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I've been seeing lots of people posting about how the 20 millionth Bitcoin was mined...yesterday or earlier today or will be mined later tonight.

What's up with the confusion?

Here's what my node says about the supply:

block: 940048
supply: 19,999,923.03074584

So, supply hasn't hit 20 milly yet. But has the 20 millionth Bitcoin been mined?

Each epoch is 210,000 blocks. 1st epoch block reward was 50 btc. Halved at the next epoch to 25. Halved again to 12.5. And again to 6.25 and now is 3.125.

So:

210000 * 50 = 10.5 million
210000 * 25 = 5.25 million
210000 * 12.5 = 2.625 million
210000 * 6.25 = 1.3125 million
100,000 * 3.125 = 0.3125 million

= 20 million

So, block 940,000 should have seen the 20 millionth Bitcoin mined.

But Clark Moody's dashboard doesn't show that:

Time chain Calendarshowed supply at 20 million at block 939984, but I think this was mostly a rounding thing.

About 10 hours ago, wicked posted this on X:

So what's the deal? @lopp has some answers:

The genesis block 50 didn't get mined and 29 bitcoins that were not claimed as subsidies (though they could have been): so I think the earliest we get 20 million bitcoin isn't until block 940073?

104 sats \ 6 replies \ @d680ecaa8e 8h

Does this theory includes BTC LN network?

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146 sats \ 1 reply \ @xz 3h

If this refers to supply of Bitcoin in circulation, yes. It includes all Bitcoin in circulation (hot wallets, cold storage, exchanges, utxos that have funds locked in the LN, the Bitcoin down the back of your couch, in Michael Saylor's and Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez's underpants.

If this refers to the Bitcoin that has been mined, then layer one Bitcoin chain only.

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I think the only difference between bitcoin in supply and bitcoin that has been mined, is the bitcoin that has been provably burned (sent to addresses that can be verified as unspendable).

If Larry Fink claims to have 30 million bitcoin, it doesn't change the supply in my book. So, I think when you run gettxoutsetinfo on your node, it returns the actual circulating supply as the amount.

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23 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 2h

There's no difference. Same thing.
LN (the lightning network) is THE payment network of Bitcoin.
Only shitcoiners consider that LN is like a separate network from Bitcoin.
Read more about HTLC:

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2 sats \ 2 replies \ @Taj 2h

Homework for me ✔️

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125 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 2h

I wrote also more explanations here, (for like 5yrs old)

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104 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taj 1h

Haha 😄 🤣 ok my level then 🤣

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104 sats \ 2 replies \ @SwapMarket 2h

Mine is.

Height: 940111,
Total amount: 20000119

And was over 20m at 940048 it seems. Maybe your node has filtered out some blocks?

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65 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 1h

I would be very surprised if our nodes disagreed on this point (it would mean we were on different chains).

We can work backwards, thoigh: At a current subsidy of 3.125 btc per block, the 119 btc past 20 million would take 38 blocks. So 940111-38 blocks is the block height you got to 20 million: 940073.

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104 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 1h

You are right, my math was off.

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The genesis block 50 didn't get mined and 29 bitcoins that were not claimed as subsidies (though they could have been): so I think the earliest we get 20 million bitcoin isn't until block 940073?

If we took out 79 bitcoins, by my calculations, it was at 940025.

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33 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 1h

Perhaps that is the correct answer as to when the 20 millionth bitcoin was mined.

As far as supply goes, it is the case that by block 940048 my node still hadn't seen the supply of bitcoins reach 20 million.

The command I ran gettxoutsetinfo sums satoshis in every unspent tx output. So, it isn't really returning the total mined, so much as the total bitcoin that can be spent.

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I was just looking up what that function actually returns. If it's the total that can be spent, then we can say it's the current bitcoin supply, which is different from the total mined.

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I had never heard of unclaimed subsidies. How does that work?

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I believe that the miner is in charge of creating the coinbase transaction they include in their block template. If they find a successful block, this tx sends up to the epoch's limit of coins to the addresses they designate. But they also can send less than the full subsidy amount, effectively not claiming it all. That amount of Bitcoin just never gets mined.

I assume of was early bitcoiners who were experimenting or of was accidental.

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58 sats \ 0 replies \ @Murch 1h

Yeah, someone tried to mine a sat less than they could and forgot to collect their transaction fees on top. And there were over 1000 blocks that didn't collect the whole reward, but one miner even forgot to take the block reward at all. Pieter has a great write-up here: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/38998

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104 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 10h

good explanation, you and Lopp covered all the bases

I noticed the same thing on Clark Moody then ate a sandwich and forgot about it

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Yes, its not really a big deal one way or another. But it is fun when calling commands on your own node comes in handy for social media debates.

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104 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taj 4h

Bitcoiners really impress me with their knowledge

This catch by Lopp is a great example of why deep technical literacy matters

Running nodes, reviewing code and obsessively checking of the blocks creates high levels of passion, which leads to heated arguments where everyone is bitching at each other 🤣🤣 more so on X, here on SN is highly knowledgeable and passionate but there is an etiquette of good conduct.....most of the time!

When everyone involved cares so much about getting it right, it's only natural for ego's to get bruised and that's only right because you're making sure that the real money finds it's right course

When these bitch offs happen they generally lead to a better outcome (not always) but the community has an amazing ability to self correct itself

Like the hive mind of the borg, when everyone knows everything, the urge to be recognized individually must be too tempting to resist

Happy 20 millionth Bitcoin day, whenever it is! I guess i should go and find out now 🤦

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146 sats \ 0 replies \ @unboiled 11h
The genesis block 50 didn't get mined

Interesting quirk. Hadn't heard of that before.

While the block does have a coinbase tx, it's been hardcoded to not be included in the utxo set.

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23 sats \ 0 replies \ @Murch 59m

The Genesis block and the two duplicate coinbase outputs each lost us 50 ₿, and there were over 1000 blocks that didn't collect the whole block reward. On top of that, some bitcoins were burned in Proof of Burn schemes or OP_RETURN outputs.

We had already crossed the 20Mth bitcoin that could have been mined per the reward schedule, but the supply in circulation is lagging behind a bit.

Pieter has a great explanation here from a few years ago: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/38994

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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 8m

How much of the circulated supply is economically unspendable?

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Testing in production. What a shame. A shame for those sans subsidy but a gift to the rest of us. If anyone wants to make a similar decentralized gift, please see #4.

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I had the same doubt, thanks for the explanation.

Bitcoin supply almost at 20M #1450744

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2 sats \ 0 replies \ @NightyCrypto 12h -102 sats

⚡⚡⚡

mailto:showycabbage46@walletofsatoshi.com

2 sats \ 0 replies \ @Doung 12m -50 sats

Ah, the 20 million BTC milestone always comes with a little confusion! Between rounding differences, unclaimed genesis coins, and exact block rewards, it’s easy to see why different sources report slightly different numbers. Looks like we’re just a few blocks away from officially hitting it on-chain