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How to know how many Bitcoin are now circulating? To obtain an exact average answer, not only must your maximum supply and the BTC remaining to be mined be considered, but also how many were lost, among other figures and variables.
How many Bitcoin will there be in total?
The Bitcoin protocol establishes a limit of 21 million Bitcoins. This number is the total and maximum of BTC that will exist. No more no less. It is the time it takes, more or less, for each block to be resolved, where the transactions made by users are located.
Bitcoin leaning against stack of Bitcoins
As everyone knows, an hour contains 60 minutes and a day 24 hours. Multiplying 60 by 24 gives the number of minutes a whole day has: 1,440 minutes. Since it takes 10 minutes to mine a block, a total of 144 blocks can be mined in 1 day.
The calculation of blocks per day – 24 x 60/10 = 144.
If you multiply the number of blocks being mined per day (today 144) by the number of the current miners’ reward (12.5 BTC) per block, you get an estimate of the current daily BTC mining rate.
That is the average of new Bitcoins mined daily, although it must be considered that there are miners with higher hash power capabilities, which can solve blocks in 9.5 minutes. So in practice a little more than 1,800 BTC could be generated per day. Almost 1,800 of BTC are spread per day, which makes about 657,000 BTC per year. The reward will be cut in half (6,125 BTC), bringing there 900 BTC per day and about 328,500 BTC per year.
How many Bitcoin are in circulation today?
As of 2020 there are more than 18 million BTC. But not all of them can be used, with which the number of Bitcoins in circulation could drop to almost 8 million. Of those 18 million, an estimated 3-4 million are lost from users’ hands and roughly 1 million BTC has been stolen by hackers.
In turn, the huge amounts of “whales” should be subtracted, as those who keep large amounts of BTC in their digital wallets are known.
It has been said that Satoshi Nakamoto , the still unknown creator of Bitcoin, could have almost 1 million BTC, although it is not something that can be known for sure. According to BlockGeeks, there are about 5 million BTC held by around 1,600 “whales.”
For its part, Buy Bitcoin Worldwide estimates that about 30,000-60,000 people may have more than $ 1 million in bitcoins. But the truth is that the precise amount of BTC lost and stolen, the exact amount that Satoshi Nakamoto has, and the number of millions of BTC frozen in the whale accounts of the ecosystem, cannot be known for sure.
It is almost impossible to have accurate data in this regard.
If these approximate numbers are taken as a base, by subtracting from the 18 million already mined the almost 3-4 million BTC currently unavailable due to loss or theft and the almost 6 million BTC that the “whales” supposedly have, the That figure could approach roughly 8 million in circulation.
If there are almost 18,000 BTC in circulation and your supply limit is 21 million, this means that more than 85% of the total supply of Bitcoins has been mined in almost 12 years.
When the next Bitcoin halving happens, scheduled for approx May 2020, the reward will be cut in half (6,125 BTC), bringing there 900 BTC per day and about 328,500 BTC per year.
Since the block reward halves every four years or so, the remaining 20% will be spread over the next 120 years, until 21 million BTC is reached and block rewards are 0. You can do more calculation using crypto engine app website
Why is there a supply of 21 million BTC?
The exact answer could only be obtained in the mouth or hands of Satoshi Nakamoto. It has been interpreted that establishing a ceiling for the total supply of Bitcoin can be seen as a measure aimed at giving a certain balance of supply and demand in automatic mode.
