<p>What I would like to find out is whether for a specific time in the past, we can know the number of BTC that exist today and were bought at this time. The discrete time can be the time of block generation, i.e. roughly every ten minutes, but also for instance daily time. </p>

<p>What I understand is that on the Blockchain, we do not really keep track of the amount of BTC held by a specific address / account, but rather of the full history of transactions of this account. The sum of the unspent inputs of a specific address, which are basically routed output payments of other addresses, is the number of BTC that this address "holds", or is able to spend. </p>

<h3>NEW</h3>

<p>This part wasnt displayed in the beginning, due to some formatting error.</p>

<p>Now comes the actual, more refined question.
In order to construct the number of BTC that were bought at t[smaller than]T, where T is now, is there a way other than looking at the complete history of transactions on the BTC blockchain, in order to find this number? Sort of a shortcut? </p>

<h3>NEW END</h3>

<p>Thanks, best, JC</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-14T10:59:50.643Z
I think you're asking if there is a way to figure out the difference between the current UTXO set and a UTXO set from some point in the past, but it would be helpful if you finished/clarified your question and defined t and T.
Matthew Cruz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-14T11:57:20.447Z
By "bought at this time" do you mean purchased from an exchange or directly from a private individual. Does "bought" exclude Bitcoin obtained by selling goods or services for BTC? Or do you mean all transaction outputs other than mining rewards and transaction fees?
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-14T23:35:18.733Z
Your understanding of how the network keeps track of coins is slightly incorrect: there is no concept of addresses with balances, only UTXOs. Addresses with balances is just a nice human-readable abstraction.
chytrik
<transactions><blockchain><utxo>
Is there a way to know at any point in time T how many BTC exist that were bought at time t<T?
user101893
# Is there a way to know at any point in time T how many BTC exist that were bought at time t<T?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-01-14)

What I would like to find out is whether for a specific time in the past, we can know the number of BTC that exist today and were bought at this time. The discrete time can be the time of block generation, i.e. roughly every ten minutes, but also for instance daily time.

What I understand is that on the Blockchain, we do not really keep track of the amount of BTC held by a specific address / account, but rather of the full history of transactions of this account. The sum of the unspent inputs of a specific address, which are basically routed output payments of other addresses, is the number of BTC that this address "holds", or is able to spend.

### NEW

This part wasnt displayed in the beginning, due to some formatting error.

Now comes the actual, more refined question.
In order to construct the number of BTC that were bought at t[smaller than]T, where T is now, is there a way other than looking at the complete history of transactions on the BTC blockchain, in order to find this number? Sort of a shortcut?

### NEW END

Thanks, best, JC

**Tags:** transactions, blockchain, utxo

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I think you're asking if there is a way to figure out the difference between the current UTXO set and a UTXO set from some point in the past, but it would be helpful if you finished/clarified your question and defined t and T.  
> **username_2**: By "bought at this time" do you mean purchased from an exchange or directly from a private individual. Does "bought" exclude Bitcoin obtained by selling goods or services for BTC? Or do you mean all transaction outputs other than mining rewards and transaction fees?  
> **username_3**: Your understanding of how the network keeps track of coins is slightly incorrect: there is no concept of addresses with balances, only UTXOs. Addresses with balances is just a nice human-readable abstraction.  

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## 0 answers

