The galloping growth in the exchange rate of the two most popular cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin and Ethereum – is creating a stir around digital money. Both the mining of coins and the volume of investments in these currencies are increasing. More and more often questions arise: how many Bitcoins and Ethereum have already been mined, what is the maximum number of Bitcoins and whether the limit of cryptocurrencies will be exhausted, whether there will be enough cryptocurrencies for all...

Exhaustible and inexhaustible crypto coins

Cryptocurrencies can be divided into exhaustible ones, in the code of which a limit on the issue of coins is built in, and inexhaustible ones, which, on the contrary, can be mined endlessly. Of the 25 largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization, 17 (which is 68%) have an emission limit. These include Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC), etc. The developers of the remaining 8 of the analyzed cryptocurrencies do not have any limits (for example, Ethereum (ETH), Monero (XMR), NEM (XEM), etc.).

Below is a table showing the share of mined cryptocurrencies with limited emission.

Cryptocurrency	Capitalization, billion $	Number of coins in circulation, million coins	Issue limit, million coins	Share of mined coins
Bitcoin (BTC)	117,6	16,8	21,0	80%
Ethereum (ETH)	32,2	96,9	No	-
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)	21,4	16,9	21,0	80,5%
Ripple (XRP)	8,1	38739,1	100000,0	39%
Litecoin (LTC)	3,5	54,8	84,0	65%
Dash (DASH)	3,3	7,8	18,9	41%
NEO (NEO)	1,95	65,0	100,0	65%
IOTA (MIOTA)	1,9	2779,5	2779,5	100%
Monero (XMR)	1,9	15,6	No	-
NEM (XEM)	1,8	9000,0	No	-
Ethereum Classic (ETC)	1,7	99,1	No	-
Lisk (LSK)	0,9	117	No	-
Qtum (QTUM)	0,87	73,8	100,2	74%
OmiseGO (OMG)	0,79	102,0	140,2	73%
EOS (EOS)	0,77	604,9	1000,0	60,5%
Zcash (ZEC)	0,73	3,1	No	-
Hshare (HSR)	0,73	42,5	84,0	50,6%
Cardano (ADA)	0,7	25927,1	45000,0	58%
Stellar Lumens (XLM)	0,6	17890,5	103432,4	17,3%
Tether (USDT)	0,59	1468,1	1468,1	100%
BitConnect (BCC)	0,56	6,3	28,0	22,5%
Waves (WAVES)	0,5	100,0	No	-
Popular (PPT)	0,4	37	53,3	69,4%
Stratis (STRAT)	0,35	98,7	No	-
Ark (ARK)	0,3	98,0	129,2	76%

Table - Bitcoin emission and the 24 largest crypto coins by capitalization
Source: calculation site according to coinmarketcap.com

How many bitcoins are left?

At the time of writing, the number of bitcoins in the cryptocurrency market was more than 16.8 million, which is 80% of the established emission limit. In other words, only 4.2 million bitcoins remain in the cryptocurrency depths.

The rate of Bitcoin emission is built into its code and is strictly limited. Every four years, production is halved. In addition, as the graph below shows, it becomes more difficult to find a new block every month.

Source: blockchain.info

In what year will all bitcoins be mined?

When will the last Bitcoin be mined? Around 2140, the last 21 millionth Bitcoin will appear; it is difficult to predict how much Bitcoin will cost and what will happen next. Some experts believe that by this time the rate may increase thousands of times compared to how much Bitcoin used to cost, due to the shortage, others believe that the developers will lift the emission limit and the rate will level out.

In addition, it is worth considering that during the circulation process, some part of BTC coins is constantly lost and goes into oblivion forever. According to DigRate research, about 21% of bitcoins are “dead” and not in circulation.

How much ether is there on the market?

One of the popular queries of Internet users is how many Ethereum coins there are. As stated above, Ethereum has not set a maximum number of coins to issue, and at the moment more than 96.9 million coins have been mined.

The next logical question is how much ethereum will cost when the plan to issue all bitcoins is completed, and the amount of ETH will be hundreds, or even thousands of times higher than the amount of BTC. There is no clear opinion on this issue yet, and experts believe that by 2140 (by the time Bitcoin is exhausted), the cryptocurrency market will change beyond recognition.

It is worth noting that Vitalik Buterin (one of the creators of Ethereum) is thinking about limiting the emission of Ethereum, but he intends to do this not by analogy with Bitcoin, but in a more “cunning” way. The developer proposes to introduce a commission on applications created on the Ethereum blockchain system. This will contribute, according to Buterin, to the withdrawal of part of the tokens.

As for the difficulty of mining Ethereum, it, like Bitcoin, increases over time. However, at the end of October, after a protocol change, it became twice as easy to mine ETH.

How many Bitcoins are there now? How much did the FBI seize during the Silk Road investigation? Where did all those bitcoins go? Who owns the largest amount in the world?

If such questions have not yet occurred to you, sooner or later you will ask them.

To date, 14.75 million bitcoins have already been mined out of 21 million, defined as an unchangeable limit on their number. Who owns most of the currency? Several names have been heard.

One of them is the Wicklevoss twin brothers, who purchased $11 million worth of bitcoins back in 2013 at a rate of $120 per 1 BTC. Since then, Bitcoin has lost value only twice, and at the moment its price is much higher than what the brothers paid for it. If at the end of 2013, during the price jump to $1,000, the Winklevoss had sold their bitcoins and then bought them again with the proceeds, the number of bitcoins they now own would be five times larger.

Naturally, buying bitcoins with money is not the only way to get them. There are two more ways - mining, as well as selling goods and services for bitcoins. One of the largest Bitcoin holders in the history of cryptocurrency was Ross Ulbricht, who earned huge sums from transaction fees on the infamous and now defunct underground market.

During the investigation, approximately 174,000 BTC were confiscated from Ross Ulbricht and Silk Road. Of these, approximately 144,000 BTC were confiscated from Ross Ulbricht's computer, and the rest were found in numerous wallets belonging to .

After the confiscation, it was decided to sell these bitcoins in several lots at auction. At the moment, three auctions have already been held. The fourth and final one is scheduled for November 5, 2015.

We do not have detailed information about the people who bought these bitcoins, but some names are still known. Thus, venture capitalist Tim Draper purchased $17 million worth of bitcoins at the first auction.

Bitcoin Investment Trust bought the majority of BTC in the second auction. Most of the bitcoins from the third auction were sold to a mysterious company called Cumberland Mining. There are rumors that a large exchange was hiding behind it - Coinbase or Bitfinex. Even itBit purchased about 3,000 BTC in the third auction.

In addition to Bitcoins from Silk Road, there are also coins of Satoshi Nakamoto, shrouded in secrecy. No one knows the actual number of coins, and they have not been in circulation since the disappearance of their creator in 2011. During 2009 (the first year of mining), more than 1.5 million coins were created, and it is believed that Nakamoto controlled a large part of them. The release of these coins into circulation could lead to major panic in the market. The last time the movement of these coins was observed was in February 2011, after which their owner publicly stated that he did not intend to scare anyone by releasing old coins into circulation.

As of July of this year, the largest number of bitcoins is contained at the address coweGgC8CPZ6hYL1BBEfc1zqbSfHsprW. The amount on it is now about 65,000 BTC, and the address remains active and transactions for tens of thousands of BTC periodically take place with it.

Be that as it may, it is almost impossible to determine who actually owns the largest amount of BTC. Most cryptocurrency owners are wisely silent about the state of their finances. In addition, few people store large amounts of coins at one address.

But if you still try to make an assumption, with a high probability we can say that the greatest control is now in the hands of the winners of the Silk Road auctions, and the remaining large sums are distributed between the Winklevii company and several other large companies.

Either way, it doesn't really matter who controls the majority of Bitcoin. It appears that the greater the number of currency holders, the more difficult it will be for individual entities to raise large sums, and this could protect the price in the event that one of them decides to leave the market.

Most people know how many bitcoins are planned to be issued in the world, but calculating all the details often baffles even some economists. The system operates according to a predetermined algorithm, constantly expanding and reducing quarterly emissions.

Some people are interested in how many bitcoins have been mined to date, while others are interested in the number of coins left and the possibility of mining at least some of them for personal use. It’s worth immediately canceling that more than 78% of the 21 million coins have already been mined, while the remaining 22% will take many more decades.

How many bitcoins have already been mined?

If desired, you can even calculate perfectly accurate data on how many coins have already been mined. To do this, you need to take into account several factors:

• in the first 4 years 10,500,000 btc were mined;
• in the second 4 years 5,250,000 btc were mined;
• The third period is now underway, during which 2,625,000 btc will be mined.

It’s enough to simply find out how many bitcoins the system can currently produce per day if you make the following calculations:

• 2625000/4= 656250 – this is an annual figure;
• 1797.94520548 – daily crypto mining indicator (the system is limited to eight decimal places).

To more accurately find out what volume is currently in circulation, you will also need to take into account how many days the crypt is issued. The launch took place on January 3, 2009, and counting down from that day. At the time of January 3, 2018, the figure will already be 16,406,250 btc.

Using the above method, you can easily calculate how many litecoins have been mined from any cryptocurrency. After all, all systems work on a similar principle, and the differences are only in the speed of block generation, rewards, adjustments and billing period. Sometimes projects are launched without a maximum limit, which negatively affects reputation and demand, but in practice the reduction factor will also not allow you to produce an unlimited quantity.

Maximum number of bitcoins in the world

From the first days of the launch of the crypt, it was known that the maximum number of bitcoins in the world cannot exceed 21 million. The reasons for this particular volume of emission remain known only to the project developers, while users and miners can only focus on this finishing point.

The Bitcoin blockchain is designed quite simply and logically, but for miners, only numbers are important here:

• a new block is generated every 10 minutes;
• for recording one block, 50 tokens are initially allocated, but the amount is reduced by half every 4 years (210 thousand blocks);
• the reward is divided among all mining participants.

There is a misconception that the total number of coins can be generated ahead of schedule by using very high powers or working in huge pools. In practice, this is completely excluded, because the creators initially made the concept of Bitcoin completely different.

In addition, it is important to remember that wondering how many tokens are left today is incorrect. The amount decreases every 10 minutes by exactly 1 block, and the mining speed will remain the same until the last day.

What influences individual Bitcoin mining?

Many people are wondering how many coins can be obtained in the upcoming 2018, and what may affect the volume of mined tokens. This number totals 656,250 Btc and it does not depend on how many bitcoins are mined and on the number of working farms.

In this case, the system gives each participant such a share of all coins that corresponds to the invested capacity. To increase your profit, you need to know a few nuances:

• working on a home PC is unprofitable and often does not even cover the cost of electricity;
• for the farm it is advisable to use TOP video cards, because they provide maximum Mh/s (data processing speed);
• the farm is expensive, it is difficult to transport and there is a risk of breakdown, but the production speed and possibilities of use are as convenient as possible for the user (in addition, it can be disassembled and sold in parts with minimal financial losses);
• ASIC is a convenient device in which the manufacturer has provided almost everything necessary, but it is almost impossible to maintain and repair it.

Pools deserve special attention, to which you can provide your capacity for obviously increased receipt of rewards. Participants in such communities receive a particularly high percentage of the bitcoins that were produced.

Thus, in order to mine the maximum possible amount of cryptocurrency, you need to invest a lot of money in equipment, and then join the community.

When will the last token be mined?

In the first four years, exactly 10,500,000 tokens were issued, in the second 5,250,000 and then the amount will decrease by 2 times with each “season.” If the developers’ plans do not change, and the production rate remains in accordance with the algorithm described above, then production can be mathematically represented by the following formula:

A+A/2+A/4+A/8+…A/2x, where x is the degree corresponding to the number of cycles completed.

The system was designed in such a way that division occurred for as long as possible. As a result, there comes a time when for each block participants in crypto mining will receive the minimum possible reward, which is 1 satoshi (1 Btc contains 100,000,000 satoshi), and in a year only 210,000 (0.0021 Btc) will be received.

If these figures are converted into years, we get 33 seasons, which amount to 132 years. The last Satoshi can only be mined in 2140, and in the last year the last block 6,929,999 will be closed.

For most miners, the operating period will be limited to 2036. In this case, 99.2% will already be mined, while the remaining 0.8% that remains to be mined will be worked out only by the most notorious enthusiasts.

In addition, many are interested in if the limit of 21,000,000 has been reached, what will happen next to the coin. When it is, the currency will continue to exist in a static state, miners will start mining other tokens, and the price will continue to stabilize. It is only important to remember that 2140 is a rather distant future and there are no guarantees that interest in crypto in those years will not completely disappear, and that it will not be replaced by a more advanced payment system.

Reason for limiting the maximum number of coins

The maximum limit of twenty-one (21) million Bitcoins is solely at the discretion of the developers. There are a number of reasons why the maximum emission limit was set:

• psychological factor;
• increasing competitiveness in relation to fiat money, and then to other currencies;
• maintaining demand in accordance with the laws of the market;
• exclusion of inflationary processes.

Thus, the reason for the limited release of money was initially a psychological factor: if something is limited, then it has a significantly higher price than something that will always be available to everyone. In practice, there is no end in sight for the coins being produced for a long time, and with the condition of dividing by satoshi, the quantity turns out to be huge.

By the end of November, 78% of all tokens had been mined, which is why the growth rate increased tenfold. In a few days, the price increased from 8 to 18 thousand dollars per coin, which is why a lot of miners and traders began to hunt for this produced token.

Mine Bitcoin or give preference to altcoins

If you look at how many bitcoins have been mined, most people have a logical question: is it worth mining them, knowing how many bitcoins exist. It is almost impossible to give an unambiguous answer to this question, because each person has his own powers and prerogatives. To understand the issue, you need to pay attention to a number of criteria:

• how many bitcoins can you mine using your existing equipment if you convert them into USD;
• how many different altcoins you can mine in the corresponding period in terms of US dollars;
• prospects for the growth of the cue ball and the selected token in%;
• whether long-term storage or immediate sale is planned (often used in pools).

If the cryptocurrency developers do not change their policy, then we can safely not wait for all the bitcoins to be mined, because more than 100 years will pass. Some can be purchased for other currencies in order to be saved for the longest possible period of time in anticipation of an increase in value, but more and more people prefer to switch to developing projects, in which the actual daily profit is many times higher, and an increase in the exchange rate provides many prospects.

Summarizing

The turnover of bitcoins is growing every year, and with it the available number of tokens and their value are increasing. The final level will not be reached very soon, and even at that moment there will be significantly less money in circulation than was planned. There are many reasons for this - more than one generation of people will change, many wallets with coins will be lost, and some exchanges will close without compensation, etc.

The number of transactions is increasing every day, and even skeptics have no doubt that electronic currencies will replace fiat money that has existed for centuries. But no one even knows approximately which cryptocurrencies will survive. After all, even Bitcoin with its positions is subject to regular criticism, and modern systems of protection and anonymity surpass it many times over.

Do you want to stay up to date with the latest news and receive free insights? Subscribe to our,

James Song, CEO and co-founder of ExsulCoin

Price collapse
When all 21 million bitcoins are mined, a price crash will follow. People will probably use Bitcoin purely as a store of value and pay miners directly to confirm trades (which seems plausible given the current transaction fees for Bitcoin transactions).

Grant Blaisdell, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Coinfirm

It's too early to worry about it
When all the bitcoins are mined, nothing will happen. There will be a shortage, which, logically, will lead to higher costs. This will probably happen in a hundred years. Bitcoin still has a long way to go before we need to worry about this issue.

Moshe Joshua, Director of Development at Blackmoon Crypto

Time will show
If there is no mining, then there will be no bitcoins. Baseline mining costs are volatile, especially over the long term, so it's best to take things slow and wait, or at least hope, that coin values ​​will keep up with rapid inflation. Making long-term forecasts is a trap. The future always magically provides the right solution. Ask George Jetson. Ultimately, current blockchain technologies are at an early stage of development and still have several layers to overcome before they can meet our expectations. In the meantime, we will work towards this goal.

Mikhail Lala, founder of WAWLLET

Nothing
Nothing will happen. When all the bitcoins are mined, they will have a value close to zero and may have numismatic value fifty years from now.

Alexander Kitchenko, cryptocurrency investor, member of the Bitcoin Foundation

Bitcoin price will rise

What happens when all the bitcoins are mined? First, let's determine what exactly will happen at the moment when all 21 million coins are in people's hands. If today miners earn bitcoins by firstly generating the coin, and secondly by receiving commission payments from users for each transaction, then in the future they will only receive commission income from transactions, and will most likely choose between continuing should they support Bitcoin or choose another cryptocurrency for mining, for which the general limit will be worked out even later.

As for Bitcoin itself, its value will increase, and several factors will be behind the increase in price. The first factor is that the value of the paper money we are used to, which by its nature is not limited and is not backed by anything other than government guarantees, will continue to fall, and in the competition of currencies at auction, a currency with a limited emission, that is, the same Bitcoin, will have an advantage. The second factor is that while maintaining and improving the properties and qualities of Bitcoin, such as storage security, anonymity, decentralization and the absence of intermediaries in the form of banks for transferring funds, as well as the speed of transactions, the value of the coin will increase due to the high demand for such properties when everything is available on the market only 21 million coins.

In what year will the last Bitcoin be mined?

To better imagine this whole dry theory, you can recall the history of the same dollar. Once upon a time you could buy a chocolate bar for one cent, today you cannot buy anything for one cent - such a decrease in the value of the currency has occurred over the last century due to the unlimited “reprinting” of unbacked currency - the state makes things cost more, the more thereby “stimulating” people to spend more. In the case of Bitcoin, you can imagine the story with the dollar “in reverse” - today you can’t buy almost anything even in the world of cryptocurrencies with one Satoshi (0.00000001 BTC, the minimum unit of Bitcoin), but in a hundred years you can make a good shopping trip with one Satoshi.

What will happen when all the bitcoins are mined? Mining pools will not disappear despite the lack of rewards in the form of new coins and will be able to continue to earn money from transaction processing fees due to the increase in the purchasing power of Bitcoin. And competition between the prices of cryptocurrencies will more acutely determine the ability of the latter to remain on the market - miners will decide whether to remain in Bitcoin and earn money on transactions or switch to another cryptocurrency. The market will decide what will outweigh and which currency will ultimately be more popular.

You can find out how many bitcoins are left in the world.

Prepared by Emilia Romagna

Found an error in the text? Select it and press CTRL+ENTER

Bitcoin's limited supply has been praised by its supporters and widely criticized by its skeptics. In total, no more than 21 million bitcoins can be mined, no matter what the demand for these coins from the entire population of the Earth. After all coins have been mined, no new bitcoins will appear (unless changes are made to the protocol to increase the emission).

Miners' reward for confirming transactions

After this, the only source of income for miners will be commissions for. The main concern is whether these fees will be enough to financially support miners.

It hardly makes sense to use today’s mining costs to predict the profitability of this activity for the next hundred years, since it is unknown what progress mining technology will achieve during this time. It is quite possible that specialized processors will become so compact and cheap that they can be installed in any electronic devices. 21 Inc. has already set this goal for itself. Such technological development would lead to the fact that mining will turn from a targeted business into an everyday, background activity. In addition, mining equipment may become so economical over the coming decades that transaction fees will be more than enough to cover the costs of miners.

Alternatively, fees may simply increase to the level of profitability. If after all the bitcoins are mined, the whole world will useas the main medium of exchange, transaction fees will increase due to increased demand for the transactions themselves.

At the same time, it is not yet possible to talk with confidence about the increase in commissions, since in the cryptocurrency community there is currently a consensus regarding the need to gradually increase the block size in order to ensure the expansion of the network. This means that if block sizes continue to increase, people will continue to be able to get their transactions confirmed for little money. This prospect may at first glance seem like a threat to the network, since miners will have to be content with low commissions after new coins are not issued as rewards. But not increasing the block size can pose an even greater threat. When the block size reaches its maximum, no new transactions can be confirmed until another block is created. This means that redundant, “abandoned” transactions will remain on the network. This development could lead to higher fees as people will be willing to pay more to get their transactions through. But it will also drive users away from Bitcoin and could destroy the digital currency much faster than any centralized mining network.

While Bitcoin's fixed supply means that miners will eventually forfeit block rewards, it also creates an opportunity for them to earn fees in line with traditional monetary theory. Once all 21 million Bitcoins are mined, the money supply will not increase, regardless of demand. The result of this discrepancy between the supply and demand of currency is a gradual and steady decline in the general price level, which is equivalent to a gradual and steady increase in the purchasing power of money. Therefore, when miners receive transaction fees, regardless of their size, the value of the funds will increase. Such an increase in value over time will turn mining for the sake of receiving a commission into a real financial activity with the aim of.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are several ways to keep Bitcoin mining profitable after block rewards stop being paid. The examples discussed above are just a few of the many possibilities. Additionally, since block rewards will decrease gradually over time rather than disappearing overnight, miners also have the opportunity to gradually adapt to the increasing dependence of their income on fees. The most likely combination of factors that will allow miners to stay afloat in the future is the development of mining technologies with a steady increase in the purchasing power of Bitcoin. But our vision of the future should not be limited to our imagination. If we cannot imagine something, this does not mean that it is impossible. The spontaneous evolution and change of the market economy reminds us of this every day.

Stay up to date with all the important events of United Traders - subscribe to our