The last of the 21 million units of bitcoins in existence may have to wait till 2140 to be extracted, however, as at 1 August, 2019, 85 per cent units of the most popular cryptocurrency in the world are already in existence. According to data from Blockchain which monitors mining activities on the network, miners have so far mined 17,850,088 bitcoins as part of the transaction validation process.
The implication of the current supply is that only a maximum of 17,850,088 people can own won an entire coin. It potentially could induce scarcity giving that a significant volume of the coins are considered lost forever.
In 2017, A study conducted by Chainalysis, a digital forensics firm that studies bitcoin, blockchain found that 3.79 million bitcoins are lost based on a high estimate and 2.78 million based on a low one. By that estimate, 17 to 23 per cent of existing bitcoins are lost.
With 3,150,000 bitcoin – about 15 per cent – left to be mined, some experts say scarcity will create hike in prices of the less than 21 million units of it in existence. As it stands, it will take 120 years to mine the last unit of it.
