Calculating Ethereum Coin Supply: A Step-by-Step Guide

As part of our ongoing project, we’re eager to optimize and improve our database schema to accommodate additional data. Today, we’ll tackle a crucial aspect of our system: calculating the coin supply for each block height based on all transactions. In this article, we’ll explore how to achieve this goal using Python and MongoDB.

Understanding Coin Supply

Before diving into the solution, let’s briefly revisit what Ethereum coin supply is. The total number of coins in circulation, also known as the “block reward,” has decreased over time due to a halving event every 4 years. We’ll focus on calculating the remaining block rewards, which can be retrieved from the blockchain.

Data Collection and Preprocessing

To calculate coin supply at each block height, we need to:

• Retrieve all transaction data from the Ethereum blockchain.

• Extract relevant information (block number, transaction hash, etc.) for each transaction.

• Calculate the remaining block reward (i.e., coins left after a halving event).

We’ll leverage MongoDB’s aggregation framework to perform these tasks efficiently.

Python Code

import pymongo











Connect to our MongoDB database

client = pymongo.MongoClient("mongodb://localhost:27017/")

db = client["blockchain"]

collection = db["transactions"]



Define the query parameters

halving_interval = 4  24  60 * 60  
in seconds

min_block_height = 0


def calculate_coin_supply(block_number):

    
Filter transactions by block number and extract relevant information

    result = collection.find({

        "blockNumber": {

            "$gte": min_block_height,

            "$lt": (block_number + halving_interval).toInt()  
Calculate the next block height

        }

    })


    
Initialize remaining coins for each block

    block_rewards = {}


    
Loop through transactions and update coin supply

    for transaction in result:

        hash = transaction["transactionHash"]

        reward = calculate_reward(hash)


        
Update or add to block rewards dictionary

        if block_number not in block_rewards:

            block_rewards[block_number] = 0

        block_rewards[block_number] += reward


    return block_rewards


def calculate_reward(transaction_hash):

    
Implement logic to retrieve the current coin supply (block reward) for each transaction hash

    
For demonstration purposes, assume a predefined value

    return 1000000000  
Replace with actual retrieval logic



Example usage

min_block_height = 0

block_rewards = calculate_coin_supply(min_block_height)


print("Remaining block rewards:")

for block_number, coins in sorted(block_rewards.items()):

    print(f"Block {block_number}: {coins} coins")

Explanation

This Python code snippet demonstrates the calculation of coin supply at each block height from all transactions using MongoDB’s aggregation framework. We define two functions: calculate_coin_supply and calculate_reward.

The calculate_coin_supply function iterates through all transactions within a specified range, extracts relevant information (block number), and updates or adds to a dictionary (block_rewards) with the remaining coins for each block.

The calculate_reward function is left unimplemented for demonstration purposes. You’ll need to replace this logic with your actual retrieval mechanism to obtain the current coin supply (block reward) for each transaction hash.

Conclusion

By following this article, you’ve gained a deeper understanding of how to calculate Ethereum coin supply at each block height from all transactions using MongoDB’s aggregation framework. This efficient solution should be easily scalable and suitable for your project requirements. Happy coding!