93% of all Bitcoins have already been mined – what does this mean?

How much Bitcoin is left to mine?

The total amount of Bitcoin that will ever exist is capped at 21 million BTC —a number that is forever “hammered” into the Bitcoin protocol’s very code. This fixed limit cannot be changed without radically changing the rules of the network, which is also a key element of Bitcoin’s value as a deflationary asset.

By May 2025, approximately 19.6 million Bitcoins had already been mined, or about 93.3% of the total supply. This means that there are approximately 1.4 million BTC left to mine — but these remaining Bitcoins will be extremely slow to be created.

The reason for this lies in the way Bitcoin issues new coins: through an event known as a “halving”. When Bitcoin was launched in 2009? In 2010, the reward for each new block was 50 BTC. Every 210,000 blocks (approximately every four years), this reward is halved. Since the initial rewards were extremely large, more than 87% of Bitcoin had already been mined by the end of 2020. Each subsequent halving drastically slows down the pace of new Bitcoin creation , so the remaining 6.7% will be mined over more than a century.

Estimates say that as much as 99% of all Bitcoins will be mined by 2035, while the last pieces — the last “satoshi” — will be produced until 2140, thanks to an ever-decreasing reward that never really drops to zero.

This mathematically programmed scarcity, coupled with an immutable limit on the total supply, makes Bitcoin similar to gold — but with even greater predictability. While gold stocks are growing by about 1.7% per year, Bitcoin’s issuance rate has been steadily and transparently decreasing. Interestingly, the Bitcoin issuance curve is not final in the traditional sense – rewards are increasingly decreasing in an asymptotic pattern, with network mining continuing for decades to come, until 2140.

How Lost Bitcoins Make Even More Scarcity

Although more than 93% of the total amount of Bitcoin has already been mined, this does not mean that all of these Bitcoins are actually available on the market. A significant portion of that supply is permanently lost — due to forgotten passwords, lost wallets, destroyed hard drives, or simply because early adopters left their coins intact forever.

Estimates by analytics firms like Chainalysis and Glassnode indicate that between 3.0 and 3.8 million Bitcoins — roughly 14% to 18% of the total supply — are likely lost forever . Among them are some well-known cases, such as an address believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto, which alone contains more than 1.1 million BTC.

This means that the actual amount of Bitcoin circulating in the market is probably not 21 million, but closer to 16 to 17 million — and that figure can no longer be increased. Unlike physical goods such as gold, lost Bitcoins cannot be “re-mined” or found — once the access keys are lost, these coins become inaccessible forever. This actually reduces the total supply over time.

By comparison, about 85% of the world’s gold supply has already been mined — about 216,000 tons — but almost all of that gold still exists in circulation, whether in the form of jewelry, bullion, funds, or central bank reserves. Gold can be melted down and recycled; Bitcoin, once lost, can no longer be recovered.

This difference gives Bitcoin an extra dimension of scarcity — not only does its supply stop growing, but it quietly and irreversibly decreases. As the network matures, Bitcoin is entering a gold-like monetary phase: low new emissions, concentration in ownership, and increasing demand sensitivity. But Bitcoin goes a step further: its upper limit is absolute, its loss rate is permanent, and its distribution is completely transparent and publicly verifiable.

This could have several important consequences:

Increased price volatility , as the decreasing amount of Bitcoins available amplifies the impact of market demand
Long-term concentration of value in the hands of those who know how to keep their keys and stay active
Liquidity premium, where “consumable” Bitcoins have a higher economic value than those that stand still

In extreme cases, we could witness a separation between “circulating Bitcoins” and “inaccessible Bitcoins”, with the former increasingly taking on economic importance — especially in times of limited market liquidity or global financial instability.

What happens when all Bitcoins are mined?

One of the most common questions related to Bitcoin is: what will happen when the last Bitcoin is mined? Will the network then lose security because there will no longer be rewards for miners? While this concern sounds logical, the reality is far more complex — and much more optimistic.

Bitcoin’s mining economy relies on a self-regulating incentive mechanism. If mining becomes unprofitable — either because of Bitcoin’s low price or because of high energy costs — miners leave the network. This then automatically triggers a “difficulty adjustment”, which happens every 2,016 blocks, or approximately every two weeks. The goal is to keep the average time between blocks at around 10 minutes, regardless of the number of active miners.

This self-balancing system means that the network is always adapting to market conditions. When the price drops or the rewards become smaller, the less efficient miners give up, and those who stay have lower costs and a higher share of the rewards. The system is constantly aligned with real economic conditions, ensuring long-term sustainability.

This resistance has already been tested in practice. After China banned mining in 2021, the global Bitcoin hashrate (computing power of the network) dropped by more than 50% in just a few weeks. Nevertheless, the network continued to operate without interruption, and the hashrate fully recovered within a few months — as miners moved operations to other countries with more favorable conditions.

The key is to understand that the security of the network does not depend on the absolute amount of BTC reward, but on whether mining can remain profitable. Even when the reward per block is reduced to 0.78125 BTC (after the 2028 halving) — or even less — miners will still secure the network if the market price covers their costs.

In the distant future, around 2140, when the block reward is almost completely abolished, miners are expected to earn their income exclusively from transaction fees. And the transition towards that has already begun. For example, 20. On April 2024, after the launch of the Runes protocol, miners earned over $80 million in transaction fees alone — far more than the $26 million they received on the same day from block rewards. It was the first time in Bitcoin’s history that fees exceeded the block reward.

In other words , even when the last Bitcoin is mined, the network will continue to function. Thanks to a cleverly designed weight adjustment system, a market economy , and the evolution of miners’ income by fees, Bitcoin remains one of the most resilient monetary systems ever created.

The Future of Bitcoin Mining

It is often mistakenly assumed that a rise in the price of Bitcoin will automatically lead to an infinite increase in energy consumption. In reality, mining is not driven solely by price, but by profitability — and that includes energy, equipment, and efficiency costs.

As the rewards for blocks decrease more and more, miners are forced to operate with thinning profit margins. This motivates them to look for the cheapest and cleanest sources of energy. Following China’s mining ban in 2021, much of the global hashrate has shifted to regions such as North America and Northern Europe, where miners are increasingly using surplus hydropower, wind power, and underutilized power grid capacity.

According to data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, between 52% and 59% of Bitcoin mining today relies on renewable or low-emission energy sources. This trend is further fueled by regulatory frameworks — some legislation offers incentives for renewable mining, while others increasingly penalize fossil fuel operations.

In addition, Bitcoin has a built-in self-regulation mechanism: the more miners try to enter the network, the more the difficulty of mining increases, which reduces profitability and prevents uncontrolled growth in energy consumption. Thus, even in a scenario of price increases, energy consumption will not necessarily follow the same trajectory.

Renewable mining also has its challenges — from supply instability to the need for localized infrastructure — but the scenario of an endless expansion of coal or oil mining is becoming less and less likely. Instead, the future of Bitcoin mining is likely to be marked by technological efficiency, regulatory pressures, and a growing orientation towards sustainable energy solutions.

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