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How Many Bitcoins are There Left?

Technically, there will only be 21 million Bitcoins ever in the world – which corresponds to the present-day availability of 18,397,875 Bitcoins. The May 2020 BTC halving event has further reduced the mining reward and also increased the mining difficulty quotient of this cryptocurrency many times over.

Not all of the Bitcoins, out of the already mined 18,397,875 Bitcoin, are available or are actually in circulation. As per industry estimates, close to 30 percent of the BTC have been lost due to misplaced private keys, many hard drive failures, etc.

How many Bitcoins are left for mining

The remaining 2,602,125.0 Bitcoins are yet to be mined by BTC miners who are, in turn, rewarded for preserving the network integrity.

Miners perform transaction validation and also help build new blocks. In return for their efforts, they are given many Bitcoins out of this yet-to-be-mined pool. Technically, it is the source code of Bitcoin that determines the miner’s reward and the schedule of the reward.

Bitcoin Genesis Block created on January 3, 2009, at 13:15 EST

In the beginning, miners were given 50 Bitcoins for mining an individual block. First halving reduced the reward to 25 BTC, and second halving bought it down to 12.5 BTC. The reward per block will keep on decreasing in half after every such halving event.

The recently concluded third BTC halving in May 2020 has cut down the mining rewards to a mere 6.25 BTC. Many small scale miners may abandon their operations as the actual reward per Bitcoins mined reduced drastically. Only large dedicated farms will be interested in the Bitcoins left.

How many Bitcoins are in circulation today?

There are around 13,000,000 Bitcoins currently in circulation.

Of all the Bitcoins to ever exist, many Bitcoins are lost due to sheer negligence. Around 4 million (30 percent) of the BTC supply is lost, and approximately 1 million Bitcoins have been reported stolen in numerous heists and hacking scandals. Such unfortunate factors mean that the actual Bitcoins left are far fewer compared to the theoretical 21 million BTC.

UTXO Bitcoins Chart indicates lost Bitcoins

Bitcoin UTXO Chart shows the lost Bitcoins.

At this point, we should also bring up the concept of BTC ‘Whales’. Whales are investors who own a massive stash of Bitcoins and have stashed them away in their digital wallets. Crypto media loves whales as they can change the whole market with a single transfer. The most notable BTC whale has to be the legendary Satoshi Nakamoto, who is believed to have 1 million Bitcoins in his wallet, which roughly amounts to 10 billion dollars in today’s valuation.

Speaking of whales, they collectively own approximately 5 million Bitcoins representing 28 percent of the total BTC in circulation. Adding all these numbers leaves us mere mortals with just 8,00,0000 Bitcoins to buy/sell.

What happens when all Bitcoins are mined?

Once all the 21,000,000 Bitcoins have been mined, the mining operations would theoretically cease.

A prominent question that strikes everyone’s mind is that why would miners validate transactions once the rewards vanish post the halvings. Well, there’s more to mining than just earning per block rewards. Miners also earn the transaction fee associated with each BTC transaction, and it forms a huge part of their overall profits. The transaction fee is further dependent on the size of transaction and network congestion.

Transactions are prioritized as per the highest Satoshi fee. So, people who are willing to pay higher transaction fees will be given priority by the miners. Thus, after all the halvings are over, miners will rely on the transaction fee model as an incentive for their network maintenance operations.

How long does it take to mine 1 Bitcoin?

It takes, on average, 10 minutes to mine 1 Bitcoin.

The quintessential BTC halving event is scheduled once 2,10,000 BTC blocks are created. On average, halving takes place every four years since it takes about every 10 minutes to create a new block.

There will be a total of 64 scheduled halvings, and they will be completed by 2140. After all the halvings are done, there won’t be any Bitcoins left to mine as all the 21 million BTCs would enter circulation.

How many Bitcoins are mined every day?

Approximately 900 Bitcoins are mined every day and to date, 6,31,830 blocks have been created.

On average, miners create 144 blocks every day. As of May 2020, miner’s reward for each block stands at 6.25 for an individual block, which means 900 Bitcoins are mined per day. Miners are constantly upgrading their hardware, and it has also been found that at many points, the miners have pushed the block building time to under 9.5 minutes instead of the average 10 minutes. Since this translates to more daily block creation, on some days more than 900 Bitcoins are mined as well.

An approximate 4 years timeline for each halving further regulates the supply of BTC and consequently helps maintain price dynamics as well. It is estimated that in about 120 years, around 2140, all the 21 million Bitcoins will be mined.

How many bitcoin millionaires are there?

It is impossible to know how many Bitcoin millionaires or billionaires are there precisely. Having said that, there are approximately 18,000 addresses boasting Bitcoins worth more than a million dollars in valuation.

The exact number of Bitcoin millionaires changes quickly as the price of cryptocurrency fluctuates in an uncertain economic environment. A few years ago, a Bitcoin address holding just 50 BTCs was a millionaire, and today it requires double that number.

There are several factors that cloud the exact number of crypto millionaires. How many Bitcoins are there determines the Bitcoin’s supply which in turn decides the wealth distribution. With just 21 million Bitcoins to ever exist, the hustle to touch the million mark gets tough as block reward halving and the number of Bitcoins becoming scarcer.

Some addresses hold crypto assets of multiple individuals. Thus, it is difficult to associate the number of Bitcoins Also, some Bitcoins are lost or stolen and thus are not in public circulation. Besides anecdotal evidence emerging from wallet addresses and Bitcoin transfers, there’s little research into the realm of crypto millionaires.

How many bitcoin billionaires are there?

Speaking of millionaires, we can’t help but mention their big billionaire brethren as well. And there’s no secret about how many Bitcoin billionaires are walking the earth. As per the Forbes list called ‘The Richest in 2020’, there are just four crypto billionaires in the world.

Crypto billionaires include Micree Zhan (Bitmain founder), Jihan Wu (co-founder of Bitmain), Chris Larsen (ex Ripple CEO), and Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO). Collectively, they represent around $8.7 billion in crypto assets.

The Winklevoss twins together hold around $1.8 billion in crypto assets. However, they fall shy of the benchmark since their Bitcoin wealth is shared. Also, a notable mention is crypto exchange Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who is generally believed to be well above the billion-dollar mark.

Bitcoin hasn’t truly caught the fancy of traditional finance magnates yet. However, the 2020 market turmoil is set to change this perception. With just a few more million Bitcoins left, conventional investors are adding Bitcoin to their portfolios vigorously. Such a trend means that the world will soon witness many more Bitcoin billionaires in the future.

Disclaimer. The information provided is not trading advice. Cryptopolitan.com holds no liability for any investments made based on the information provided on this page. We strongly recommend independent research and/or consultation with a qualified professional before making any investment decision.

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Alden Baldwin

Journalist, Writer, Editor, Researcher, and Strategic Media Manager:With over 10 years of experience in the digital, print and public relations industries, he has been working with the mantra, Creativity, Quality and Punctuality. In his waning years promises to build a a self sustaining institute that provides free education. He is working towards funding his own startup.As a technical and language editor, he has worked with multiple top cryptocurrency publications such as DailyCoin, Inside Bitcoins, Urbanlink Magazine, Crypto Unit News and several others.He has edited over 50,000+ articles, journals, scripts, copies, sales campaign headlines, biographies, newsletters, cover letters, product descriptions, landing pages, business plans, SOPs, e-books, and several other kinds of content.

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