Why was 21 million the number of bitcoins to be created?
Only the God knows why.If it were unlimited then may be it wouldn't have got any value.Mysteries is what this world is full of 
Topic: Why was 21 million ? - page 2. (Read 1673 times)
21 million because it pays to be rich! lol idk but honestly....
it is because 21 million has a significant number, the legal drinking age in most states of U.S.A. Satoshi is also my uncle.
it is because 21 million has a significant number, the legal drinking age in most states of U.S.A. Satoshi is also my uncle.
Why was 21 million the number of bitcoins to be created?
Because that's how the mathematics worked out.
More specifically, it isn't 21 million. It's actually 20999999.9769. It's just easier for everyone to remember and say "There will never be more than 21 million created" than is is to say, "The maximum that could potentially have been created is twenty million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine and nine thousand seven hundred sixty-nine ten-thousandths".
What Satoshi actually did was choose a reasonable sounding number 50 and decide that the block reward would be 50 bitcoins per block for the first 210,000 blocks. Then he decided that in order to have a fixed quantity, but not have a sudden drop off, the block reward would be cut in half every 210,000 blocks. If you do this cutting in half and adding up all the blocks (rounding down to the nearest satoshi value every time), you'll find that the exact amount of bitcoins that are created by the time the 6,930,000 the block is created is 20999999.9769
Very interesting, I didnt know about how it wasn't 21 million exactly.
every 210 000 blocks the reward is halved
- snip -
it has to have a meaning
- snip -
it has to have a meaning
Block difficulty is adjusted so that blocks occur on average every 10 minutes.
10 minutes X 210,000 blocks = 2,100,000 minutes.
2,100,000 minutes / 1,440 minutes per day = 1458.333 days.
1458.3333 days / 365.242 days per year = 3.99 years.
It looks to me like he started by deciding that the block reward would be cut in half every 4 years, and then calculated that out to discover it would be 210,379.392 blocks. Then he probably just rounded off to 210,000.
As far as I can tell, the unexplained magic constants in the bitcoin protocol are:
- Starting subsidy of 5,000,000,000 integer units
- A Bitcoin defined as 100,000,000 integer units
- Subsidy reduced by bit shift (essentially divide by 2 and round down to nearest integer unit)
- Subsidy reduced every 4 years, rounded to be exactly 210,000 blocks
- Difficulty adjusted every 2 weeks (2016 blocks)
- Difficulty adjusted for average 10 minutes per block
I see a lot of numbers in there, but not many 21s.
Quote
every 210 000 blocks the reward is halved
and there is a total of 21 million coins
it has to have a meaning
and there is a total of 21 million coins
it has to have a meaning
21 is half of 42
42 is Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything
Why was 21 million the number of bitcoins to be created?
Because that's how the mathematics worked out.
More specifically, it isn't 21 million. It's actually 20999999.9769. It's just easier for everyone to remember and say "There will never be more than 21 million created" than is is to say, "The maximum that could potentially have been created is twenty million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine and nine thousand seven hundred sixty-nine ten-thousandths".
What Satoshi actually did was choose a reasonable sounding number 50 and decide that the block reward would be 50 bitcoins per block for the first 210,000 blocks. Then he decided that in order to have a fixed quantity, but not have a sudden drop off, the block reward would be cut in half every 210,000 blocks. If you do this cutting in half and adding up all the blocks (rounding down to the nearest satoshi value every time), you'll find that the exact amount of bitcoins that are created by the time the 6,930,000 the block is created is 20999999.9769
every 210 000 blocks the reward is halved
and there is a total of 21 million coins
it has to have a meaning
Why was 21 million the number of bitcoins to be created?
Because that's how the mathematics worked out.
More specifically, it isn't 21 million. It's actually 20999999.9769. It's just easier for everyone to remember and say "There will never be more than 21 million created" than is is to say, "The maximum that could potentially have been created is twenty million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine and nine thousand seven hundred sixty-nine ten-thousandths".
What Satoshi actually did was choose a reasonable sounding number 50 and decide that the block reward would be 50 bitcoins per block for the first 210,000 blocks. Then he decided that in order to have a fixed quantity, but not have a sudden drop off, the block reward would be cut in half every 210,000 blocks. If you do this cutting in half and adding up all the blocks (rounding down to the nearest satoshi value every time), you'll find that the exact amount of bitcoins that are created by the time the 6,930,000 the block is created is 20999999.9769
It is just an arbitrary number. The point is to set a limit.
I always wondered this myself. Why 21? Is creator of bitcoin fond of blackjack or something? This number has some hidden meaning or it is pure random... I guess we will never know for sure unless someone will found a source.
Why was 21 million the number of bitcoins to be created?
I think Satoshi pulled a random number from his derriere.
Why was 21 million the number of bitcoins to be created?
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