Bitcoin’s birthday. The currency is known, among other things, for its scarcity, the maximum number of 21 million bitcoins is, according to some, the driving force of the increasing value. After all, the regular currencies in which we express the value are subject to inflation, not bitcoin, right?
Exactly eight years ago this week, the bitcoin network, the blockchain, started. The very first block assigned number 0 is called the genesis block .
On average, a block is added to the blockchain every 10 minutes, the reward for the finder of the block being newly issued bitcoins. This reward is the only source of ( monetary ) inflation in Bitcoin. The amount of this reward is set at 50 in the beginning and after about 4 years it halves. The reward has already been halved twice. So Bitcoin certainly has inflation, the big difference is that the extent to which it is already determined in advance and that it happens at a predictable speed.
The latter also ensures that we can say with certainty that more than 21 million bitcoins can never be made, more about mining bitcoins.
Below we have listed Bitcoin’s annual inflation figures, with a forecast for the coming years:
|
Year |
Bitcoin found |
Total bitcoin supply |
Inflation |
|
|
2009 |
1.6 million. |
1.6 million. |
na |
|
|
2010 |
3.4 million. |
5.0 million. |
207% |
|
|
2011 |
3.0 million. |
8.0 million. |
59% |
|
|
2012 |
2.6 million. |
10.6 million. |
32% |
|
|
2013 |
1.6 million. |
12.2 million. |
15% |
|
|
2014 |
1.5 million. |
13.7 million. |
12% |
|
|
2015 |
1.4 million. |
15.0 million. |
10% |
|
|
2016 |
1.0 million. |
16.1 million. |
7% |
|
|
2017 |
700,000 |
16.8 million. |
4% |
|
|
2022 |
328,000 |
19.2 million. |
1.7% |
|
|
2032 |
82,000 |
20.6 million. |
0.4% |
Bitcoin inflation is indeed moving towards 0% but at an ever-decreasing pace, just as the maximum supply of bitcoins of 21 million will slowly come into view in the future.
