Tanahub.com — Bitcoin has evolved from an experiment into the most influential financial phenomenon in the world. Since the first block, or Genesis Block, was mined, a total of 873,304 blocks have been produced, with an average block time of 11.8 minutes.
Currently, the average block time is faster, at approximately 9.6 minutes, thanks to a significant increase in hashrate.
During the same period, the difficulty level — an indicator of the computational power required to mine a single block on the Bitcoin network — has experienced extraordinary growth.
As of now, after 418 adjustments, the difficulty level has surged to 446,331,432,498,125,300,000,000.
This increase reflects significant growth in network security and computational power supporting Bitcoin.
Under Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, difficulty adjustments are designed to keep block mining times close to 10 minutes, even amid changes in network hashrate. These adjustments occur every 2,016 blocks (approximately every two weeks), with an ideal block time target of 600 seconds.
As the network has developed, Bitcoin’s hashrate has skyrocketed from 128,185 hashes per second to over 804,407,834,059,443,100,000 hashes per second as Bitcoin reached the $100,000 price point.
Cumulatively, miners have calculated approximately 5.01 x 10²⁸ hashes to date. Interestingly, 37% of this total was generated during 2024.
As of early December, Bitcoin miners have earned cumulative revenues of $71.49 billion. This revenue includes $67.31 billion from block subsidies or new coin creation and $4.18 billion from transaction fees paid by users. These figures are calculated based on Bitcoin’s price at the time the blocks were mined.
To date, the Bitcoin network has processed cumulative transaction volume of $131.25 trillion, measured in dollar value at the time of transaction confirmation. However, after adjustments for specific entities, filtered transfer volume stands at $11.63 trillion, representing just 8.86% of total transaction volume.
This data indicates that the majority of high-volume transactions recorded are economic in nature, involving smaller, more frequent transactions in daily activities.
Bitcoin’s Status: From Genesis Block to $100,000 per BTC
Bitcoin has become one of the most fascinating assets in the world. Initially valued at just a few cents, Bitcoin has now reached the $100,000 milestone.
Analytics platform Glassnode, in its weekly report titled A Monumental Milestone released on December 11, revealed that during this period, Bitcoin recorded 72 months of positive performance, with an average significant gain of 37.4%. Additionally, there were 71 months of negative performance, with an average decline of -14.2%.
By December 5, 2024, a total of 19,791,952 BTC had been mined, which accounts for approximately 94.2% of Bitcoin’s maximum supply, capped at 21 million coins.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization has also exceeded $2 trillion, surpassing silver’s market capitalization of approximately $1.84 trillion.
During market expansion periods, Bitcoin investors have recorded total profits of $1.27 trillion, despite also incurring losses of -$592 billion. This data is based on the difference between acquisition prices and release prices on the network.
This accumulation has resulted in a net cumulative capital inflow (Realized Cap) of $750 billion. This figure demonstrates the substantial value of investments that have flowed into the Bitcoin network over its history.
Entities holding large amounts of Bitcoin, such as exchanges, ETFs, and governments, are considered to create a balance between individual ownership and large aggregations, contributing to market liquidity and stability.
As of December 5, all crypto exchanges collectively held 1.8 million BTC, or 9.1% of the total supply. Meanwhile, 1.1 million BTC, or 5.6% of the total supply, was managed by US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Additionally, Bitcoin miners (excluding Patoshi) maintained balances of 700,000 BTC or 3.5% of the supply. The US Treasury held 187,000 BTC, or 0.9% of the supply.
Below is the distribution of Bitcoin based on wallet balance sizes:
- <0.001 BTC: 5,491 BTC (0.027%)
- 0.001–0.01 BTC: 42,683 BTC (0.216%)
- 0.01–0.1 BTC: 271,641 BTC (1.373%)
- 0.1–1 BTC: 1,077,839 BTC (5.446%)
- 1–10 BTC: 2,093,845 BTC (10.581%)
- 10–100 BTC: 4,306,780 BTC (21.761%)
- 100–1,000 BTC: 4,342,868 BTC (21.935%)
- 1,000–10,000 BTC: 4,693,216 BTC (23.716%)
- 10,000–100,000 BTC: 2,309,654 BTC (11.671%)
- >100,000 BTC: 647,934 BTC (3.274%)
The majority of large wallets (1,000 BTC or more) are owned by major entities such as crypto exchanges, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and large institutions, including MicroStrategy.
