Topic: How to distribute 21 million Bitcoins for a population of 7.8 billion? (Read 448 times)

Getting a bitcoin is a reward for hours of hard work of solving algorithms with expensive hardware and not many can achieve that feat. Many miners have shut their business because it costs a lot. Moreover the limited supply is what drives its price up.

In fact, I very much hope that people all over the world will use Bitcoin for transactions. Some countries may not even have the Internet. Human nature and social ideology determine that the world may not move towards the same, it is just a good wish. Let time witness history

I doubt if the world population will be interested in bitcoin as they still use traditional ways to invest or make money, especially for a country that does not have a better internet infrastructure. But if that is about the future, we do not know because maybe they can have bitcoin because of legacy from their parents, grandma or grandpa. But one thing for sure, people who have a lot of bitcoin will give some of their bitcoin to their children and grandchildren. If so, they can do many things with their bitcoin but I am not sure if they will use bitcoin for normal transaction payments as they will have many options that they can use to pay.

The first  section is Staking
He can double interest, the user can get BTC and AOM at the same time.
The second  section is the guarantor node
Guarantor node, with the corresponding mortgage assets custody BTC, can get the custody fee, as well as the mortgage assets income.
The third section is Lending
Users can choose deposit business and loan business, such as deposit one kind of high quality asset can earn interest, need other assets can directly lend other assets.

The distribution won't still end though because babies are born everyday and they will be counted as part of the population meaning that they will also be part of the distribution which as I have said in my last post, that the distribution will be endless unless some extinction event or catastrophe happens and wipes out half of the population.

We're working on theory here so I would probably go over the top on how I will be able to distribute all the bitcoins to everyone. First I would probably give them a paper wallet or a tattoo that they can use to access their bitcoin, the next thing would be to send bulks of bitcoin per country and then have each government distribute it to their citizens in a margin error that's equal to about 5 people per bitcoin.

I am not too worried about the 17 to 18 million bitcoins that are left, because each Bitcoin has divisibility to 100 000 000 Satoshi .. which is more than enough for the 8 or 9 Billion people that there are on this earth.

We also have to remember that not every person on this planet will use Bitcoin or own it, because reserve currencies will still exist and there will be "Govcoins" that will be launched by governments and also loads of Private coins. (Alt coins)

Let's not create problems that are not really problems. 

We can't be sure about the global population in 2140.It might be 14 billion,but it might go below 7 billion.
Elon Musk was talking about a possible decrease of the global population in the next few decades.
Other digital currencies won't assist Bitcoin.They will compete against Bitcoin for a bigger market share.
Bitcoin was not meant to be equally distributed among all the people in the world.Why do crypto newbies keep asking that question? 

One thing is that only certain percentage of world population uses bitcoin at present time and even in future it will increase but might not even exceed 30-40% of world population. So that number drastically falls from 7.8 billion. Also we do have satoshi and it is upto eight fractions available so in quantity it becomes more, as well it is demand and supply game. There will be always a seller available who want to sell only thing if demand is much higher than selling then price will keep rising.

It's impossible in practice but in theory, the distribution is going to continue forever because a child is born everyday meaning that if we take the distribution of bitcoin for each person literally, it won't end and the people who will receive their bitcoin will have their bitcoin received reduced each second because the population is continuously increasing. Plus there's lost coins and the 1 million that Satoshi owns which makes the amount given to a person much smaller.

That's why Bitcoin composed per Satoshi , meaning by the time comes that Adoption totally comes and the world is like El Salvador that accepts bitcoin as their Legal tender for sure even if you have 1000 Satoshi it is worth having.

and also the value will increase that the accumulation per person is worth a hold.

Wouldn't this infinite splitting possibility become similar to printing money like we see in fiat system? To create new decimal houses in bitcoin looks dangerous in my opinion, because it may devaluate the currency since its supply won't be limited or rare anymore. I don't know if it would work on practice. It really looks a new way to print money, but instead of growing it to the left (ascending order), it will grow to the right (descending order), although the result in the end might be the same...

After Bitcoin is mined，Bitcoin miners will still be able to participate in the process of discovering blocks, but will not receive block rewards. But they can also get all the fees spent on transactions including in each newly discovered block.
For Bitcoin holders, the severability of Bitcoin will allow transactions to proceed normally, but at that time 1BTC will be a huge value of wealth, and the transaction speed will become very fast because of the Lightning Network. Don't need us to worry about it.
For whales and investment institutions, Bitcoin will be a good safe-haven asset, but Bitcoin is no longer their harvesting tool. Because at that time Bitcoin did not have the high volatility it is now. People's speculative psychology tends to be balanced and will not become crazy because of celebrity effects.
For countries, some countries may still be prohibited from using it due to different policies, or many countries have already used Bitcoin as legal currency, perhaps like gold, which is stored in a certain global alliance in the future. , As the anchor of the legal currency. Perhaps at that time, the world is unified, people can also have basic living security without labor. There is only one currency in the world-Bitcoin, because machine civilization or robots will do more for humans.

Not everyone has to won and use bitcoin just like not all people in the world use USD. I've never had USD in my hand because there was no need to. It's not an accepted currency in my country.

If you don't need a decentralized payment system and are fine with having your money in a centralized bank it's all good. There's going to be many similar people who will never use bitcoin.

Also there's this thing that at this point there's maybe 15 million bitcoins in circulation not counting lost coins and there's much more than 15 million users so the distribution has already happened. You don't need to waste time thinking about how it would happen because it's happening every day without our help.

Why would we need other currencies to assist Bitcoin? There's enough units to cover all our needs, Lightning Network allows splitting satoshis even further, and if needed, a hard fork could be introduced to allot further subdivisions of satoshis on chain.

When someone has to distribute something, it always means centralization. Bitcoin gets distributed naturally by the free market. Almost everyone has an equal chance to get their hands on Bitcoin, because everyone can register on exchange and buy some coins, except for people from sanctioned countries. But even they can do p2p trading.

A significant factor that has not been discussed in this thread is LOST/FROZEN coins.  While we can't know for sure it is almost certain 10-15% of coins are forever frozen in the blockchain.  This is pretty well established as "main line" thinking.  15% of 21 million coins (when we get there) would mean  3,150,000 coins are basically lost forever.  Its math - those can never be used.  It wouldn't surprise me if the number was closer to 20%, but its a feeling I have with no way to support it.  As a percentage of global population, I think a full BTC hodler is going to be somewhat rare.

I highly doubt that the mining will stay at the same rate as it is right now, probably a couple of years from now they would make it a lot harder to mine bitcoin, therefore the price would get high, and assuming that we reach the point where no bitcoin can be mined, the more people hold the higher the price it gets, and that means that the price is going to be less volatile and maybe we will see it becoming a days to day payment system,  that we can actually use for small transactions.

You make it sound like everyone needs to have bitcoin. This is not how it works. It's like saying how will you distribute all fiat money among 7.8 billion people. You don't. If you are wondering how will everyone use bitcoin when it becomes mainstream because of limited number of coins, then probably we will find out a way. Maybe a unit smaller than satoshi?

To be honest, a problem is already solved by a decimal. Since there is 8 decimal and if you know how decimals work then should lock the topic. Most probably sat (satoshi) will be the most popular word after 2140 if Bitcoin exists till then. On the other hand, people always compare Bitcoin with Gold. So tell me how many percent of people in the world bought Gold? Do you think all people could buy? I don't think so. Simply all people don't need to buy or they can't afford to buy. This will happen with Bitcoin too. Now lock your thread from the lower left to prevent spam.

Its not something that can just be distributed.Of course you would really be needing to invest or do lots of ways for you to accumulate and if you done nothing then dont expect for an individual to get bitcoin as simple as that.

This is just like on accumulating or getting some money out of our day job and same principle here on bitcoin.If you are really that concern about the supply and on what would happen in 2140
then this is something that can be answered by anyone.

We can make presumptions but we dont actually know on what would happen ahead.

World population is slowly growing each year so you can't calculate exact amount and it will probably be much higher in year 2140 unless some catastrophe or (un)planned event happens.
Millions of bitcoins are now lost so even less could be distributed, but this will probably be done with other Bitcoin units like mBTC or Sats that can be distributed very easy, especially using Lightning Network or something better.

1 Bitcoin is equal 100 bitcent
1 Bitcoin is equal 1000 mBTC
1 Bitcoin is equal 100,000,000 Sats

Only who knows about Bitcoin and it's significance , he can get Bitcoin and gets profits in the future. But others rest people who don't know anything about Bitcoin, they cannot get Bitcoin anymore.

Maybe what Op meant was just an example of what if 21 million Bitcoins were distributed to billions of people and got their share. Such mass distribution would probably use the Lightning Network for faster transactions.

The circulating supply of successfully mined bitcoins is currently 18,750,268 BTC and it continues. To get bitcoin today is not easy and is no longer free. Bitcoins can be mined using Mining Rig Tools that are specifically for mining bitcoins and can also be purchased on exchanges that provide Bitcoin and many other altcoins. The choice is not only on bitcoin and other altcoins such as stablecoins, other altcoins such as ETH and others still dominate.

The question itself is wrong. Bitcoin is almost infinitely divisible, unlike fiat currencies such as the US Dollar. For example each USD is divided in to 100 cents. However, each Bitcoin is divided in to 100 million Satoshis. So rather than saying that we have 21 million coins for 8 billion people, we can also claim that there are 2.1 quadrillion Satoshis, available for 7.8 billion individuals. And that comes to around 262,500 Satoshis per capita. That sounds a lot better, right? In other words, around 1 million Satoshis per family.

Nothing will change as per usage of bitcoin because it's being used for almost everything today so that would be the same if bitcoin will still exist by that time. There are counterparts that we've seen like Ethereum and if you're worried how it will be distributed, crypto tech companies like exchanges that are existing right now, they would still exist if the business keeps on growing and it's still profitable on their end. But why think of that a lot, we're not sure if we're still alive by that time.  

Your topic was impressive. It had good analysis knowledge. But the mining is happening every day, so it mean the bitcoin capacity is keep increasing everyday. When the traders is keep on increasing, we can able to see some rise bitcoin also. It's reason for not huge rise in the price of bitcoin.

Not everyone would provably love the idea of having a piece of bitcoin since some of them doesn't really understand on whats going on in crypto ecosystem since mostly the one they see first is the bad flaws of bitcoins so you shouldn't be worried about that . Always remember that if there are people who hold bitcoins there are more people who's up to buy some supplies for long term holdings.

not everyone will own Bitcoin even hundreds of years later...

according to WHO data, the world's population will increase many times from now, which means that dividing Bitcoins among the world's citizens must use the smallest conversion that is satoshi, but not all will get Bitcoin for free as happened to the citizens of El Salvador. in the future people will buy Bitcoin at a high cost because of the high demand in the market.

The divisibility or the denomination of Bitcoin solves the problem; value can be proportional to the fraction of Bitcoins that you own.

The value of Bitcoins divided by the population will definitely be much lower, due to the burned coins, either intentionally or unintentionally. Bitcoin is designed with a decreasing inflationary trend, but by the definition of purchasing power, then we've had quite a bit of inflation in the recent years. Bitcoin isn't affected by possible inflationary problems; because it is infinitely divisible. However, Bitcoin is an entirely new concept, or an experiment of a currency where there are no external mechanisms to regulate the economy. Whether this is feasible in the long term, remains to be seen.

Some currencies like Monero uses a tail emission system, with a constant inflation. This means the block rewards are constant after some point in time; perhaps more than sufficient to complement the lost coins and still provide incentives for the miner. As I've said, the stability of the network after the 2140 deadline (probably far earlier) remains to be seen. Economics theory holds only with ceteris paribus, but obviously that is never the case.

For all of you that thought Satoshi actually analysed the economic impact of that number:

I do not think all people in this world will have bitcoin because many people will not want to use bitcoin. The amount of bitcoin that people have will be different because we know some people already joined in bitcoin from a long time ago and they still have a large amount of bitcoin. But as bitcoin price still not increase too high, it will give more chances to people to buy bitcoin as many as they can because someday, when bitcoin price increase so high, they will not have a chance to buy bitcoin in a big amount.

Bitcoin is not the birth right of every citizen. So there is no question of distributing all mined bitcoin amongst the world population. When a centralized fiat currency cannot be distributed evenly, how on earth a decentralized currency like bitcoin will be distributed? So thinking about it is only waste of time.

Other digital currencies will obviously be there! Even today we are having thousands of different cryptos. People are using them as well. But if you are thinkin about a fair distribution, that's not going to be possible!

The conclusion is that 1 BTC is an enormous amount if we assume that billions of people will adopt this system, whether they are rich or poor.

Is there really any possible way for someone to even predict what will happen in that year? But, to correct you, if Bitcoin is still a thing in 2140, mining won't stop; the currency will officially be deflationary and miners will be satisfied by the mining fees. Without mining, there's no Bitcoin.

You need to think first about how to mine Bitcoin? Of course to mine Bitcoin is using mining rigs and electricity. Where does the Bitcoin you mine will be stored? It will stored in your own wallet. So it's mean if you mine Bitcoin you will get the Bitcoin itself, it doesn't mean you mine Bitcoin and your Bitcoin will be automatically stored in all people wallets.

If Bitcoin is distribute well to all people in this world, I doubt Bitcoin will have a value like now.

Bitcoin can be used for normal transaction if the volatility is less than right now and after everyone are start using lightning network to reduce fees.

Those digital currencies you said is altcoins and IMO there's no altcoins will assist Bitcoin, most of them created to beat Bitcoin itself.

Bitcoin or any of the Cryptocurrencies doesn't need any form of distribution. Bitcoin is going to be something like stocks that people invest into and that is even if it eventually becomes generally accepted. Anyone who pleases will go and invest into it.

Since not everyone is interested in stocks or shares investment, not everyone will also invest in the Bitcoin.

If you don't do anything and sit ideal you will also not get fiat currency in form of salary,profits,gifts or anything because you have to work for it and earn it any way possible to you and same is the case with Bitcoin.It was made with aim to provide an alternate to the fiat currency in a decentalized way not to give everyone on the planet a chunk of 21 million btc so you could also have a Sathoshi with you if not whole Bitcoin.The coins will be in circulation and using LN you can easily make transaction buying a cup of coffee at your local shop which is main aim of Bitcoin for Sathoshi and all of us.When it was made in 2009 then the world population was around 8 billion already and he knew it so it was secondary thing and first was to provide you freedom of funds.You are still early to adoption and can have a part of it.You cannot get equal part in every technical assest so the main point is how early you have that vision to acquire it.

If you are doing badly with numbers, maybe you should research a bit before writing posts, because your 17 million is actually 18 750 125 at the moment - so while that may not be that important in the context of your question, a little more precision wouldn’t hurt anyone.

As some others have already written, Bitcoin is not the magic money you get just like that and there is no law that says everyone must own it - and even that we want to give everyone the smallest amount of 1 satoshi, how to do that since some 40% of people do not have internet access? I remembered as I wrote this that we could send them a paper wallet - but what would they do with it, maybe use it to set the fire?

About 21 million (17 million in the market) Bitcoin total supplies but  a few amount of people knowing about cryptocurrencies, who's the richest person in the world, he can buy Bitcoin.

People get bitcoin when they buy some, mine some, or receive them for payments. Bitcoin is obviously not something that's just airdropped to every single person's wallets because that's obviously heavily flawed and there's literally no way to do that in a decentralized and trustless manner.

It won't go nowhere. It will become more mainstream as a currency, though. However, in 2140, Bitcoin mining won't end. Even after the last Satoshi is mined, Bitcoin mining operations will still continue. The miners will continue to secure the network as well as earn from it, only that their earnings will be coming from transaction fees alone and not anymore from block rewards.

As to its distribution, I guess it won't change much. It's just that by that time more and more people are going to acquire Bitcoin by working for it rather than buying or converting from fiat.

Bitcoin is not created in order to be distributed to everyone. You have to mine it or buy it or work to earn it.

Bitcoin is created with satoshi vision to M1.
Jameson Lopp highlights Bitcoin's market cap in comparison to national M1 money supplies
Why is Bitcoin’s supply limit set to 21 million?

Population is unpredictable especially for more than one century.

They will use it but there will be many more options with altcoins and fiats for them to choose. It is unrealistic to think that 1 century later, the world will have Bitcoin for transactions only.

If Lightning Network is successful in its complete implementation, Bitcoin will certainly "normal" transactions. By "normal" I am assuming you mean transactions like coffee in the morning.

I also believe that the crypto ecosystem will have roles to play as well. While none of them will have the same store-of-value status as bitcoin, they will have jobs to do.

In my opinion, most of this relies on LN being implemented properly. If Layer 2 solutions aren't able to work properly (which they do) it could hinder bitcoins progress.

Bitcoin is not something people get just for being born on this planet. It's not a birth right. People have to work for it or people have to buy it. So what are you talking about?
By your calculation, I would be entitled to receive 12.2 grams of this planet's gold and I haven't received any yet.



Sure. If you look closer, 1 BTC = 100 000 000 satoshi. If you look even closer, Lightning Network already works with sub-units of a satoshi. So there's plenty of room to work with.


But all this was discussed a very good number of times already; it didn't pop up at any searches you've made before asking?!

   
    The world population is about 7.8 billion, and the current number of bitcoins is about 17 million. If you don’t consider investment institutions holdings, the per capita is about 0.0021794 BTC. But in 2140, bitcoin mining will end, and the world’s population is estimated to reach 14 billion. I want to know what kind of distribution of Bitcoin will appear at that time? Will people use Bitcoin for normal transaction payments? I think there is no right or wrong view, but I believe that there will be other digital currencies to assist Bitcoin. Where will Bitcoin go?