One of Bitcoin’s qualities is that it has limited supply, the number being capped at 21 million Bitcoins. As of right now, 18.9 million have already been mined, leaving only 2.1 million left. Why is this important?
Bitcoin’s network is maintained by the miners, who in return, earn rewards in BTC. This might sound worrying, being that most of the supply has been issued in only 13 years since it was first created. A quick rundown on Bitcoins tokenomics will help you understand this much better.
How Bitcoin’s supply is issued
Miners earn a set amount of Bitcoin for maintaining the network. In more simple words, each time they mine a block, they get Bitcoin. 50 BTCs were minted per block back when Bitcoin was created. Now? 6.25 BTCs are minted each time.
Bitcoin’s issued supply is decreasing by half in each cycle of halvings; something that occurs approximately once every four years. This means that despite the lower supply left, the total supply of 21 million Bitcoins will not be mined until the year 2140.
In between now and then, the worth of each BTC is expected to dramatically increase so the lower rewards are still worth the mining power. Yet, the question still remains.. how will the Bitcoin network be maintained after 2140?
The future of BTC
When the entire supply is mined, miners are set to earn income from processing fees instead, in order to incentivise them to work on the network. However, as Bitcoin develops and more work than ever before is conducted on the network, there will likely be many other ways to sustain it by then. Considering the upcoming innovation and new technology emerging in the blockchain space – something that was only born in 2009 – expect a lot more exciting new development to come in the years ahead.