miners.  Every user running a full node (such as Bitcoin Core) enforces the protocol rules on the entire system.  If a forking change were made to the protocol, those users (and miners) that chose to use the new code would essentially be creating an altcoin (which they might want to try and call "bitcoin", but which wouldn't actually be "bitcoin" unless ALL users and miners switched to software running the new protocol).  If even one user and one miner continue to run the old protocol, then the original bitcoin rules would still exist on the original bitcoin network.

This number will technically be a little bit less due to the fact that some TXs have outputs that were sent to unspendible addresses.

TXs sent to unspendable addresses still exist and can be seen in the blockchain.  They may never be spent, but it doesn't change the total amount that exist. On the other hand, there were some bitcoins early on that were accidentally destroyed by a miner running faulty code.  Those bitcoins no longer exist at all, and never will.  It wasn't very many, but it could happen again in the future.

. . . how many there are still out there to be mined I am not sure a solid answer can be given on that but as stated above I do know that there are less than 21 million out there . . .

FTFY.  Also, as of the time of this post, approximately 13.216 million have been mined so far.  This leaves approximately 7.784 million more that have not yet been mined.

Fixed 21 million BTC will be mined.

Nearly, but not quite.  The total number that should have been mined was 20999999.9769 BTC. A bit less than this will actually be mined due to a bug in a miner's code early on that permanently destroyed some bitcoins from existence.

Yeah, less than 21 million like the other people already stated. It's amazing to think about how more than half of those coins are already in existence even though only about 5 years have passed since Bitcoins initial conception. The last coins will me mined decades from now... It's crazy!

FTFY. Also, It's closer to 6 years than 5 years now.  The last coins will be mined more than a century from now.

21 mil whole ones, infinity decimal ones

No.  See my other responses in this post.

[sehnye]

21 millions as they said, it's the first thing I learned about bitcoins

[DannyHamilton]

less than 21 millions as they said, it's the first thing I learned about bitcoins

FTFY.

[marcovaldo]

13.216 btc million have been mined so far => But it is hard to know how much are "permanently lost", and how much are "being hold by anonymous people", ie how much are currently available right now. Anyway, we will all be dead when the last satoshi will eventually be mined so we do not really mind how much btc will be available in decades.

[Tammy Chan]

Bitcoin operates on the consensus of the users, not the majority of the miners.  Every user running a full node (such as Bitcoin Core) enforces the protocol rules on the entire system.  If a forking change were made to the protocol, those users (and miners) that chose to use the new code would essentially be creating an altcoin (which they might want to try and call "bitcoin", but which wouldn't actually be "bitcoin" unless ALL users and miners switched to software running the new protocol).  If even one user and one miner continue to run the old protocol, then the original bitcoin rules would still exist on the original bitcoin network.

Not sure if I understand this.
Doesn't the longest chain wins?
Say if there are only a small number of users and miners remaining in the unforked version, shouldn't miners in the forked version generate a winning chain of larger total difficulty?

[DannyHamilton]

Bitcoin operates on the consensus of the users, not the majority of the miners.  Every user running a full node (such as Bitcoin Core) enforces the protocol rules on the entire system.  If a forking change were made to the protocol, those users (and miners) that chose to use the new code would essentially be creating an altcoin (which they might want to try and call "bitcoin", but which wouldn't actually be "bitcoin" unless ALL users and miners switched to software running the new protocol).  If even one user and one miner continue to run the old protocol, then the original bitcoin rules would still exist on the original bitcoin network.

Not sure if I understand this.
Doesn't the longest chain wins?
Say if there are only a small number of users and miners remaining in the unforked version, shouldn't miners in the forked version generate a winning chain of larger total difficulty?

Longest chain wins when both chains are using the same protocol.  This is why reorgs happen when two bitcoin miners find a block within a fraction of a second of each other.

When the protocols are different and incompatible (known as a forking change), then you end up with an altcoin.  This is why there isn't a "longest chain wins" situation between bitcoin and any of the other altcoins.

Those running the existing protocol won't even recognize blocks as valid if they come from miners running the new protocol.  It won't matter how long the chain is, an invalid block is ignored and tossed out.

[BurtW]

Bitcoin operates on the consensus of the users, not the majority of the miners.  Every user running a full node (such as Bitcoin Core) enforces the protocol rules on the entire system.  If a forking change were made to the protocol, those users (and miners) that chose to use the new code would essentially be creating an altcoin (which they might want to try and call "bitcoin", but which wouldn't actually be "bitcoin" unless ALL users and miners switched to software running the new protocol).  If even one user and one miner continue to run the old protocol, then the original bitcoin rules would still exist on the original bitcoin network.

Not sure if I understand this.
Doesn't the longest chain wins?
Say if there are only a small number of users and miners remaining in the unforked version, shouldn't miners in the forked version generate a winning chain of larger total difficulty?

If you are really interested in the technical details of a hard fork read this thread:  

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=352734.0

Danny, thanks for answering all the misinformation in this thread, if you didn't do it I was about to.

[Tammy Chan]

Thanks Danny and BurtW (and casascius, DeathAndTaxes, etc that posted in BurtW's linked thread).
I understand the fork issue more better now.