The Limits Of New Bitcoin Emission: When The Last Bitcoin Will Be Mined

Emission of money means introducing to circulation in economy new financial assets. They could be stocks, cash, bonds, and other securities. If we are talking about traditional paper money, it is produced by a special printing machine and in the amount controlled by the Ministry of Finance.

Cryptocurrency, in particular Bitcoin, is also emitted but is happens through mining. Miners are rewarded with coins for transferring large amounts of information through their farms. The more information is processed, the more coins the miner receives. To exchange cryptocurrency for traditional money miners have to use the exchange services, where other players in the market are ready to pay for crypto with fiat money. This is how BTC appears in the financial market. Check out our article to find out how the Bitcoin emission works, why it is limited, and when the last Bitcoin will be mined.

Bitcoin emission: what it is and how it works

Cryptocurrency emission is quite simple. At the same time, no state and other authorities can control it. The crypto miner’s earnings are almost impossible to track, which means it is incredibly hard to require them to pay taxes. Nowadays, the Bitcoin emission works according to the following algorithm:

• specialists are developing a new project - a cryptographic currency, based on the blockchain;
• developers determine how much coins the network should release, and how much data a user (a miner) must process to receive a reward. This is called blocks and hash rate;
• the user installs the program on his PC and starts the process;
• PC reads out the information, developing the network. The main aim of the process is to find the block where a transaction is hidden. If a block is founded, a transaction is counted;
• the network generates coins and give them to the miner for each such block;
• this is how Bitcoin is emitted.

At first, only stationary PCs were used for mining, but today miners work with plenty of expensive powerful equipment, including video cards, computers, and ASIC Bitcoin miners. Due to new powerful tools, the cryptographic code in the blocks is quickly identified. Bearing in mind that one BTC costs more than 6,000 USD, the mining process is quite profitable.

The limits of Bitcoin emission: features and advantages 

The BTC emission is decentralized and independent from governments and other regulatory authorities. This feature makes cryptocurrency super popular within not only ordinary investors but also within large companies. Today, more and more people are becoming involved in mining, making cryptosystems more developed and stable.

However, the crypto emission has a limitation that was originally included in the blockchain by Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. The Bitcoin emission is limited to 21 million coins. Why? According to the currency creators, the key parameter is partly rationalized and mathematically thought out, and partly random. This limit can’t be postponed, changed, or ignored.

Why is the restriction necessary? There are a few reasons:

• the final emission allows to protect digital coins from inflation and devaluation;
• tendency to deflation. It means that due to the complexity of mining and the decline in crypto creation, the value of Bitcoin will gradually increase;
• due to the rising price in dollars, Nakatomo made the number of coins limited to ensure balance.

The number of emitted coins reached 17 million at the end of 2018. This means that this volume was mined in less than ten years. What will happen next? Unsurprisingly, many market players want to know: when will the Bitcoin mining end?

When the last Bitcoin will be mined and the next halving will happen 

If we look at the crypto-mining process in detail, it can be concluded that the last coins will be mined over the next 2-3 years. However, experts suggest slightly different dates and claim that mining will end by 2040-2043. It is because the remuneration for currency mining is gradually lowering: 10 years ago, the miner received 50 coins for each block. Then two halvings happened. A halving means that the reward for adding a new block to the network is cut in half. At the end of 2012, the remuneration was reduced to 25 coins, and it has dropped to 12.5, since July 2016. It is considered that the reward for mining will be even lower in the future, so the process of mining will take more time.

Bearing in mind that miners add a new block every 10 minutes, the third halving on the number of 630,000 blocks can be expected at the end of this year. Experts believe that the size of the reward will drop to 6.25 BTC.

Experts also predict that about 31 halvings are going to happen until the last Bitcoin is emitted. At the same time, the reduction of remuneration will probably cause a hike in the Bitcoin price during the last stages of its "career".

What will happen after the mining of the last Bitcoin? 

Many miners want to know the answer to this question. Bitcoin isn’t a bubble that will burst, and it won’t disappear, as some people think. Bitcoin will simply change its status. It won’t be possible to mine Bitcoin. However, it will still be possible to exchange currencies, purchase and sell, using BTCs. According to experts, the digital currency will become a key player in the financial market in 10-20 years. Even now, you can use BTC to buy goods and services in online stores, restaurants, or cafes. All of these factors influence the market value of a coin positively. Therefore, the price of crypto will remain high in the future, and even after the end of the emission, Bitcoin won’t disappear.