It’s August 2019, and while many of us are enjoying summer, there is a really important thing Bitcoin hodlers and the cryptocurrency community should think about: the fact that nearly 85% of the entire Bitcoin supply has already been mined.
The reminder comes from a blog post by Crypto Globe. As of August 1st, 2019, the bitcoin mining community has released 17.85m, or 85%, of the total 21m BTC supply. While many hodlers and investors are looking forward to the next halving event, which will cut block rewards 50% from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC, the entire BTC supply has 15% more to be mined.
The more interesting and somehow disturbing fact is that not all the currently circulating BTC supply is actually available and “hot”. This is because around 4 million Bitcoins are either lost or locked and cannot be accessed. There was even a rumour back in 2015 that a man who forgot the password to his BTC account killed himself.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, believed when he creator Bitcoin that the best way to distribute the coin is at a relatively constant rate. Not only that, but the timed supply of Bitcoin helps the currency not experience inflation.
What’s even more interesting to realize, however, is the fact that the coins that are left to be mined (3 million) will take approximately 100 years to be fully mined. Hodlers and enthusiasts are looking forward to 2140, when the last Bitcoin will be mined. As Leaprate reported, even more shocking is the fact that 1% of Bitcoin addresses control around 87% of the total available BTC supply.