Just 2 Million Bitcoins Left to be Mined After Milestone is Passed

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AMID the gags and spoofs that April 1 always brings, you may have missed a small piece of Bitcoin history being made – at 7.05 pm (ET) 19 million Bitcoins had been mined.

At that time in 2022 the block height showing the total number of Bitcoins in circulation stood at 19,000,004.68 out of a maximum supply of just shy of 21 million as set by the digital currency’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

But this milestone isn’t any reason to panic – there are still a few years to go before the well runs dry.

It’s estimated that the last Bitcoin will be mined somewhere around 2140, and it’s all because of some clever maths baked into the code.

The process by which rewards are issued for discovering blocks was designed to give predictability to when halvings – or difficulty adjustments – would be made.

At the moment a new block is discovered approximately every 10 minutes or so and the lucky miner responsible is rewarded with 6.25 Bitcoins.

After the next halving, due to take place sometime around the beginning of May 2024, the reward will decrease to 3.125 Bitcoins for discovering a block.

This diminishing supply of Bitcoin has helped establish it as an asset along side other scare resources, such as gold, hence the moniker ‘digital gold’.

Millions of Bitcoins ‘lost’

Estimates as to how many of these 19 million coins are actually accessible vary – some studies suggest that upwards of 3 million coins have been lost for ever.

Certainly, there are many well-documented cases of Bitcoin fortunes that have been lost due to human error, mistakes or carelessness.

The case of James Howells, an IT worker from Newport, Wales, who accidentally threw away a hard drive containing 7,500 coins back in 2013 is one such story of woe.

Mr Howells routinely appears in the UK tabloid press when he makes a new bid to excavate the tip where he believes the coins ended up.

But so far Newport City Council has denied his request, despite being offered 10% of the coin’s value if it allows the search to go ahead.

One interesting question the diminishing supply of Bitcoin raises is what’s going to happen to the miners when all the coins have been minted?

If Bitcoin is still being used at that time, the incentive for miners will be to benefit from the transaction fees paid when Bitcoin’s are used.