Just this last Friday, the 18 millionth bitcoin got mined and that has left three million bitcoins left undug.
This has caused some happy tingles, among bitcoin enthusiasts as the coin has seen an increase in scarcity as the notion of “artificial scarcity”, has, also, increased.
Compared to other types of currencies, bitcoin’s inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, designed the currency, to have immunity against inflation.
Bitcoin is not designed, by free printing, therefore, falling interest rates are, of no consequence.
The inventor himself, Satoshi, mined the first million bitcoins; a result that has made him worth about $7.2 billion.
In the early days of bitcoin mining, their values, were worth nothing, but pennies, as its mining generated just a full 50 bitcoins, each “block”.
Nowadays, few bitcoins are generated, due to what is known, as “routine halving”. This is coming upon the new bitcoin supply and is slated, to occur for another period, come May 2020.
The first 18 million bitcoins, got mined, in a matter of 10 years, but the three million left, will not get mined fully, until 2140.
Out of the 18 million available bitcoins, 4 million are inaccessible, according to Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency analytics firm, making only 14 million bitcoins accessible and usable.
A drop in the supply of bitcoins, probably, to point zero means that, miners would run out of business.
Luckily for bitcoin users, the 21 million bitcoins, have many advantages at hand.
The halving feature of bitcoin, gives it a high “stock to flow” ratio, meaning that, the currency in circulation, gets divided, by the number of new coins generated and according to bitcoin enthusiasts, this high ratio, will make its price go higher, rather than dropping, like the traditional currency.
Bitcoin enthusiasts, also, believe that the scarcity of the crypto coin will trigger people to purchase it. With only a few million left to get mined, it is only a matter of time, for the coin, to witness a shopping spree.
Satoshi had suggested that the scarcity of bitcoin, appears to be away, to counter the lack of “intrinsic value”, experienced with cryptocurrency and this would compel people, to take it up, as a cash alternative.
If it somehow acquired any value at all, for whatever reason, people would use it as cash, but that wouldn’t be possible, without any market value, which he believed—in lieu of the “automatic bootstrap” of intrinsic value—could be forced through scarcity. “If there were nothing, in the world, with intrinsic value that could be used, as money, only scarce, but no intrinsic value, I think people would still take up something”, Satoshi stressed.
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