Bitcoin mining hits 19 million milestone

The cumulative mining 0f Bitcoin, which has a 21-million minting limit, has hit the mark of 19 million on Friday, Cointelegraph reported on Sunday (local time). According to Cointelegraph, the 19th millionth Bitcoin was mined by SBI Crypto, cutting the number of Bitcoin left mining below two million.

Bitcoin is a digital asset based on blockchain technology that was created by a man with an alias “Nakamoto Satoshi” in 2008. The users of Bitcoin update the record of its entire transactions across the world every 10 minutes on behalf of central banks, the entity that typically mints and manages the national currency. The one who solves a complex computational puzzle and verifies the integrity of the ledger first gets rewarded with virtual asset, which is called “mining.” The records of transactions renewed every 10 minutes are linked like chains through the blockchain technology.

The mining of Bitcoin first began in 2009. The difficulty of the mathematical puzzles is designed to adapt to the number of miners to maintain the amount of Bitcoin supply. Miners, typically armed with hundreds of computers to beat the puzzle, enjoy mining rewards and transaction fees. According to CNBC, the cycle of such adjustment comes every two weeks.

Crypto experts predict that the mining of Bitcoin will be completed sometime in the year 2140. But their opinions vary as to how Bitcoin will fare afterwards. Some maintain that the Bitcoin’s ecosystem would collapse as there would be no more incentives to keep the ledger, and others are of a view that the increasing rarity of Bitcoin will lead to a surge in prices, offering sufficient fees for miners to survive.


Seong-Mo Kim mo@donga.com