17 Millionth Bitcoin Officially Mined

Bitcoin can notch another milestone to its belt.

The 17 millionth bitcoin was officially mined on Thursday (April 26), according to data from Bitcoinblockhalf.com, representing nearly 81 percent of all bitcoins that will ever exist.

At the time of this writing, a total of 17,000,550 bitcoins had been mined since the first one came into existence back on January 3, 2009. That leaves just under 4 million left to mine.

Data from Bitcoinblockhalf.com shows that 1,800 bitcoins are mined per day. With such a small amount of bitcoins left to mine, relatively speaking, this landmark for the crypto space is hardly trivial.

“[With] only 4 million coins left to be mined, and with [over] 100 years to do it, I think it’s pretty significant,” David Mondrus, CEO of Trive, told the Investing News Network in a telephone interview.

The last time bitcoin mining reached a pivotal breakthrough was in November 2016, when the amount of bitcoins mined into existence crossed the 16-million threshold. The last bitcoin isn’t expected to be mined until 2140 thanks to the “halving” system that bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto invented back in 2009.

Bitcoin “halving” occurs every time a new block is added to a bitcoin network. From there, the newly mined bitcoins are rewarded to whichever miner “discovered” the block; the reward was initially set at 50 bitcoins, according to a bitcoin white paper written by Nakamoto.

The bitcoin reward dropped to 25 bitcoins in 2012, and then decreased to 12.5 coins in 2016. The next halving is projected to occur on May 29, 2020, when the reward will be halved from 12.5 to 6.25 coins.

“Slowly we’ll get to the point where [bitcoin miners] will receive less than one bitcoin per block for mining,” Mondrus explained.

Bitcoin’s had a rough go so far in 2018, dropping nearly 35 percent since early this year and more than double since its high of $19,200 at the end of December. Bitcoin reached over a one-month high on Tuesday (April 24), when it clocked in at $9,745.02.

However, Mondrus said this particular milestone won’t have much of an effect on bitcoin’s price — for better or for worse. He believes that the next halving will have more of an impact.

“Them, the miners, will receive a lot less for their activity in terms of reward, and that will push the price up,” he explained.

Bitcoin was trading at $8,895.69 as of 4:09 p.m. EST on Thursday, dipping 1.63 percent over 24 hours.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Jocelyn Aspa, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article. 

Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.