The 17 Millionth Bitcoin Is About to Be Mined: What It Means and Why It Matters

Barring an unforeseen event, the 17 millionth bitcoin is likely to be mined in the coming day, data from Blockchain.

That's because as per bitcoin's current rules, only 21 million bitcoin can ever be created.

Of note is that it can't be precisely predicted when the 17 millionth bitcoin will be mined or who will mine it, due to the many minute variances that are created in keeping a common software in sync.

Each bitcoin block produces 12.5 new bitcoin, and as bitcoin blocks occur roughly every 10 minutes, about 1,800 new bitcoin are created each day.

Unless all of the humans who operate the computers running the bitcoin software decide to make a change, there's really no way to ever introduce more new bitcoin.

When a miner finds a valid hash for recent transactions, solving the bitcoin protocol's puzzle, he or she is rewarded with a "Coinbase transaction," bitcoin credited to her account.

Assuming the bitcoin protocol remains the same, the last new bitcoin will not be mined until May 2140.

Jameson Lopp, lead infrastructure engineer at wallet provider Casa, was quick to remind CoinDesk that bitcoins are divisible, and that as such, the smallest parts of each bitcoin can hold seemingly infinite value.

"While 17 million BTC may sound like a lot, it's incredibly scarce - there won't even be enough for every current millionaire to own a whole bitcoin. Thankfully, each bitcoin is divisible into 100 million satoshis, thus there will always be plenty to go around!".

Further, to be clear, bitcoin does not stop running when 21 million bitcoin are produced.