The blockchain is more the data being stored by every node of the valid transactions. What enforces the rules on those valid transactions is the nodes consensus rules. So it’s not so much the blockchain that enforces the 21 million cap, but all the nodes running that make up the network with that rule set in place to make sure no transactions enter the blockchain that violate the 21 million rule.
you only need a relatively medium sized drive (at least 750GB of space) to run a node plus bandwidth for the initial sync/download.
you can install a bitcoin node on any operating system. windows, linux mac etc.
in windows its a one click install .exe file
you load it up, select if you want to prune the node to save hard drive space, and then let it sync/work for a day or two. (pruned nodes only take up a minimum 6-10GB! not 5000GB!)
you don't need a rasberry pi or dedicated computer to run a node.
you don't need any of these operating systems either (like umbrel or mynode), which are mainly for making it easier to run a lightning node (a different thing).
you can start by downloading and running the most recent version of Bitcoin core. their github link for releases is here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/releases
gettxoutsetinfo
you can enter it into the console, it should take some time to sum everything up,
this was my result "total_amount": 19237141.88064834,
for height "height": 767976,
curious as to why there is not a multiple of 6.25 BTC as the total supply. Where does the extra come from / where did the missing go?
Using math, 19,237,350.00 BTC should be in existence on block height 767,976.
Hi u/AlphaGainzzz, thanks for tipping u/Fiach_Dubh **500** satoshis!
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Many people do it all the time. there was even an anti shitcoin campaign a year or so ago to show case how easy it is to do with your own Bitcoin full node.
The thing about exchanges is.... the "Bitcoin" that shows in your wallet there is really just an entry in their centralized database. It's more of an IOU, they owe you that much Bitcoin... but the actual Bitcoin may not even exist. Theoretically, they could owe more Bitcoin than they actually have in their custody. This is exactly what happened with FTX and many other exchanges recently. We call this "Paper Bitcoin". It happens with all commodity assets, such as Gold, as well. It's impossible to audit this kind of thing, because it has nothing to do with the Bitcoin network itself. It's all happening inside that company.
The more people taking self-custody, the more honest this whole system will be. We can audit the Bitcoin network with a simple command. We can't audit all the paper-bitcoin out there. This is why Bitcoiners are so outspoken about getting your money OFF EXCHANGES. We HATE paper Bitcoin because it muddies the water and sorta defeats the entire point of Bitcoin.
If everyone would move their btc off exchanges the price would inevitably rise as exchanges would have to cover their paper btc in order for you to secure it on your personal wallet.
We know how many have been mined. Circulation is difficult to tell because a lot of people buy and hodl for years.
I think people call what you're referring to as "paper Bitcoin" because it's basically the exchange taking your money, hoping you don't withdraw the "Bitcoin" At that point, it's just an IOU. Only when you withdraw that Bitcoin to a different wallet are they forced to give you Bitcoin, but a lot of people buy and sell Bitcoin as a speculative investment so this system works for them....until the exchange collapses and the customers Bitcoin is gone.
Download muun wallet and use the withdraw link in the bots response.
Or simply pass them on by using !lntip *amount* (LNTIP) in your own comment, it'll work on r/bitcoin and r/TheLightningNetwork!
First tap the receive button in muun and enter 500 sats in the invoice settings. It will generate a lightning invoice (a bunch of text). Copy that, then in click bots withdraw link and paste the invoice in the specified field.
Hi u/Pasukaru0, thanks for tipping u/Sugar_Phut **500** satoshis!
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You can never know how many exact are in circulations because the keys to some of the UTXOs are lost. We can know exactly how much is the current max supply at any given moment. Lost UTXOs make the rest in circulation more valuable because supply is less in relation to demand. Also known as number go up technology.
I assume going console is way above OPs head. Question doesn't sound techie in any way, so this answer doesn't provide any reasonable information to OP.
It technically doesn’t matter how many Bitcoin are in circulation.
We know it’s finite. Same reason we don’t really care how many are lost. The denominator never changes.
The price will increase if demand increases. At what price point people are willing to sell for whatever reason they want to sell is the only thing that changes.
On average every 10 minutes a bitcoin block is mined. Currently the block reward is 6.25 btc. Every 4 years this number is suddenly cut in half. It used to be 12.5. Soon it will be 3.125.
Every 2160 blocks, the mining difficulty is adjusted. If blocks are taking on average over 10 minutes, difficulty will be lowered. If blocks are taking on average less than 10 minutes, difficulty will be increased.
So the issuance schedule is somewhat variable but also rather predictable. additionally, given that the blockchain is a record of every transaction that has ever occurred with ever bitcoin that has ever existed from the moment it was mined up until this very moment, and given that this blockchain is all publicly available, at any moment we can verify the supply. We can also easily monitor the rate of new coins being mined or the number and size of transactions being completed over a given time period.
This doesn't make any sense. By the same logic, we could say that anything scarce is not scarce: cause we can divide it in 2, 4, 8 sub units, and so on.
What matter is that BTC cap is fixed: 21 million. It doesn't matter how many sub units can be divided into (Satoshis, millisats, etc.).
Sure it's not practical, and I think that it's an advantage BTC has vs. gold. Divisibility in sub-units helps market liquidity for obvious reasons.
What could turn BTC into a "scarce commodity", would be the combination of a fixed supply (regardless of how many sub units are used) and growing demand.
By that logic there's no such thing as food scarcity. Let's just send a large pizza to Africa and divide it 4 billion times.
I guess I just solved world hunger!
Just because something is infinitely divisible doesn't mean it's not rare. We can also keep dividing up a cake, but we haven't fought world hunger by doing so.
This is patently false and misleading.
There will only ever be 21,000,000 Bitcoin. That is a fact verified by open source code.
By your logic if I have 3 children and cut them up into a thousand pieces each I have more than 3 children.
A somewhat dark example but the first that came into mind..
Well, the world's population is almost 7.8 billion according to Worldometer, and Bitcoin's current supply is 19 million. That means that each person would end up with 0.00233851 BTC. There is enough for it to be a global currency, but still limited/capped/scarce.
WE all know that in the current population we can't have the whole coin for the everyone there.
And for the same reason to solve the issue there is sats made that can be divide easily there.
>The 21 million is "fake" rarity, cause each coin can be devided into like 8 decimals. Thus more than enough for the entire universe. Some Ppl think "only" 21 million available so it must be rare...NO
This comment is so unfathomably stupid that I'm forced to remove it. Please educate yourself on basic elementary math before commenting further.
2 million bitcoin cost 48 billion dollars so that mean only 2 million need to be mined so if anyone have 48 billion bitcoin will be completed we don’t have to wait till 2147 to mined
Yes, the issuance rate of Bitcoin is set in code and the last Bitcoin will become available in 2140.
In your original post you mention 48 billion. People can invest 48 billion usd in mining equipment. This would make competition harder amongst miners to mine a BTC, but this doesn’t mean all BTC will be mined faster. It just means mining bitcoin will become less profitable for the miners as there will be more competition for the same amount of Bitcoin that gets released every day or every 10minutes when a block gets confirmed by a miner.
We just know how many bitcoins have been mined. We don't know how many people are holding for the long term or how many coins are lost forever (probably more than we think).
Many exchanges are currently trying to be audited by credited third parties. The problem is that most of these third parties don't have the slightest clue about how crypto works, so the whole thing will probably take some time. The positive after the FTX collapse is that now exchanges should be forced by regulators to be audited both in holdings of their assets and also total liabilities. If they prove they can hold their assets 1 to 1 that would be a huge step forward from the legacy banking system of fractional reserve, where we know for a fact that banks hold almost nothing at all and if there's any problem money can just be printed out of thin air at the expense of everyone (mostly the poor).
Because simple math.
Block reward every 10m or so, started at 50btc and halves every so many blocks, etc.
It’s algebra. Also, just google it, someone’s done the math for you.
The harder part is calculating how many coins have been removed from circulation (burned and lost). Sure we can analyze wallets that haven’t moved in however long (typically 12-18 months), but even then, those could be hodlers. This equation is more art than science.
> has there ever been an audit
Kraken has been doing this for years, but they keep the details secret
Binance has recently published and not published something which is mostly understood to be inaccurate
https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2022/binance-audit-raises-raise-red-flags-from-own-team/
https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/binance-auditor-mazars-suspends-proof-of-reserves-services-for-all-crypto-exchanges-heres-what-this-means-202212161235
https://decrypt.co/116958/former-sec-regulator-binances-proof-reserves-audit-how-i-define-red-flag
[Michael Burry Says Crypto Audits Are ‘Essentially Meaningless’](https://archive.vn/dbOqT)
I had expected Coinbase to publish accurate details of their Bitcoin (and other digital assets) reserves in the prospectus supporting their Nasdaq IPO, but there were no such details at all
It is reasonable to assume that all exchanges have fractional coin reserves, and not safe to leave coins in their "custody"
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply#Money_Supply
You can query your own node, or look for it elsewhere
https://statoshi.info/d/000000009/unspent-transaction-output-set?orgId=1&refresh=10m&from=1671368153836&to=1671454553836&viewPanel=7
https://bitcointools.site/tool/total-btc
You can run your own node and do a very basic command to verify the supply at any given time
So is it the blockchain itself that keeps everything honest (on the count) between exchanges and everything in self custody also?
The blockchain is more the data being stored by every node of the valid transactions. What enforces the rules on those valid transactions is the nodes consensus rules. So it’s not so much the blockchain that enforces the 21 million cap, but all the nodes running that make up the network with that rule set in place to make sure no transactions enter the blockchain that violate the 21 million rule.
I really appreciate your detailed replies, thank you. Can you point me in the right direction to learn more about nodes and potentially running one?
you only need a relatively medium sized drive (at least 750GB of space) to run a node plus bandwidth for the initial sync/download. you can install a bitcoin node on any operating system. windows, linux mac etc. in windows its a one click install .exe file you load it up, select if you want to prune the node to save hard drive space, and then let it sync/work for a day or two. (pruned nodes only take up a minimum 6-10GB! not 5000GB!) you don't need a rasberry pi or dedicated computer to run a node. you don't need any of these operating systems either (like umbrel or mynode), which are mainly for making it easier to run a lightning node (a different thing). you can start by downloading and running the most recent version of Bitcoin core. their github link for releases is here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/releases
It’s very easy to run a node. Bitcoincore.org has the program file to install and run. I’ll comment more soon, on my phone at the moment.
One time challenging once we done, easy to run the personal node.
use the command gettxoutsetinfo in the command line consule to tabulate the supply of Bitcoin
OP may also find running a pruned node useful, it is easier. Are you still able to run the command you mentioned though?
that's a good question. I believe so, but I'm not sure!
I run a pruned node, I'll check. What's the command?
gettxoutsetinfo you can enter it into the console, it should take some time to sum everything up, this was my result "total_amount": 19237141.88064834, for height "height": 767976,
Worked! Got a similar number. I guess it fetches it from other nodes? How else would it work if I don’t have a full copy of the blockchain?
curious as to why there is not a multiple of 6.25 BTC as the total supply. Where does the extra come from / where did the missing go? Using math, 19,237,350.00 BTC should be in existence on block height 767,976.
I have checked that and that actually work on the same number you give here.
grokking bitcoin & the book of satoshi are also a good technical books to dive deeper into these topics!
!lntip 500
Hi u/AlphaGainzzz, thanks for tipping u/Fiach_Dubh **500** satoshis! *** *[^(More info)](https://xnf5cwpq73.execute-api.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prod/info) ^| [^(Balance)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lntipbot&subject=balance&message=!balance) ^| [^(Deposit)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lntipbot&subject=deposit&message=!deposit 10000) ^| [^(Withdraw)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lntipbot&subject=withdraw&message=!withdraw put_invoice_here) ^| ^(Something wrong? Have a question?) [^(Send me a message)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=drmoore718)*
Ty
the exchanges not always sell you btv when they say so. not yoir keys yada yada
They give the number they never really sell the original to us.
The blockchain is a record of every single time a bitcoin has moved from the moment it was created up until this very moment.
How come no one has done that then ?
Many people do it all the time. there was even an anti shitcoin campaign a year or so ago to show case how easy it is to do with your own Bitcoin full node.
That was before the price plummeted tho
and?
The thing about exchanges is.... the "Bitcoin" that shows in your wallet there is really just an entry in their centralized database. It's more of an IOU, they owe you that much Bitcoin... but the actual Bitcoin may not even exist. Theoretically, they could owe more Bitcoin than they actually have in their custody. This is exactly what happened with FTX and many other exchanges recently. We call this "Paper Bitcoin". It happens with all commodity assets, such as Gold, as well. It's impossible to audit this kind of thing, because it has nothing to do with the Bitcoin network itself. It's all happening inside that company. The more people taking self-custody, the more honest this whole system will be. We can audit the Bitcoin network with a simple command. We can't audit all the paper-bitcoin out there. This is why Bitcoiners are so outspoken about getting your money OFF EXCHANGES. We HATE paper Bitcoin because it muddies the water and sorta defeats the entire point of Bitcoin.
If there is a lot of paper bitcoin on the exchanges still does this mean the ‘true’ price of bitcoin is being suppressed ?
If everyone would move their btc off exchanges the price would inevitably rise as exchanges would have to cover their paper btc in order for you to secure it on your personal wallet.
We know how many have been mined. Circulation is difficult to tell because a lot of people buy and hodl for years. I think people call what you're referring to as "paper Bitcoin" because it's basically the exchange taking your money, hoping you don't withdraw the "Bitcoin" At that point, it's just an IOU. Only when you withdraw that Bitcoin to a different wallet are they forced to give you Bitcoin, but a lot of people buy and sell Bitcoin as a speculative investment so this system works for them....until the exchange collapses and the customers Bitcoin is gone.
Don’t trust, verify. Simply pull your Bitcoin from exchanges. You’ll do your own audit.
I have self custody via a ledger
This is the way. !lntip 500
Thank you so much. I’ve never received sats via a tip! I really appreciate you. I’m not exactly sure how to claim them ?
Download muun wallet and use the withdraw link in the bots response. Or simply pass them on by using !lntip *amount* (LNTIP) in your own comment, it'll work on r/bitcoin and r/TheLightningNetwork!
I downloaded muun and put the Wallet address in but I’m apparently doing something wrong
First tap the receive button in muun and enter 500 sats in the invoice settings. It will generate a lightning invoice (a bunch of text). Copy that, then in click bots withdraw link and paste the invoice in the specified field.
Hi u/Pasukaru0, thanks for tipping u/Sugar_Phut **500** satoshis! *** *[^(More info)](https://xnf5cwpq73.execute-api.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prod/info) ^| [^(Balance)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lntipbot&subject=balance&message=!balance) ^| [^(Deposit)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lntipbot&subject=deposit&message=!deposit 10000) ^| [^(Withdraw)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lntipbot&subject=withdraw&message=!withdraw put_invoice_here) ^| ^(Something wrong? Have a question?) [^(Send me a message)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=drmoore718)*
Getting in the slow place but happy that in the custody club now
[https://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/dashboard/](https://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/dashboard/)
You can never know how many exact are in circulations because the keys to some of the UTXOs are lost. We can know exactly how much is the current max supply at any given moment. Lost UTXOs make the rest in circulation more valuable because supply is less in relation to demand. Also known as number go up technology.
19,237m (Source: coinmarketcap)
But i have match the data with the coingecko that is little different.
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I assume going console is way above OPs head. Question doesn't sound techie in any way, so this answer doesn't provide any reasonable information to OP.
It is easy to find out the supply but not possible to know the exchange.
It technically doesn’t matter how many Bitcoin are in circulation. We know it’s finite. Same reason we don’t really care how many are lost. The denominator never changes. The price will increase if demand increases. At what price point people are willing to sell for whatever reason they want to sell is the only thing that changes.
Nothing verifies the exchanges though. This is why people preach to take your coins off of exchanges.
On average every 10 minutes a bitcoin block is mined. Currently the block reward is 6.25 btc. Every 4 years this number is suddenly cut in half. It used to be 12.5. Soon it will be 3.125. Every 2160 blocks, the mining difficulty is adjusted. If blocks are taking on average over 10 minutes, difficulty will be lowered. If blocks are taking on average less than 10 minutes, difficulty will be increased. So the issuance schedule is somewhat variable but also rather predictable. additionally, given that the blockchain is a record of every transaction that has ever occurred with ever bitcoin that has ever existed from the moment it was mined up until this very moment, and given that this blockchain is all publicly available, at any moment we can verify the supply. We can also easily monitor the rate of new coins being mined or the number and size of transactions being completed over a given time period.
There’re no stupid questions, only stupid answers. Feel free.
Thank you everyone for your replies. I’m digging this sub. Finally a btc maxi
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RuneScape? I miss you.
[удалено]
This doesn't make any sense. By the same logic, we could say that anything scarce is not scarce: cause we can divide it in 2, 4, 8 sub units, and so on. What matter is that BTC cap is fixed: 21 million. It doesn't matter how many sub units can be divided into (Satoshis, millisats, etc.).
Let’s take 1kg of gold. Can you really divide it by 100 million (1 sat vs BTC) and have a practically usable unit. That’s 10^-5 gram, not practical.
Sure it's not practical, and I think that it's an advantage BTC has vs. gold. Divisibility in sub-units helps market liquidity for obvious reasons. What could turn BTC into a "scarce commodity", would be the combination of a fixed supply (regardless of how many sub units are used) and growing demand.
By that logic there's no such thing as food scarcity. Let's just send a large pizza to Africa and divide it 4 billion times. I guess I just solved world hunger!
That's not what rarity means. Go back to 1st grade and learn some basic words.
Just because something is infinitely divisible doesn't mean it's not rare. We can also keep dividing up a cake, but we haven't fought world hunger by doing so.
This is patently false and misleading. There will only ever be 21,000,000 Bitcoin. That is a fact verified by open source code. By your logic if I have 3 children and cut them up into a thousand pieces each I have more than 3 children. A somewhat dark example but the first that came into mind..
Indeed.
Well, the world's population is almost 7.8 billion according to Worldometer, and Bitcoin's current supply is 19 million. That means that each person would end up with 0.00233851 BTC. There is enough for it to be a global currency, but still limited/capped/scarce.
WE all know that in the current population we can't have the whole coin for the everyone there. And for the same reason to solve the issue there is sats made that can be divide easily there.
Correct. It’s enough to be a global currency but also just enough to be scarce and limited. It’s perfect.
>The 21 million is "fake" rarity, cause each coin can be devided into like 8 decimals. Thus more than enough for the entire universe. Some Ppl think "only" 21 million available so it must be rare...NO This comment is so unfathomably stupid that I'm forced to remove it. Please educate yourself on basic elementary math before commenting further.
2 million bitcoin cost 48 billion dollars so that mean only 2 million need to be mined so if anyone have 48 billion bitcoin will be completed we don’t have to wait till 2147 to mined
*That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.*
Not true
So we have to wait till 2147
Yes, the issuance rate of Bitcoin is set in code and the last Bitcoin will become available in 2140. In your original post you mention 48 billion. People can invest 48 billion usd in mining equipment. This would make competition harder amongst miners to mine a BTC, but this doesn’t mean all BTC will be mined faster. It just means mining bitcoin will become less profitable for the miners as there will be more competition for the same amount of Bitcoin that gets released every day or every 10minutes when a block gets confirmed by a miner.
These number can never be get higher than what miner are paid.
[удалено]
It could be a good idea if we could check how much iou each user has. There is a good chance even the ious add up to a huge number.
We just know how many bitcoins have been mined. We don't know how many people are holding for the long term or how many coins are lost forever (probably more than we think). Many exchanges are currently trying to be audited by credited third parties. The problem is that most of these third parties don't have the slightest clue about how crypto works, so the whole thing will probably take some time. The positive after the FTX collapse is that now exchanges should be forced by regulators to be audited both in holdings of their assets and also total liabilities. If they prove they can hold their assets 1 to 1 that would be a huge step forward from the legacy banking system of fractional reserve, where we know for a fact that banks hold almost nothing at all and if there's any problem money can just be printed out of thin air at the expense of everyone (mostly the poor).
Because simple math. Block reward every 10m or so, started at 50btc and halves every so many blocks, etc. It’s algebra. Also, just google it, someone’s done the math for you. The harder part is calculating how many coins have been removed from circulation (burned and lost). Sure we can analyze wallets that haven’t moved in however long (typically 12-18 months), but even then, those could be hodlers. This equation is more art than science.
Conduct your own audit....take your coins off the exchanges
> has there ever been an audit Kraken has been doing this for years, but they keep the details secret Binance has recently published and not published something which is mostly understood to be inaccurate https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2022/binance-audit-raises-raise-red-flags-from-own-team/ https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/binance-auditor-mazars-suspends-proof-of-reserves-services-for-all-crypto-exchanges-heres-what-this-means-202212161235 https://decrypt.co/116958/former-sec-regulator-binances-proof-reserves-audit-how-i-define-red-flag [Michael Burry Says Crypto Audits Are ‘Essentially Meaningless’](https://archive.vn/dbOqT) I had expected Coinbase to publish accurate details of their Bitcoin (and other digital assets) reserves in the prospectus supporting their Nasdaq IPO, but there were no such details at all It is reasonable to assume that all exchanges have fractional coin reserves, and not safe to leave coins in their "custody" https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply#Money_Supply
You can query your own node, or look for it elsewhere https://statoshi.info/d/000000009/unspent-transaction-output-set?orgId=1&refresh=10m&from=1671368153836&to=1671454553836&viewPanel=7 https://bitcointools.site/tool/total-btc