When will the last bitcoin be extracted?

in #bitcoin7 years ago

21 million coins and no more a token - the issue of bitcoin is limited, which means that in one day the new BTC will cease to be produced. When the last bitcoin is extracted and what will be with the network further, we disassemble in detail.
Brief overview of bitcoin mining
New bitcoins appear every time the miners confirm the next portion of transactions and create a block in the chain of blockade. This happens as a result of computing computers or specialized devices of complex mathematical sequences, called hashes. 6565399.jpg

Each block is created on average once every 10 minutes. As more and more powerful devices are connected to the bitcoins mining, the complexity of hashing is revised every time. This event occurs every 2016 blocks. Interestingly, at some points it may even drop - this happened, for example, when the work stopped one of the largest mining pools of GHash.io.
Remuneration of remuneration
Once every 4 years, every 210 thousand blocks the size of the award is reviewed and decreases exactly twice. At the initial stage from 2009 to 2012, miners received 50 BTC. Further, according to simple calculations, we see the following picture:

November 2012 - 2016 - 25 BTC;
July 2016 - 2020 - 12.5 BTC;
June 2020 - 2024 - 6.25 BTC, etc.
Thus, half of all tokens were produced in the first 4 years after the launch of the network. Another quarter - until 2016. And 80% of all coins will be put into circulation already the other day in January 2018.
How many BTC are in circulation today
At present, to be exact at the end of 2017, 16 million, 760 thousand BTC were produced. Of these, about 1 million tokens belong to the legendary founder of the Satoshi Nakamoto network. bitcoin-cena-hash-rate-freedman-club.jpg

It is impossible to say that all these millions of bitcoins are in circulation. As you know, if a user loses access to a digital wallet, the tokens contained in it are removed from circulation forever. There are cases when discarded hard drives with coins stored on them.
At present, more than 16 million bitcoins have already been mined, but about 3 million of them have been lost
Especially often this happened in the early years, when few believed in bitcoin and the attitude towards it was appropriate. Mine or buy it could literally for a penny, and then also easily lost interest in the acquisition. An example - a resident of the United Kingdom James Holes in 2013 threw a winchester on which 7,500 bitcoins were stored. The reason for losing tokens could be the death of the wallet owner, if the password is no longer known to anyone.

There were cases when coins were specially burned, as it happened during the start-up of the Counterparty start-up - then a little over 2,000 tokens were deliberately destroyed. It happened when distributing their own XCP coins - they were received by users who transferred BTC to a wallet, which no one had access to. Thus, the company tried to make the distribution process as honest as possible.
The researchers took coins, supposedly belonging to Nakamoto. Also it is a question of tokens which are on purses on which since 2013 there were no any movements. The reason is simple - if their owners did not make any attempts to spend even a small part of the coins after a rapid increase in value, it is unlikely that they will be able to access such wallet.
The last bitcoin - what's next?
According to calculations, the last token will be released in 2140. It will happen after the generation of block No. 6 929 999. More precisely, most of the coins, namely 99.2% of BTC will be released by 2036, and then new bitcoins will be added to the system in very small lots. Thus, the remaining less than 1% of tokens miners will have to extract about 100 years.

After the light sees the last bitcoin, the algorithm of the network does not change from this - the new blocks will continue to be created further. What will motivate the miners to maintain the network?
Commission as a reward
Since the issue of new coins will cease, the reward will now consist of commissions that network users pay for adding transactions to the blocks. Many already now complain about high commissions when making payments that need to be specified so that they are processed. Currently, you can enter a minimum amount, but often in this case, you have to wait for days, while the miners will pay attention to such transactions.
After the last bitcoin is released, the reward of the miners will consist of commissions
For such users, the bad news is that with the increasing popularity of the network, the reduction of fees, and especially the termination of the issuance of coins, the commission is likely to grow even more. After all, otherwise, the miners will not have the motivation to generate new blocks.

In general, no one is trying to predict the amount of payment for conducting transactions in such a distant future. Much will depend on the efficiency and cost of the devices that will be used to generate the blocks. Not the least role will be played by the access of miners to cheap electricity, as well as the number of payments per second.
The end of the issue and the cost of the token
How much will be bitcoin itself after the termination of the issue, it is equally difficult to say. If you take for example any national currency, as it is known, it eventually devalues ​​and loses value, as the government periodically prints a new batch of notes and thereby increases the money supply in the market.

Bitcoin does not threaten inflation, and therefore its value will only grow. And for this, the computer algorithms originally built into the system are responsible. To increase the value will be the decrease in the total number of tokens over time.

Experts predict that over time, bitcoins will be used to pay for expensive goods and services, large investment investments, and small coins - satoshs - will appear in everyday use. Let's remind, 1 satoshi is equal to one hundred millionth part of a token.

Proceeding from this it becomes clear that bitcoin is not without reason called digital gold. Just like in the case of real gold, resources will be exhausted at some point. And if the probability of discovering new deposits of precious metals exists, with bitcoin this possibility is absolutely excluded.
Conclusion
Limited issuance of coins is a big plus for the system, since the value of one token will only increase. About how much it will cost in the future 1 bitcoin opinions sound absolutely different. 50-100 thousand for a token, given the recent rise in prices to 20 thousand, no longer seem fiction. In individual forecasts, the figures are also called 500 thousand - 1 million for 1 BTC.

What will be the cost of the coin after the last bitcoin is extracted, only our descendants in 2140 will be able to know this.