Bitcoin's mined supply has passed 20 million coins, putting more than 95% of its fixed 21 million supply into circulation. The milestone coin arrived near block height 940,000, mined by Foundry USA. The remaining under 1 million coins won't finish mining until around 2140.
Bitcoin's total mined supply has crossed 20 million coins, pushing more than 95% of its fixed 21 million supply into circulation. Foundry USA mined the milestone coin near block height 940,000 on approximately March 9, arriving roughly 17 years and 6,267 days after Satoshi Nakamoto produced the genesis block in January 2009.
Engineered scarcity, on schedule
The protocol caps total issuance at 21 million coins and cuts mining rewards roughly every four years. Following the April 2024 halving, the current issuance rate sits at approximately 450 BTC per day. As a result, it took less than two decades to produce 95% of all Bitcoin, but the final 5% will take until approximately 2140 to fully mine.
Miners face a shrinking reward
Miners currently earn revenue from block rewards and transaction fees, and block rewards still dominate that mix. However, with each successive halving, the balance shifts, and miners will increasingly depend on fees to cover the energy and hardware costs of securing the network.
If fees don't scale up as rewards decline, some operations could turn unprofitable, which could reduce hashrate and raise questions about network security. The next halving isn't expected until 2028, so block rewards should stay meaningful for several more cycles.
A shrinking, and partly lost, supply
Bitcoin's fixed supply has long been its core pitch to investors who view it as a digital alternative to gold. Gold miners can open new mines when prices rise, and oil producers can drill more wells, but Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment means miners can't produce a single extra coin beyond the protocol's schedule.
On top of that, a significant portion of the 20 million mined coins is estimated to be permanently lost in wallets whose keys have been forgotten, destroyed, or buried on hard drives in landfills. The actual circulating supply available for trading is therefore lower than the headline number suggests.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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