Please can someone ELI5…
If there is a finite amount of them, why are they still being mined? I thought mined was them being created as such, which you could do yourself if you had the technology/know how, but if there’s a limit, why is this still happening?
Bitcoin isn’t actually created through mining. When you mine, you hand over quite a lot of GPU/CPU power in your computer to the decentralised network to help compute each and every transaction which forms the blockchain. In return for contributing your processing to help keep the blockchain correct & stable, you are given a small amount of existing Bitcoin (aka, you receive a little payment)
I believe there are 21 million Bitcoin and I think somewhere between 18 and 19 million are in circulation so far.
Staggering. At today’s current price of £45,300 per Bitcoin, that’s £104,190,000,000 potentially up for grabs by mining or other non-circulation sources. No wonder the Chinese are going for it 
Thanks guys.
So when that 21m limit is reach, the power will still be needed to keep everything ticking over?
That’s right. In fact, when people buy/sell Bitcoin and when Bitcoin starts to be used as an actual currency more, those extra transactions will need even more processing power to maintain the blockchain. Then the questions will really start!
The rate of mining reduces over time. Apparently it’ll take another 120 odd years for it all to be mined.
No idea how people will be incentivised to do the maintenance post this point.
Feels more like if then when to me. Right now you’d be crazy to pay for anything with Bitcoin.
Would anyone contribute their electricity and computing cycles to maintain the VISA or Mastercard network? Probably not.
Is that because the math equation or whatever it is gets more and more complex?
Therefore is it physically possible to mine it all or will it be too much for the average computer. Thus requiring a supercomputer?
Pretty much yeah it gets more complex from what I remember. Any old miner can still do the calculations just means as it gets more complex it slows down somewhat.
The amount of calculations needed to validate the blockchain increases exponentially with the growing number of global transactions.
A victim of success at some point.
Until then tho…
Surely it will also get to a point where it costs more in equipment and electricity (overheads) than the value of what would be mined too.
China are massively getting into it, can’t see them dropping out of mining one bit too be fair.
I’ve been mining for a while. Made nothing financially. But learned a lot about blockchain principles, which is where we’re all heading, like it or not.
Bitcoin miners might as well just play idle clickers. At least then they’d only be wasting their own time 
Which is fine on a small scale, it was more following the statement about China going to the extreme.
If you want a proper time-wasting but insanely engaging experience, try running a paperclip manufacturing company. You’re welcome.
Admittedly not Bitcoin, but bitcoin-adjacent (and not worth spinning off a new topic for, I thought)
It’s probably long past time that somone writes a Silicon Snake Oil Redux.
