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CH01::Mining: clarify that 99% of all bitcoins will be mined within a decade

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Previous text mentioned all bitcoins would be mined by 2140, which is
correct but easily confuses people who don't understand exponential
decay into thinking a substantial number of bitcoins will continue to be
mined for a century.
This commit is contained in:
David A. Harding 2023-02-03 07:33:31 -10:00
parent b2626aeb39
commit f8a2340cb2
2 changed files with 12 additions and 7 deletions
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FIXME.md Normal file
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// FIXME
- [ ] s/mnemonic/seed/

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ch01.asciidoc
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@ -45,18 +45,21 @@ and clearing functions of a central bank and replaces the need for any
central bank.
The Bitcoin protocol includes built-in algorithms that regulate the
mining function across the network. The difficulty of the processing
mining function across the network. The difficulty of the mathematical
task that miners must perform is adjusted dynamically so that, on
average, someone succeeds every 10 minutes regardless of how many miners
(and how much processing) are competing at any moment. The protocol also
halves the rate at which new bitcoin is created every 4 years, and
halves the rate at which new bitcoin is created approximately every 4 years, and
limits the total number of bitcoin that will be created to a fixed total
just below 21 million coins. The result is that the number of bitcoin in
circulation closely follows an easily predictable curve that approaches
21 million by the year 2140. Due to bitcoin's diminishing rate of
issuance, over the long term, the Bitcoin currency is deflationary.
Furthermore, bitcoin cannot be inflated by "printing" new money above
and beyond the expected issuance rate.
circulation closely follows an easily predictable curve where half of
the remaining coins are added to circulation every four years. By the
time this book has been published for ten years, 99% of all bitcoins
that will ever exist will have been issued. Due to bitcoin's
diminishing rate of issuance, over the long term, the Bitcoin currency
is deflationary. Furthermore, nobody can force you to accept bitcoin
that has been inflated by creating new bitcoins above and beyond the
expected issuance rate.
Behind the scenes, Bitcoin is also the name of the protocol, a peer-to-peer network, and a distributed computing innovation. Bitcoin represents the culmination of decades of research in cryptography and distributed systems and includes four key innovations brought together in a unique and powerful combination. Bitcoin consists of: