The total amount of bitcoins in circulation (BTC) reached a milestone on Monday morning, one and a half years after the last bitcoin halving, with 90% of the maximum total supply that was extracted.
Current data from Blockchain.com shows that there were 18.899 million bitcoins in circulation as of Monday, which means that I only have 10% of the total left. While the first 90% of BTC took about 12 years, the rest will take a little longer.
Bitcoin has a maximum of 21 million coins set by its anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. This restriction is written in the Bitcoin source code and is enforced by network nodes. Bitcoin’s hard hold is crucial to show value as a currency and investment tool.
Constant supply of bitcoins. Source: Blockchain.com
As Cointelegraph explains, it will take 119 years to complete the bitcoin mining process as the production rate of new bitcoins is halved every four years by implementing a predetermined protocol, also known as bitcoin halving.
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Since the Bitcoin blockchain only generates new BTC as a reward for miners who validate new blocks, the halving ensures that fewer Bitcoins are produced as the total supply increases. Since May 2020, miners have earned 6.25 bitcoins for each new block that is confirmed. This price will fall to 3,125 BTC per block by the next halving in 2024.
By 2040, the block reward will fall below 0.2 BTC, leaving only 80,000 bitcoins out of 21 million. It will take almost 40 years to extract the latest bitcoin.
The price of bitcoin started the week with a new denial of 50,000 dollars as the end of the year was fast approaching. It is down almost 30% from its record high of $ 68,789 on November 10 at the time of the press release.
