How much Bitcoin is left to mine?

Bitcoin's total supply is hardcoded at 21 million BTC, a fixed upper limit that cannot be altered without a consensus-breaking change to the protocol.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that was created in 2009 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred over a peer-to-peer network without the need for intermediaries.

Bitcoin is unique in that its total supply is limited to 21 million BTC, a fixed upper limit that cannot be altered without a consensus-breaking change to the protocol. This finite cap is enforced at the protocol level and is central to Bitcoin’s value proposition as a deflationary asset.

As of today, May 2, 2023, approximately 19.6 million BTC have been mined, or about 93.3% of the total supply. That leaves roughly 1.4 million BTC yet to be created, and those remaining coins will be mined very slowly.

The reason for this uneven distribution is Bitcoin’s exponential issuance schedule, governed by an event called the halving. When Bitcoin launched in 2009, the block reward was 50 BTC. Every 210,000 blocks — or approximately every four years — that reward is cut in half.

Because the early rewards were so large, over 87% of the total supply was mined by the end of 2020. Each subsequent halving sharply reduces the rate of new issuance, meaning it will take over a century to mine the remaining 13%.

According to current estimates, 99% of all Bitcoin will have been mined by 2035, but the final fraction — the last satoshis — won’t be produced until around the year 2140 due to the nature of geometric reward reduction.

This engineered scarcity, combined with an immutable supply cap, is what draws comparisons between Bitcoin and physical commodities like gold. But Bitcoin is even more predictable: Gold’s supply grows at around 1.7% annually, whereas Bitcoin’s issuance rate is transparently declining.

Did you know? Bitcoin’s supply curve is not terminal in the traditional sense. It follows an asymptotic trajectory — a kind of economic Zeno’s paradox — where rewards diminish indefinitely but never truly reach zero. Mining will continue until around 2140, by which point over 99.999% of the total 21 million BTC will have been issued.