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Bitcoin is celebrated by supporters and admonished by skeptics because of its finite supply. There are only 21 million bitcoins that can ever be mined, regardless of the earth’s population and its corresponding demand for bitcoins. Once all 21 million have been mined, there will never be any new bitcoins (unless a change to the protocol is made to increase the supply).
On January 13, 2018, 16,800,000 BTC have been mined and there’s only 20 percent left for miners to acquire. When Satoshi Nakamoto introduced the bitcoin protocol to the public by launching the codebase in 2009, the cryptocurrency came with a capped supply.
The supply will never be increased and Nakamoto set the number to 21 million bitcoins ever to be found. So far the creator’s plan and miners securing the network have successfully secured this rule from changing with hashpower.
Once all the bitcoins have been mined, transaction fees will be the sole source of income for miners.
Although Bitcoin’s fixed supply means that miners will eventually have to give up their block rewards, it also creates an opportunity for miners to survive on transaction fees through simple monetary theory. Once all 21 million bitcoins have been mined, the supply cannot increase — regardless of growing demand.
Considering only 20% BTC is left to mined, do you guys think its price is set to shoot up in the near future?