3 ms·

How is Bitcoin's admission exponential? Isn't it a stepped linear emission?

• tromp 6y ago
  It's inverse exponentially approaching the 21 million limit, which it can never reach [1]. [1] https://medium.com/amberdata/why-the-bitcoin-supply-will-never-reach-21-million-7263e322de1 https://medium.com/amberdata/why-the-bitcoin-supply-will-nev...
  • hanniabu 6y ago
    It's a stepped linear emission that mimics an inverse exponential emission. You can even see it in that chart if you expand it. Between the halving periods the emission is constant.
    • tromp 6y ago
      The block subsidy is constant between halvings. And is thus a step function. But "emission" refers to cumulative block subsidies. And thus is piecewise linear, with 34 pieces of exponentially decreasing slope, the last one ending up flat.
    • phyro 6y ago
      If you zoom in enough, you won't see these exponential steps. If you were able to zoom out completely, you'd see _only_ the exponential function. Bitcoin's emission is an exponential function (dropping exponentially), the fact that there is some time period between these exponential steps does not make it non-exponential. This would have been obvious if the halvings were every 30 minutes, but it's much less obvious when the "in-between step interval" is 4 years.