15 Important Numbers in Bitcoin

• 210,000: the number of blocks between each halving (where the block reward given to miners is cut by 50%)
• 21m: the total number of bitcoins which can be mined
• 4m — 7m: the number of bitcoins expected to be out of circulation due to their associated private keys being lost, forgotten or inaccessible
• 26–35: The number of characters in a bitcoin address. These addresses either start with a ‘1’ or a ‘3’, where a ‘3’ denoted that it is a pay-to-script-hash (Read more about redeem scripts in my previous bitcoin transaction explainer: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-bitcoin-transactions-tara-annison/)
• 1MB: the maximum size of a block of transactions
• 12: the number of words in the mnemonic representing a private key. These words are generated after 100,000 rounds of SHA256.
• 2048: the number of potential English words which can be part of this mnemonic (Library of words: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt)
• 100: The number of confirmations required before a UTXO from a coinbase transaction can be spent
• 2³²: The number of hardened and non-hardened child keys which can be derived from an extended key
• 8: The number of decimal places a bitcoin can be divided into. The smallest of which is called a Satoshi.
• 2¹⁶⁰: The number of possible bitcoin addresses.
• 3: The number of times SHA256 is performed when generated the address from the public key
• 1.1158 mod 10⁷⁷: the modulus for the Kobiltz curve, which is bitcoin’s elliptical curve and used to derive the public-private key pairs.
• 105: The number of bitcoin forks — only 74 of these are considered to be ‘active’.
• 68.1154853: The total number of bitcoins within the Genesis address.

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