The 18 millionth Bitcoin (BTC) is expected to be mined this Friday, American investor and co-founder of investment firm Morgan Creek Digital Assets Anthony Pompliano tweeted on Oct. 15.
Only three million BTC left
Pompliano also noted that, at this point, there are only three million BTC left to be mined. The tweet asked to raise awareness about the world’s most well-known cryptocurrency:
“This Friday the 18 millionth Bitcoin will be mined. There are only #3MillionLeft. Let’s make this hashtag trend so the world can learn about Bitcoin.”
This initiative is not surprising from Pompliano, given that he said on CNBC’s Squawk Box that over half of his net worth is in Bitcoin in August. What he hints at is that so far 17,997,150 BTC have been mined — according to Bitcoin data website BitcoinBlockHalf — and the upper limit for how many BTCs there will ever be hardcoded in the system is 21 million.
Bitcoin’s block rewards will decrease
As the number of coins left to be earned by securing Bitcoin’s blockchain continues to decrease, BTC’s halving also approaches. The event will see the amount of Bitcoin created with each new block cut in half.
BitcoinBlockHalf estimates that on 14 May 2020 — the date is tentative, given the irregularity of Bitcoin’s block time — the block reward will be cut from 12.5 to 6.25 coins. The website also points out that 85.7% of all coins have already been mined.
As the number of coins that still have to be mined decreases, the competition to get hold of them seemingly increases. As Cointelegraph reported in late September, Bitcoin’s network hash rate has passed a record 102 quintillion hashes for the first time in the coin’s history.
