Bitcoin: When Will All 21 Million Be Mined, and What Happens When the Remaining Supply Is Exhausted?

While nearly 20 of 21 million bitcoins were mined within the first 14 years of Bitcoin's existence, the last remaining fractions of Bitcoin will be exhausted only in 2140.

Nearly 20 million of the total 21 million bitcoins were mined within the first 14 years of Bitcoin’s existence. However, the last remaining fractions of Bitcoin will be mined only in 2140.

The reason is that the Bitcoin emission is set to drop by 50% roughly once every four years every time another 210,000 blocks are mined. The drop in BTC emissions is referred to as “halving.”

As of December 2024, each mined block unlocks 3.25 BTC as a mining reward. In 2140, this amount will drop below the smallest fraction of Bitcoin, known as Satoshi, a one-millionth particle of Bitcoin. As Satoshi is set to be a minimal fraction of Bitcoin, the 2140 halving will effectively stop the emission of bitcoins. 

Mining is at the heart of the Bitcoin network’s validity and safety, while mining rewards are the prime incentive for miners to continue their troublesome operations. Happily, when the emission of new bitcoins stops, miners will still receive rewards. Instead of getting freshly minted coins, they will receive portions of the transaction fees charged from the senders. It’s worth saying that fees paid by senders for transaction prioritization already make up a substantial portion of miner rewards.

Why does the Bitcoin scarcity matter?

While inflation is not inherently bad, as it drives the economy when healthy, Bitcoin is usually celebrated as a deflationary asset. While the government can print more dollars, thus decreasing the value of dollars you already hold, Bitcoin is coded in a way that its supply is immutable and limited to 21 million units. 

As the overall amount of bitcoins will only go down with time as more and more units will ‘stuck’ in the shut wallets forever, it is believed that the value of each unit will only keep on rising.

The stock-to-flow model proponents claim that scarcity drives value. However, it’s understood that scarcity is far from being the only or the main value driver. Can you draw a single unit of your own currency and expect it to be the most valued one due to extreme scarcity? Probably not. Given that Bitcoin is already enjoying a high value, its scarcity forces buyers to bid for each unit more. That’s the way halvings drive the BTC price up all the time.

Is it possible to remove the supply cap?

A three-minute educational video on Bitcoin, released by BlackRock in December 2024, stirred an online discussion over the possibility and implications of the supply hard cap removal.

The removal is not impossible, as the Bitcoin network’s structure has already been edited on various occasions through hard forking. So, if the community working on the Bitcoin improvements votes for making Bitcoin inflationary and makes necessary changes to the Bitcoin architecture–voilà–someday we can see inflationary Bitcoin.

The opponents of this move claim such changes would have turned Bitcoin into something completely different. More than that, they remind us that those who don’t want Bitcoin without a fixed supply can still use the classic version of Satoshi Nakamoto’s brainchild.