The total number of Bitcoins in circulation just hit 10.5 million, triggering a safeguard against inflation that was hardcoded into the digital currency. This means a drastic change in the number of new Bitcoins being created, which is expected to have a huge impact on the economy that has been developing around the ecurrency.
The safeguard has to do with the "block reward," the number of Bitcoins that can be created at a time, which has dropped from 50 to 25. Bitcoin miners, geeks who configure their own computers to mint the cultish digital currency, have been waiting for this moment for a long time — about four years, which is how long Bitcoins have been in circulation.
The sudden scarcity of new coins is likely to drive the value...
via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/28/3701434/total-number-of-bitcoins-hits-10-5-million-production-halves-to-stop
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