One idea/meme that’s been circulating through Crypto Twitter over the past few days is that owning even Bitcoin (BTC) will become “a big deal” in the future due to Bitcoin’s fixed supply limit of 21 million coins.
One of the first crypto influencers to comment on this last week was Bitcoin advocate/pioneer Charlie Shrem, who pointed out on August 23 that due to the fact that an estimated three million bitcoins have been lost forever, there are only around 18 million bitcoins currently in circulation:
It’s insane how little #bitcoin is actually in circulation, a little under 18m coins.
Think about how few that is.
That’s not even enough for every citizen of Cairo to have just 1 bitcoin.
All you need is 1 and that will be life changing.
— Charlie Shrem (@CharlieShrem) August 23, 2019
Then, the next day, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, said that since the total number of Bitcoins that will ever get mined is 21 million and some people already have own “much more” than one bitcoin, the significance of owning even a single bitcoin would only increase in the future:
For better or worse, I do think owning one whole Bitcoin will increasingly become a big deal. Only 21M will ever be produced, and some people already own much more than one. https://t.co/7gFvMDdqG5
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) August 24, 2019
As you can see, interestingly, Armstrong’s tweet links to an article that asks if Bitcoin’s scarcity makes it — much like a limited edition Birkin bag from luxury fashion Hermès — the next “must have” item.
And then on August 25, Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”), Co-Founder and CEO of Binance, further highlighted Bitcoin’s scarcity and value when he explained that, in Bitcoin terms, even owning one bitcoin puts you in the top 0.3% percent of the world’s population:
If you own 1 $BTC, you are mathematically guaranteed to be top 3/1000 richest in the world, in BTC terms. (21m / 7B).
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) August 25, 2019
Steve Lee, the head of Square Crypto, replied to CZ by retweeting one of his tweets from 2 October 2018, when he had said that even HODLing 0.28 BTC makes you “a 1%er in a future Bitcoin world”:
Even better https://t.co/u0f5QDynLl
— Steve Lee (@moneyball) August 25, 2019