Supply is capped
Emission stops for good once the reward reaches zero, at block 16,293,600. After that, miners are paid by transaction fees alone.
Roughly once a year, the payment miners receive for a block is cut in half. It is written into the protocol, nobody can change it on a whim, and everyone can verify it. Here is where the chain stands right now.
No committee decides how many coins exist. The schedule was fixed at launch, it runs on arithmetic, and any node can verify it independently.
Emission stops for good once the reward reaches zero, at block 16,293,600. After that, miners are paid by transaction fees alone.
Blocks arrive when miners find them. The countdown is projected from the measured rate, so it drifts as hashrate joins or leaves.
Changing the schedule would require every node on the network to run different rules — it cannot be done by announcement.
Half of everything that will ever exist was created in the first year, and about 99% arrives within seven.