Honestly, it's too complicated... but the bitcoin protocol, the bitcoin software, and the bitcoin network will award the 12.5₿ to the miner that broadcasts the "solution". It happens approximately every 10 minutes. Then, additionally, there are transaction fees collected from all the people who "sent/transferred" bitcoin to other bitcoin addresses. "Every ten minutes or so mining computers collect a few hundred pending bitcoin transactions (a “block”) and turn them into a mathematical puzzle. The first miner to find the solution announces it to others on the network. The other miners then check whether the sender of the funds has the right to spend the money, and whether the solution to the puzzle is correct. If enough of them grant their approval, the block is cryptographically added to the ledger and the miners move on to the next set of transactions (hence the term “blockchain”)." http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/01/economist-explains-11 Satoshi's wallet has about a million bitcoin worth $1.25B but no one can transfer those coins for selling. A bitcoin wallet contains the private keys for the bitcoin public addresses that "contain" bitcoin as recorded on the blockchain (the database entries of all bitcoin since the very beginning called the genesis block). Approximately every 10 minutes, a new entry is added to the blockchain, but it's dependendent on the previous entry, which is dependent on the previous entry, etc... No miner can solve a block in the future (whether an hour from now or a day from now) as the blockchain builds up to that time. No one, miner or any entity can change the blockchain entries of the past and give himself a million bitcoin as the blockchain is distributed worldwide and verified by every single bitcoin node. I have a node that is active on the network and all the entries on my node's blockchain match someone else's node in Australia. Bitcoin value may crash within the next 7 days, as the fate of the ETF application (symbol COIN) is decided and it's probably going to get rejected. It will be interesting if it gets approved, but the probability is supposed to be low. March 11 is the deadline? Traders may be putting all kinds of complex positions on bitcoin exchanges now. Bitcoin can be shorted on some exchanges.
There is nothing complicated about my postulate. There is a finite amount of bitcoins in the universe, by virtue of how they were conceived. There will be a time when they are all "discovered". What will happen to their value at that time?
I don't know what answer you want for something that's going to happen in the future. You want me to say value will go up? Ok, you got it. You want me to say value will go down? Yes, you got it. Bitcoin is deflationary. Many "coins" have been lost due to the private keys that were lost destroyed. You can google hard drives that were destroyed accidentally that contain bitcoin wallets, or someone who dies without being able to give the private keys to someone else. Later when all the bitcoin has been mined, the miners will get paid strictly by transaction fees? High enough to entice them or will they stop mining? depends on the value of each bitcoin or how high the bitcoin fees are at the time... Again, I don't know the future so whatever you want, you got it.
Bitcoin has value for people who want to buy stuff with it. Try buying with gold -- it is not as easy.
Everytime you use your credit card, someone makes 2%...even if you don't pay for it, it is factored into the product price. Bitcoin has a lower fee -- that is the value in Bitcoin.
From what I have read about the bitcoin protocol, it is a fixed number of units based upon a mathematical theorem. Once the theorem has been run dry and all coins are found, there can be no more discovered. My thought was that can destroyed coins be recovered or "found again" in that block-chain thing?
Estimates of to 90% of bitcoin trading goes down in China. Seems to me China could shut the whole thing down as they are being hard core on their currency leaving the country. I wouldn't trust it as investment. Good rule of thumb to only invest in things you understand. And I sure as hell don't understand the regulatory inner workings of communist central banks. I have trouble with trucking stocks. That's just me though.
But from what I understand, the whole point of a crypto-currency is that is has no centralized banking. It is a free-floating currency with no ties to any government. The fact that most of its trading might happen in China is maybe because those are the folks who have embraced it, and based their virtual exchanges in China, where all the mining farms are located?