90% of Bitcoin has been mined, but it will take 119 years to mine it all

90% of all Bitcoins have been mined as of December 14, 2021, according to data from Blockchain.com, a website that tracks data from blockchain. As such, there are currently approximately 18.89 million Bitcoins (out of a maximum total of 21 million) currently available on the open market.

Reaching this milestone has taken almost 12 years since the first Bitcoin was mined on January 9, 2009. However, the remaining supply is not expected to be mined until February 2140, based on network activity estimate and Bitcoin Halving schedule.

Basically, Halving (halving) or Halvening is the process of halving the rewards for miners when they mine a new Bitcoin block. Bitcoin Halving happens periodically, which reduces the rate at which new Bitcoins are created.

The year-on-year increase in the value of Bitcoin reflects the increasing demand for this cryptocurrency year by year. At the beginning of 2021, Bitcoin was trading at $0.10 when the new supply was 10% mined. In December 2012, when 50% of the Bitcoin supply was mined, the value of Bitcoin fluctuated at $7.50. At the moment, Bitcoin is trading at $49,000, down 28% from its peak of $69,000 earlier this year, according to data from CoinGecko.

Bitcoin, with its Proof-of-work protocol, relies on network participants called miners, which continuously process transactions and confirm blocks in a process collectively known as ‘mining’ ( or Bitcoin mining).

Accordingly, miners will provide their computer and hardware resources to solve millions of complex calculations on the Bitcoin network every second. In return, the miners will receive a “reward” of Bitcoin.

It is estimated that Bitcoin miners currently receive 6.25 BTC for each blockchain they mine. This number will drop to 3,125 Bitcoin during the next halving in 2024.

Having said that, not all of the 21 million bitcoins will be circulating on the open market. According to crypto data company Chainalysis, of the approximately 18.5 million Bitcoins in existence today, about 20% are lost or stuck in wallets that cannot be opened for various reasons. such as the loss of the password or the death of the owner. In addition, there are still about 1 million Bitcoins currently owned by Satoshi Nakamoto, the ‘father’ of this very cryptocurrency. This BTC was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto from the early days of Bitcoin’s birth and was said to be ‘untouchable’.

Refer to Coindesk