This is partly because there are around 2 million bitcoins left to be mined, and the reason for this can be linked to the creators who specified a cap on this amount.
If you want to get into mining, which many people have written off, it can still generate some profit if you have the correct setup and join the right mining pool.
Read on to find out what this market looks like and what its future looks like.
If we use values as of late, this, converted to USD, gives you over $170 billion.
This doesn't even exist with the lost portion, as these are coins that have been dropped as dead coins.
The entities with 5 million of these coins have a share worth $110 billion, so it's not as impressive as the other group, but you can now sense that there is a market for these coins.
The big question here is why it's limited to 2 million.
That's because some interesting decimal work occurs as bit-shift operators round these down to the lowest integer.
This is due to a new coin being divided in half, then the amount of the new part is worked out.
As it uses the smallest of measurements, these can be precise, which is why this process can continue, with the block decreasing every four years or so.
That means the last bitcoin isn't likely to appear until the mid-2100s.
If we use a scenario where all the bitcoin has been generated, that doesn't mean the miner's work is done, as they can still be rewarded as transactions will be pooled into blocks.
They then receive profits from the processing fees.
If you think bitcoin is pretty impressive, other coins are more worthy of the name, and some you may be familiar with.
Circulation amounts for notable coins include:
This gives it a real-world use outside of a small group of people, which makes some people think about investing in these, but is it worth it, and what can you get from mining?
This sounds very profitable, but it does take an initial cost of around $7,000- $12,000 if you want the best mining software, hardware, adaptations, and the ability to run all this.
It also requires you to have some knowledge of how these blocks work so you can determine the transaction fees, so getting used to this ecosystem could be an issue for some.
Even though you could get started, like any coin, there comes a significant risk, as it's hard to predict if the price will fall, and if this gets too low, it will make the profits hard to justify or won't exist at all.
As to values, it is predicted it will be around the 1 million mark, though as of 2022, this value fell to $10,000, which is where the risk comes in and can wipe out other people's assets very quickly.
While some investors may be scared of regulations coming to cryptocurrency, which may go some way to reducing the volatility of these markets and could even help with things like fraud, which can be impossible to trace back on regular channels.
Before these regulations come into place, you still have this market that, while it can give you long-term growth, you have that short-term volatility to deal with.
Like with stocks, you can see that many outside factors affect the price of them significantly.
This includes supply, demand, use of the coin, media coverage, cost of production, and the market, which consists of all competing in that space.
With this space, new cryptocurrencies are launched quite often, which rely on a chain of users, so when the demand for one of these goes up, you'll see the value of another going down.
It can be worth your time to keep an eye on these markets and only work with what you can afford.
While there's a slight chance these can fall out of circulation anytime soon, that doesn't mean the price can't take a hit, as any economic event could have an impact.
One of the biggest questions you'll think about is whether it's worth it or not, and it might be worth looking into when you realize that bitcoin has high liquidity, so it works really well for those who want to make a profit quickly.
Not only this, but you get to use this currency in different ways, and it opens you up to other possibilities, as these can go from the obvious to those that may be worth your time.
