Bitcoin money supply statistics

1.

The total number of bitcoins is 21 million

in 2009, when bitcoin was born, block reward was 50 bitcoins. Ten minutes after its birth, the first 50 bitcoins were generated, and the total amount of money at this time is 50. Then bitcoin grew at a rate of about 50 every 10 minutes. When the total amount reaches 10.5 million (50% of 21 million), the block reward will be halved to 25

when the total amount reaches 15.75 million (5.25 million new output, i.e. 50% of 1050), the block reward will be further halved to 12.5. The monetary system used to have no more than 10.5 million in four years, after which the total number will be permanently limited to about 21 million

extended data

monetary characteristics

1. Decentralization: bitcoin is the first distributed virtual currency, and the whole network is composed of users without a central bank. Decentralization is the guarantee of bitcoin's security and freedom

2. Global circulation: bitcoin can be managed on any computer connected to the Internet. No matter where you are, anyone can dig, buy, sell or collect bitcoin

3. Exclusive ownership: private key is needed to control bitcoin, which can be stored in any storage medium in isolation. No one can get it except the user himself

4. Low transaction cost: bitcoin can be remitted free of charge, but a transaction fee of about 1 bitfen will be charged for each transaction to ensure faster transaction execution

5, no hidden cost: as a means of payment from a to B, bitcoin has no cumbersome limit of quota and proceres. If you know the other party's bitcoin address, you can pay

6. Cross platform mining: users can explore the computing power of different hardware on many platforms

2. In order to understand the technical principle of bitcoin, we need to understand two important cryptographic techniques: hash code: it converts a long string into a fixed length string, and its conversion is irreversible, that is, it is impossible to guess the original string from hash code. Sha256 is mainly used in bitcoin protocol
public key system: corresponds to a public key and a private key, keeps the private key in the application and publishes the public key. When Party A transmits information to Party B, it can use Party A's private key to encrypt the information, and Party B can use Party A's public key to decrypt the information, so as to ensure that the third party cannot impersonate Party A to send the information; At the same time, when Party A transmits information to Party B, it is encrypted with Party B's public key and sent to Party B, and then Party B decrypts it with his own private key, so as to ensure that the third party cannot eavesdrop on the communication between the two people. RSA is the most common public key system, but the lliptic curve digital signature algorithm is used in bitcoin protocol. What's the difference between cash and bank account? Bitcoin is an electronic currency in BTC. In this article, it is also used to refer to the whole bitcoin system. Like opening an account in a bank, the corresponding concept in bitcoin is address. Everyone can have one or more bitcoin addresses, which are used to pay and collect money. Each address is a string that starts with 1. For example, I have two bitcoin accounts, and. A bitcoin account is uniquely determined by a pair of public key and private key. To save the account, you only need to save the private key file. Unlike bank accounts, banks keep all transaction records and maintain the book balance of each account, while bitcoin's transaction records are jointly maintained by the whole P2P network through a pre agreed protocol. How much money is in my account address? Although the current account balance can be seen by bitcoin software, unlike banks, there is no place to maintain the book balance of each address. It can only calculate the account balance in real time through all historical transactions. How do I pay? When I pay from address a to address B of the other party, the payment amount is e. at this time, both parties will announce the transaction information to each network node, telling address a to pay to address B, and the payment amount is e. In order to prevent the third party from forging the transaction information, the transaction information will be encrypted with the private key of address A. at this time, the network node receiving the transaction information can use the public key of address a to verify that the transaction information is indeed sent by address a. Of course, trading software will help us do these things, we just need to input the relevant parameters in the software. What will the network node do after receiving the transaction information? This is the most important part of the bitcoin system, which needs to be elaborated. For the sake of simplicity, only bitcoin protocol has been implemented. In the current version, each network node will save all transaction information synchronously. There are two kinds of transaction information in history, one is & quot; Verified & quot; The transaction information, that is, the verified transaction information, is stored in a series of "blocks". Each & quot; block" Is the previous & quot; bock" The ID of each block is the hash code of the hash code of the block and the new transaction information (see an actual block). The other category refers to those who also & quot; Unverified & quot; The transaction information just paid above belongs to this category. When a network node receives new unverified transaction information (possibly more than one), it can calculate the book balance of each address at that time because the node keeps all the transaction information in history, so it can calculate whether the transaction information is valid, that is, whether there is enough balance in the payment account. After eliminating the invalid transaction information, it first takes out the last & quot; block" Then, the unverified transaction information is combined with the ID, and a verification code is added to form a new "block". It needs a lot of calculation to build a new block, because it needs to calculate the verification code, so that the above combination becomes a block, that is, the first several bits of the hash code of the block are 1. At present, the first 13 bits need to be 1 (generally, the specific method is uncertain), which means that if the block is generated by enumeration method, the average number of enumerations is 16 ^ 13. Using CPU resources to generate a block is called "gold mining", because the proction of the block will get a certain reward, and the reward information has been included in the block. When a network node generates a new block, it will broadcast to other network nodes. However, this network block may not be accepted by the network, because it is possible that other network nodes have proced the block earlier. Only the earliest block or the block with the largest number of subsequent blocks is valid, and the remaining blocks are no longer used as the initial blocks of the next block. How does the other party confirm that the payment is successful? When the payment information is distributed to the network node, the network node begins to calculate whether the transaction is valid (that is, whether the account balance is enough to pay), and attempts to generate blocks containing the transaction information. When six blocks (one direct block and five subsequent blocks) contain the transaction information, the transaction information is considered "verified", so that the transaction is formally confirmed, and the other party can confirm the successful payment. A possible problem is that I will pay the balance of address a to address B, and at the same time pay to address C. If I only verify that the single comparison transaction is valid. At this point, my way of cheating is to generate six blocks including B to B and six blocks including C to C before the truth is revealed. Because I need a very long CPU time to generate a block, compared with the whole network, the probability of my cheating success is very small. What is the motivation of network nodes to proce blocks? As can be seen from the above description, in order to make the transaction information effective, the network node needs to generate 1 and 5 subsequent blocks to contain the transaction information, and such block generation is very CPU intensive. How to let other network nodes help to proce blocks as soon as possible? The answer is very simple. The agreement stipulates that BTC will be rewarded for the address where the block is proced, as well as the Commission promised by both parties. At present, the reward for procing a block is 50btc, which will be halved every four years in the future. For example, the reward will be 25btc from 2013 to 2016. Is the transaction anonymous? Yes, and No. All bitcoin transactions are visible. We can check all transaction records of each account, such as mine. But what's different from the banking monetary system is that everyone's account itself is anonymous, and everyone can open many accounts. In general, anonymity is not as good as it claims. But bitcoin has another advantage in doing black market trading: it can't be frozen. Even if the police trace a bitcoin address, there is nothing they can do unless they trace the computer used by the exchange based on the Internet address. How to ensure that bitcoin does not depreciate? Generally speaking, in the case of equivalent trading activities, the value of money is inversely proportional to the amount of money issued. Unlike the traditional money market, the central bank can determine the amount of money issued. Bitcoin does not have a central issuing institution. Only by procing blocks can we get a certain amount of BTC currency. Therefore, bitcoin's new amount of money depends on: 1. The speed of procing blocks: bitcoin's agreement stipulates that the difficulty of procing blocks is fixed at an average of 2016 every two weeks, about 10 minutes. Moore's law of doubling CPU speed every 18 months will not speed up the proction of block. 2. The number of rewards for block proction: at present, 50 BTC is awarded for each block proced, which is halved every four years. In 2013, 25 BTC is awarded, and in 2017, 12.5 BTC is awarded. Considering the above two factors, bitcoin's currency issuing speed is not controlled by any single node in the network. Its protocol makes the currency stock known in advance, and the maximum stock is only 21 million BTC

3.

The number of bitcoin is too small to circulate on a large scale in society. Moreover, its existence is not guaranteed by the national credit, but based on the trust between bitcoin players, so the credit of this "currency" is relatively low

moreover, the number of bitcoin is small, and it is too concentrated in the hands of several big players, resulting in its price is very unstable. This is basically not money. Because as a general currency, an important prerequisite is price stability, otherwise the economic order will collapse

bitcoin has no value base; The price fluctuates sharply; There are three basic reasons why bitcoin can't become the world currency e to the lack of support from monetary authorities

can bitcoin become a real currency? http://www.financialnews.com.cn/yw/pl/201401/t20140107_ 47595. HTML

since the birth of the first bitcoin seven years ago, bitcoin has been developing rapidly and caused a lot of controversy. The discussion focuses on how to define bitcoin, whether it can become a currency and even become an international currency in the future

in 2013, bitcoin was very popular in China, not only the price soared, but also was evaluated as "a big challenge to the current monetary system" by some analysts. In early December 2013, the people's Bank of China, together with five ministries and commissions, issued the notice on preventing bitcoin risks, pointing out that bitcoin is a specific virtual commodity, not a real currency. Then, bitcoin prices fell

at the beginning of the new year, on January 4, the National Bank of Malaysia announced on its website that it would not recognize bitcoin as a legal currency, and urged the public to be vigilant against its risks. In fact, since the second half of 2013, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Norway and other countries have successively made their stand against bitcoin trading activities, and they do not recognize bitcoin as a currency in the market

At the same time, it is reported that in January this year, the world's first bitcoin atmrobocoin entered the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. Companies also plan to launch bitcoin ATMs in more parts of Europe, Canada and the United States

on the one hand, the relevant regulatory authorities have "made their stand clear"; on the other hand, the global layout of bitcoin has been advancing rapidly. How to determine the nature of bitcoin and its future development momentum have once again attracted the attention of all parties

Sheng Songcheng, director general of the survey and Statistics Department of the people's Bank of China, published an article entitled "virtual currency is not money in essence -- take bitcoin as an example" in his own name, emphasizing that virtual currency represented by bitcoin is not money in essence and it is difficult to become money

he believes that bitcoin lacks national credit support and is difficult to perform the function of commodity exchange medium as the base currency. Modern credit currency (paper money) represents national credit, and actually represents the proction and transaction of commodities in the whole society. As long as the national machine works normally, the coercive force of national laws can give the public trust in the standard currency. Bitcoin has no value itself, no national credit support, and no guarantee of the whole society's commodity proction and trade, so it does not have the value basis of money. In addition, bitcoin has no legal compensation and compulsion, and its circulation range is limited and unstable. Bitcoin has strong substitutability, so it is difficult to be a general equivalent

Secondly, the number and scale of bitcoin have set an upper limit, which is difficult to meet the needs of modern economic development. He believes that there is a contradiction between the limited quantity of bitcoin and the expanding social proction and commodity circulation. If bitcoin becomes the standard currency, it will inevitably lead to deflation and inhibit economic development. The limitation of quantity also makes bitcoin's function as a means of circulation and payment greatly reced, which makes it easier to become a speculative object rather than a medium of exchange

Thirdly, bitcoin lacks a central regulation mechanism, which is not compatible with the modern credit currency system. Sheng Songcheng believes that bitcoin does not have a centralized issuer, so it is easy to be over hyped, resulting in excessive price fluctuations, and can not become a pricing currency and circulation means, so it needs to be converted into bitcoin to pay; Bitcoin is also not controlled by the monetary authorities, so it is difficult to play the role of economic adjustment means

at the end of the article, Sheng Songcheng also made it clear that money is inseparable from economic operation and economic development, and is not a pure proct of technology. As long as there is no fundamental change in the form of modern economic and social organizations, the monetary system based on national credit will exist, and bitcoin and other virtual currencies will not become the standard currency of a country, and thus not the real currency, "but the Utopia of technology supremacy and absolute liberalism"

As for the prosperity and significance of bitcoin, Sheng Songcheng explained, "the emergence of bitcoin reflects people's worries about inflation under the condition of credit currency in a sense. Central banks should strengthen liquidity management, reasonably regulate money supply, keep prices basically stable, and promote stable economic and social development. "

ring the writing period, our reporter contacted Sheng Songcheng again on issues related to bitcoin. He stressed again in the interview: "bitcoin is not the real currency, the real currency can only be the standard currency."

Sheng Songcheng said, "from the perspective of the history of monetary theory, bitcoin is not new. Its essence is the privatization of currency issuance or the non nationalization of currency. Hayek, a famous Austrian economist and Nobel laureate, put forward a proposal many years ago, and Friedman, a famous American economist, also made a similar proposal. However, their opinions are only a theoretical analysis tool, which is difficult to operate in real economic life, and the modern economy is increasingly inseparable from the country's macro-control. This financial crisis and its response is a good proof. Money is one of the main means of national macro-control and the basis of modern state and government. How can it be privatized? So I use the word "Utopia."“ In my opinion, technology can not replace the national attribute. Any digital currency can only be the realization form of standard currency. Therefore, electronic money will develop, and virtual money is utopia. " Sheng Songcheng said, "as long as there is a modern state, virtual currency will not be a currency. Many people ignore the national and social attributes behind money and think that money is just a natural entity. "

as for the future development prospects of bitcoin, a commercial bank analyst interviewed said: "bitcoin trading, as a commodity trading behavior on the Internet, ordinary people have the freedom to participate in it at their own risk, and there is still a lot of room for development in this aspect. At present, in view of the fact that bitcoin has not had any impact on the monetary policy of central banks, and from the perspective of issuing technology, it seems to have enlightenment, so many central banks hold a wait-and-see attitude towards it. "

but as for whether bitcoin can play the role of currency in the future, or even international currency, the analyst said that it is "not optimistic". He said, "even if some countries want to use bitcoin as the world settlement currency, but it is in private hands, and the price fluctuates violently, can it become an international currency? Moreover, the important premise for it to become an international currency is that the authorities of all countries recognize its monetary nature, which itself is a difficult problem. "

Sheng Songcheng also said, "bitcoin does not have a value base; The price fluctuates sharply; There are three basic reasons why bitcoin can't become a world currency without the support of national monetary authorities. "