Bitcoin is fully decentralized. It only exists as a piece of data that is
copied across multiple computers around the world. This makes it very hard to hack, censor or
shutdown. Transactions are recorded in blocks. And each block contains a secure reference
to the previous block. A new block is created about every 10 minutes
to accommodate latest transactions. To create a block, miners have to find a solution
to a mathematical problem. Right now, it takes around 60 quintillion
attempts to find a suitable answer. The Miner who creates the block is given the
block reward. This is how new bitcoins are created with
each block.
The block reward started at 50 btc when bitcoin
was launched. The reward is cut in half after every 210K
blocks – this is called a halving event. There are a total of 32 halving events and
then the block reward goes to 0. No further bitcoins are created after that. Adding up all the block rewards till then
will give us around 21 million bitcoin (20999999.9769) and that’s the maximum supply. Obviously, there’s a lot more to bitcoin
but this is a gist. Checkout the 10 min extended version if you
want to learn more!.
