Topic: Bitcoin total supply is not 21M (Read 352 times)
While this is true, it isn't that much of a relevant information. Even if it was exactly 21 million, it would be less because of the coins lost trough time, bitcoins sent to invalid addresses, miners not getting whole fees and similar things. What matters is that it is caped and that you have a maximum amount of coins because the market and price is based off this supply cap. It is interesting information but not really relevant for anything else.
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I respect Jameson Lopp's knowledge about Bitcoin but the problem is from Satoshi when he writes the Bitcoin whitepaper. However, what every cryptocurrency community believes is that Bitcoin's total supply is 21M, and reading this thread I did some search online about the possible total supply of Bitcoin and this is what I find "Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It'll be distributed
to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half
every 4 years."
to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half
every 4 years."
I knew it from forum discussion and today I read the article of Jameson Lopp.
It is inaccurate information about total supply of Bitcoin at exactly 21M as we see on media. Jameson explained it very detailed and technically in his article.
The number of coins that are circulating in the market wouldn’t be up to the 21 million because there are already lots of coins that are lost and there are even going to be more of them that would still be lost in the market. So as time goes on the number of coins that would be in the market will reduce. With that said, I’d like to add that as the number of the coins in the market is being reduced, there is going to be an increase in the price of the coin to match the level of supply that is available in the market, since when the supply is low, there would be a higher demand. It is inaccurate information about total supply of Bitcoin at exactly 21M as we see on media. Jameson explained it very detailed and technically in his article.
What is more important? That it is exactly 21 000 000 tokens or that it is not more than 21 000 000 coins? People want to split hairs over things like this, but it does not make a big difference in the bigger picture. We know it is capped and that there will not be a "toilet paper" printing of new tokens in the future. 
Have you also considered all the tokens that were burnt over time? There are way less tokens in circulation than the 21 000 000 tokens that will be in circulation in the future. (When we are dead)
Have you also considered all the tokens that were burnt over time? There are way less tokens in circulation than the 21 000 000 tokens that will be in circulation in the future. (When we are dead)
Total supply is probably below 21M, but it doesn't matter though, what matters now are those coins that are in circulation which is far lower than the total supply, and that will make bitcoin more valuable in the long run since demand will increase while the supply is only limited.
For me, the technical explanation on the total supply is not a big deal, the big deal here is the potential of bitcoin in the future and how its supply will affect that.
For me, the technical explanation on the total supply is not a big deal, the big deal here is the potential of bitcoin in the future and how its supply will affect that.
Did anyone who has been paying attention ever think it was exactly 21 million bitcoins? People just use that as an approximation.
Yeah i agree, it will be hard if we explained to someone who don't know it yet to say with the decimals, the answer will be followed by another question like "why those numbers with decimals" and we will have a long story to tell.
So i think it's okay we don't have the exact 21 mils but it's also good to know if the fact behind it is like that, maybe we need this information for future research or something useful.
It's not exactly 21M, but any analysis you do assuming it's exactly 21M is going to be valid anyway.
The real key element is that it's a finite number.
The real key element is that it's a finite number.
Agreed. I do like how people's minds get blown by the idea that if you only keep going 1/2 the distance to your target, you will never arrive.
Sort of how I think of Bitcoin's supply. Certainly applies over the course of what will be my lifetime.
I would just make it simple. Supply is ~21million coins. Circulating is way less. Lost coins, stolen, marked coins, etc. But this is not bad, in some sense. The less the circulating supply, which is in the end, a new supply lower than the original one, more chances its value raises over time, because the "new supply" is smaller! The scarcer, the better.
No one knows for sure if bitcoin is 21M, but most people believe that the total bitcoin is 21M. And I think this is the reason that makes bitcoin price soar apart from the first bitcoin. because the limited Bitcoin makes it special.
People do know about it if they read Bitcoin Wiki (Controlled supply). They don't know about it because they don't mind to read Bitcoin Wiki or any important resource for their investment.They only make investment after they got invitation from someone and just hop on with their money. They don't do their research so they are lazy enough to skip any resource which is given by others.
If you read my share, you can see it is not hard to get the information that total supply of Bitcoin is less than 21M.
No one knows for sure if bitcoin is 21M, but most people believe that the total bitcoin is 21M. And I think this is the reason that makes bitcoin price soar apart from the first bitcoin. because the limited Bitcoin makes it special.
They will neither be 20,999,999.9769. That's just the total bitcoins that will ever be mined. The spendable BTC will be far less. Some are provably lost, such as genesis block's reward and the OP_RETURN transactions. Some miners have also failed to earn the entire reward which results to even less coins in circulation.
It's just easier to say that there won't be more than 21 million, which is true.
I see. The total supply is given in the last row of table in Controlled Supply on Bitcoin Wiki. I know it is not a big difference in value between 21M and 20,999,999.9769 Bitcoin. I want to help people who don't know the fact that what they read is just a rough number of Bitcoin total supply.It's just easier to say that there won't be more than 21 million, which is true.
I was taught about it in this forum so I appreciated that. There are many explanations about how it comes to that figure for total supply on this forum. Jameson Lopp's article is a latest resource I read about i.
I shared Lopp's article because I believe many newbies don't know about it as same as me months ago.
Regarding the 'total suplly of BTC will be mined by so and so year', I doubt it will ever come to that. BTC is just a stepping stone to other crypto developements, and it will lose it's significance to the point where it will remain a store of value, but the mining aspect will be reduced. Nothing wrong with that, that's just evolution.
Yep, there will be about 2 cents of a BTC missing to reach the 21 Million limit.
21,000,000 - 20,999,999.9769 = 0.0231
21,000,000 - 20,999,999.9769 = 0.0231
It's not exactly 21M, but any analysis you do assuming it's exactly 21M is going to be valid anyway.
The real key element is that it's a finite number.
Its fixed supply made it different from other coins which have infinite supply and later on come up with things like burning the coins.The real key element is that it's a finite number.
The supply was initially set up to 21 million but there are so many coins lost that can never be returned like the OP_RETURN command or say some who have lost access to the keys and still out of circulation which can be returned or not and if the pace continue we would be having much lower number of bitcoins in circulation than 21million as we know it.
If you want technical details then you are right (of course it is not "total" supply but "max" supply or the cap). But on the internet and informal speech it is so much easier to just refer to the cap as 21 million without confusing the audience with technical details of how things actually work. Besides the point is almost always to tell people that unlike other currencies that have no cap and will be printed until eternity, bitcoin has a cap and there can never be more than that limit printed.
I guess there's really no big deal about this. We've been used to rounding off numbers and giving estimates to avoid inconvenience and whatnot. But if we're really interested in making a mountain out of a molehill then we could always say 2,099,999,997,690,000 Satoshis is the total supply of Bitcoin.
We might as well stop saying that the last Satoshi will be mined in 2140, that block reward halving happens every four years, that Bitcoin's block time is 10 minutes, and so on. Or perhaps that the sun is actually not 93 millions miles away, that the speed of light is actually not 186,000 miles per second, that the value of pi is actually not 3.14, and so on.
We're simply trying to make life a little easier.
We might as well stop saying that the last Satoshi will be mined in 2140, that block reward halving happens every four years, that Bitcoin's block time is 10 minutes, and so on. Or perhaps that the sun is actually not 93 millions miles away, that the speed of light is actually not 186,000 miles per second, that the value of pi is actually not 3.14, and so on.
We're simply trying to make life a little easier.
It's an estimation and that's not an issue that's too broad to discuss. Needless to say, it's easier for everybody to understand that bitcoin has 21M of supply.
Whether it will be reaching someday, the reality of it is that no one of us are going to see it fulfilled in the future that all of the bitcoins are mined. I wish I do and for sure that the others would love to see that happen.
But that's one fact whether it's exact 21M or not in supply.
Whether it will be reaching someday, the reality of it is that no one of us are going to see it fulfilled in the future that all of the bitcoins are mined. I wish I do and for sure that the others would love to see that happen.
But that's one fact whether it's exact 21M or not in supply.
It's not exactly 21M, but any analysis you do assuming it's exactly 21M is going to be valid anyway.
The real key element is that it's a finite number.
The real key element is that it's a finite number.
Did anyone who has been paying attention ever think it was exactly 21 million bitcoins? People just use that as an approximation.
No body can conclude I don't trust neither believe on article writing, the point made can be of truth but to this regards the information you have to bring another form that can supersede the information of the alleged source provided, because this forum always like prove of source and evidence to guarantee the truth, you may be right from your judgement but another person will not it in that form you understand it
While you are right that it won't be exactly 21m bitcoins that are going to be mined, this is a number that is very far an in the future. Unfortunately we all here won't be around anymore when we are getting close to the 21m barrier. What I find more interesting is to know how many bitcoins are already lost today that can't be recovered anymore because no access to the wallets. Then we could extrapolate that number to the future at find an estimate of how many bitcoins actually will be in circulation. Who knows, this number might be closer to 19 than to 21m. Nonetheless the bitcoin price has to rise in the future, the hard cap on the bitcoin supply means that the miners require higher prices to keep mining in the future. If energy costs keep rising, so must bitcoins to keep profitable for the miners.
if you want to get technical about the technical. its not actually 50 btc (unit of 50) its not 50*coin. where coin =1btc
its actually where coin=100,000,000
coin is measured in sats. not in whole bitcoin.
if you took the 'values' from block data and transaction data in raw form and convert them from byte to decimal. the numbers are in sat units. not whole bitcoin numbers.
so technically there is no btc anywhere in block or transaction data. only sats..
yep no btc is found on the blockchain. just sat units
where by math then bunches them up into 'coin' of 100,000,000 units to be called a btc at GUI level (software user interface). not at raw data level of the blockchain
so there is infact going to be UNDER
2,099,999,997,690,000 sats
..
but if you want to talk about the GUI representation. btc in whole units would display as
20,999,999.97 which rounds to 21mill
its actually where coin=100,000,000
coin is measured in sats. not in whole bitcoin.
if you took the 'values' from block data and transaction data in raw form and convert them from byte to decimal. the numbers are in sat units. not whole bitcoin numbers.
so technically there is no btc anywhere in block or transaction data. only sats..
yep no btc is found on the blockchain. just sat units
where by math then bunches them up into 'coin' of 100,000,000 units to be called a btc at GUI level (software user interface). not at raw data level of the blockchain
so there is infact going to be UNDER
2,099,999,997,690,000 sats
..
but if you want to talk about the GUI representation. btc in whole units would display as
20,999,999.97 which rounds to 21mill
We can say that it's technically not, but really it's just easier to round it up and say 21 million than mentioning scary decimals. It's not like bitcoin is suddenly a bad investment or something just because of the total supply being short by .02 BTC or something. And people frequently round up finance numbers as well. It's really no biggie.
They will neither be 20,999,999.9769. That's just the total bitcoins that will ever be mined. The spendable BTC will be far less. Some are provably lost, such as genesis block's reward and the OP_RETURN transactions. Some miners have also failed to earn the entire reward which results to even less coins in circulation.
It's just easier to say that there won't be more than 21 million, which is true.
It's just easier to say that there won't be more than 21 million, which is true.
I knew it from forum discussion and today I read the article of Jameson Lopp.
It is inaccurate information about total supply of Bitcoin at exactly 21M as we see on media. Jameson explained it very detailed and technically in his article.
Some other resources to read about the same topic on Bitcoin total supply
How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?
Controlled supply
Equivalent network time
This Bitcoin Inflation vs Time chart should be known by any Bitcoin investor.
It is inaccurate information about total supply of Bitcoin at exactly 21M as we see on media. Jameson explained it very detailed and technically in his article.
Some other resources to read about the same topic on Bitcoin total supply
How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?
Controlled supply
Equivalent network time
This Bitcoin Inflation vs Time chart should be known by any Bitcoin investor.
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