Only 1,885,100 Bitcoins remain to be mined
Of the total of 21 million Bitcoin, just over 1.8 million remains to be mined.
Only 1.8 million Bitcoin to reach maximum circulating supply
As is known, Satoshi Nakamoto, in his now known paper with which he created Bitcoin, had stipulated that the maximum Bitcoin that could be mined should not exceed 21 million units, as a way to combat inflation thanks to the scarcity of the asset.
FUN FACT: 1,885,100 #BTC again to be mined.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) 7 August 2022
According to the latest estimates, there would still be just under 2 million left to be mined, 1,885,100 to be exact (as of December 2021 there were 2.3 million and as of April 2022 there were 2 million). This means that the total of 21 million will most likely be reached before the set natural deadline, which should have been around 2140.
Once this milestone is reached, miners will no longer be rewarded for their mining activity, but only through transaction costs.
According to Cryptoquant, the month of July will see record-breaking Bitcoin sales by miners, who would relieve their positions to apparently cover the ever-increasing costs of their activity. On July 16, miners reportedly sold around 14,000 BTC in a single day, worth approx. 300 million dollars.
City group analyst Joseph Ayoub wrote in a note on July 5:
“Given rising electricity costs, and bitcoin’s sharp price decline, the cost of mining a bitcoin may be higher than the price for some miners. With high-profile reports of layoffs from mining companies, as well as miners using their equipment as collateral to borrow money, bitcoin- the mining industry be under increasing pressure”.
The future of the crypto queen
What will actually happen when the last one Bitcoin is mined? It is clear that mining will no longer exist and miners’ income will simply be determined by transaction costs.
This can lead to a concentration of miners which can control the market and force higher transactions, or, according to others, the groups can also hide new valid blocks and then release them as unconfirmed blocks from the network, to extend the time frame and ensure higher fees when the blocks are released.
In short, the scenarios could undermine the spirit that led to the creation of the digital currency, which was to free the financial system from the controls operated by centralized authorities, which have often caused the century’s most serious financial crises, such as it in 2008, from the ashes as the very idea of creating one independent and totally disintermediated free currency was born.
