Total circulating Bitcoin (BTC) hit a significant milestone on Monday morning, one and a half years after the last Bitcoin halving, as 90% of the maximum total supply has been mined.
Current data from Blockchain.com shows Bitcoin in circulation hit 18.899 million as of Monday, meaning only 10% of the total supply is left to mine. While the first 90% of BTC took about 12 years to mine, the rest will take a little longer.
Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins set by its anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. This limitation is written in Bitcoin’s source code and enforced by network nodes. The hard cap on Bitcoin is critical to its value proposition as a currency and an investment tool.
As detailed by Cointelegraph, it will take 119 years from now to complete the Bitcoin mining process due to the rate of producing new Bitcoin being cut by half every four years in a pre-determined protocol execution, also known as the Bitcoin halving.
Since the Bitcoin blockchain only creates new BTC as a reward for miners verifying new blocks, the halving ensures less Bitcoin is produced as the total circulating supply increases. Since May 2020, miners have earned 6.25 Bitcoin for every new block verified. This rate will decrease to 3.125 BTC per block in the next halving in 2024.
By 2040, the block reward will have reduced to less than 0.2 BTC and only 80,000 Bitcoin out of 21 million will be left up for grabs. The last Bitcoin will take close to 40 years to mine.
Bitcoin’s price started the week with a fresh rejection of $50,000 as the end-of-year close is fast approaching. It is almost 30% down from its all-time high of $68,789 reached on Nov. 10 at the time of publishing.
Turner Wright
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis will be partnering with Robinhood to provide data and tools for trading in advance of the app launching its crypto wallet.
In a Monday announcement, Chainalysis said the integrated partnership with Robinhood Crypto will help the trading app meet compliance requirements ahead of the launch of its crypto wallet, expected to roll out for all users in early 2022. According to Robinhood, the platform will adopt Chainalysis’ Know Your Transaction, the firm’s monitoring compliance solution, in addition to Chainalysis Reactor, its investigations software. The trading app also said its teams would be using Chainalysis’ certification programs to achieve compliance.
“Chainalysis works closely with regulators and law enforcement to develop industry best practices and that approach is aligned with Robinhood’s commitment to working with policymakers in a collaborative manner,” said Robinhood Crypto head of partnerships Ben Einstein.
According to Robinhood, more than 1.6 million people are on the waitlist for a wallet, which will support depositing and withdrawing Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE) and other tokens. The trading app has been testing its digital wallet feature since it was first announced in September.
Many government agencies and companies in the private sector employ Chainalysis as a solution to track both legitimate and illicit crypto transactions. When the United States Department of the Treasury announced it would impose sanctions on the Czech and Russia-based business Suex OTC, it cited an investigation from the analytics firm.
Arijit Sarkar
Crypto exchange Binance has withdrawn its application with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for a digital payment token services license.
On Monday, Binance.sg stopped onboarding new users and will not allow Singaporeans to deposit cryptocurrencies or fiat on the exchange.
By Feb. 13, 2022, Binance plans to “wind down” all services that relate to dealing with cryptocurrency tokens. However, the exchange announced it would accept no responsibility for the users’ assets after the self-determined deadline:
“With immediate effect, users must start to make plans to withdraw their crypto and fiat from Binance.sg. Accounts of registered users who have not passed KYC will be suspended.”
Binance Singapore users are currently allowed to buy and sell crypto, using their existing assets until Jan. 12, 2022. Starting Jan. 13, Binance.sg users will be barred from buying and selling crypto. During this phase:
“Users can only withdraw and move their crypto to third-party platforms or crypto wallets; and/or withdraw their SGD. All accounts must be closed by 13 February 2022.”
Binance plans to make further arrangements to release users’ assets upon an official request to the company’s customer service.
Following the final date, Binance will not allow any Singapore users to close positions or withdraw crypto assets. “The locked crypto assets will be held in an escrow account and your fiat assets will be transferred to your StraitsX Personal Account,” the announcement read.
This Daily Dose was brought to you by Cointelegraph.
