There are now 19 million Bitcoins in existence, but you are very unlikely to be alive when the last one will be mined
The 19 millionth Bitcoin was finally mined earlier today after weeks of anticipation.
This is the first million-coin milestone crossed since October 2019. More than 90% of all Bitcoins that will ever be in existence have been mined.
When will the 21 millionth Bitcoin be mined?
Due to a multitude of different variances, it is very difficult to predict when the 20 millionth coin will be mined.
Since Bitcoin rewards received by miners get halved every four years, the Bitcoin creation process is getting slower.
Bitcoin’s maximum supply is capped at 21 million coins, which is widely regarded as one of the flagship cryptocurrency’s greatest virtues. Gold, for comparison, has an infinite supply. Block production times may vary depending on the mining difficulty of the network which adjusts every two weeks. According to rough estimates, the very last bitcoin should not be mined until 2140 due to changing mining rules.
Is it possible to create more Bitcoins?
Since Bitcoin is based on a piece of software, it is theoretically possible for someone to introduce a code change to increase Bitcoin’s maximum supply beyond the aforementioned limit.
However, changing Bitcoin’s strict cap of 21 million coins would be considered sacrilegious by the community. Thesis founder Matt Luongo once launched the idea to increase the maximum supply of the best cryptocurrency so that miners always have an incentive to keep the network secure. The proposal, of course, drew heavy criticism.
Due to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, it would require convincing tens of thousands of nodes to get onboard, which means that such a drastic change doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being implemented.
