How much is the remaining bitcoin for me?
The total bitcoin show is coded at 21 million BTC, which is the fixed upper limit that cannot be changed unchanged in the consensus consensus on the protocol. This limited cover is imposed at the protocol level, which is essential to providing the value of the Bitcoin as the origin of the shrinkage.
As of 2025, about 19.6 million Bitcoin (BTC) was extracted, or about 93.3 % of the total offer. This leaves approximately 1.4 million BTC that has not yet been created, and these remaining currencies will be extracted very slowly.
The reason for this unequal distribution is the schedule of the edition of the Bitcoin Si, ruled by an event called half. When Bitcoin was launched in 2009, the bonus was 50 BTC. Every 210,000 pieces – or almost every four years – this reward is cut in half.
Since the early rewards were very large, more than 87 % of the total offer was extracted by the end of 2020. Each subsequent half reduces the new version rate, which means that it will take more than a century for the remaining 6.7 %.
According to current estimates, 99 % of all Bitcoin will be extracted by 2035, but the final fracture – another Satoshis – will not be produced even about 2140 due to the nature of reducing engineering reward.
This engineering scarcity, along with an unchangeable supply cover, is what attracts comparisons between bitcoin and physical goods such as gold. But Bitcoin is more predictable: gold supplies Grow At about 1.7 % annually, while the Bitcoin version rate decreases transparently.
Do you know? Bitcoin supply curve is not a traditional sense. It follows a close path – a kind of Zeno’s economic paradox – where the rewards diminish indefinitely, but never reach scratch. Mining will continue until about 2140, at this point, more than 99.999 % of a total of 21 million BTC will be released.
Beyond the supply cover: How to make the missing coins of bitcoin are rare than you think
While more than 93 % of the total Bitcoin supplies have been extracted, this does not mean that everything is available. A permanent important part outside the blood circulation, due to the forgotten passwords or the non -places, or the destruction of the first or the first adopted drives who did not touch their coins again.
Estimates from companies such as Chainalysis and Glassnode Suggest Between 3.0 million and 3.8 million BTC-approximately 14 % -18 % of the total offer-he went forever. This includes high -level sleeping addresses such as addresses that are believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto, which alone carries more than 1.1 million BTC.
This means that the real circulating of Bitcoin may be closer to 16 million to 17 million, not 21 million. Because Bitcoin is not necessary by design, any lost metal currencies that are lost-permanently reduces the width over time.
Now compare it with gold. About 85 % of the world’s total gold supplies have been extracted – almost 216,265 metric tons, according to the World Gold Council – but almost all of the remaining trading or held in cellar, jewelry, traded investment funds and central banks. Gold can be reused and reused. Bitcoin cannot be revived as soon as the arrival is lost.
This discrimination gives Bitcoin a kind of scarcity of stiffness, which is a supply that does not stop only growing over time but is quietly shrinking.
With Bitcoin maturity, it enters a gold -like cash phase: low version, high factor concentration and increased sensitivity to demand. But Bitcoin takes it further. The maximum supply is difficult, the permanent loss rate, and its distribution is vulnerable to publicly.
This may lead to several results:
- Increased price fluctuations because the supply is available more limited and sensitive to demand in the market
- A long -term value concentration is higher in the hands of those who remain active and safe in their main management
- In addition to liquidity, the BTC is actually traded with an effective value of the sleeping supply.
In extreme cases, this can result in a branching between “BTC Trading” and “BTC inaccurate”, as the first acquires greater economic importance, especially in restricted exchange times for exchange or total economic stress.
What happens when bitcoin is completely extracted?
There is a common assumption that with Bitcoin’s bonuses shrinking, the network safety will eventually suffer. But in practice, the mining economy is more adaptable – much more flexible.
Bitcoin mining incentives control self -correctional feedback: If mining becomes unintended, mining workers go down from the network, which in turn leads to difficulty. Every 2,016 blocks (approximately every two weeks), the network re -calibrates the difficulty of mining using a teacher known as Nbss. The goal is to maintain the stability of the mass times in about 10 minutes, regardless of the number of mines.
Therefore, if the price of bitcoin decreases, or the reward becomes very small for operating costs, the ineffective miners simply exit. This causes difficulty, which reduces the cost of those who remain. The result is a system that constantly re -balances, and aligning the network sharing with the incentives available.
This mechanism has already been tested widely. After China banned mining in the middle of 2021, the Bitcoin International Division decreased by more than 50 % within weeks. However, the network continued to work without interruption, and within a few months, retail was completely recovered, as miners resumed operations in the judicial states with the low energy costs and the most favorable regulations.
It is very important that the idea that low rewards will threaten their nature to ignore the security of the network how mining is related to the profit margins, not the nominal BTC amounts. As long as the market price supports the cost of retail-even at 0.78125 BTC per block (beyond 2028 to half), miners will continue to secure the network.
In other words, it is not the absolute reward that concerns, but whether mining remains profitable for costs. Thanks to adjusting the built -in bitcoin difficulty, it is usually.
Even after a century from now, when the mass bonus is approaching zero, the network is likely to remain protected by any mixture of basic graphics, incentives and infrastructure efficiency at that time. But this is a distant concern. Meanwhile, the current system remains – retail modification, difficulty balance, and adaptive phrase – one of the most powerful elements in bitcoin design.
Do you know? On April 20, 2024, after the release of the Ronnia Protocol, miners obtained miners on more than 80 million dollars of transactions in one day, exceeding $ 26 million gained from the bonus bonuses. This was the first time in the history of Bitcoin that the transaction fees alone exceeded the support of the bloc in the revenue of the daily mines.
Bitcoin mining future: energy consumption
It is a common belief that high bitcoin prices will increase energy use. In fact, mining is restricted to profitability, not the price alone.
As the bonus bonuses shrink, miners are pushed towards thinner margins, which means chasing the cheapest clean energy available. Since the ban on mining in China in 2021, halls have moved to regions such as North America and northern Europe, where operators have benefited from the surplus of water energy, wind and the unbroken network.
According to the Cambridge Alternative Finance Center, between 52 % and 59 % of Bitcoin mining now Run On renewable energy sources or low emissions sources.
The regulations reinforce this trend, as many judicial states provide incentives for pure mining or punish fossil fuels.
Moreover, the idea that the high BTC prices will always mean the use of high energy missing the bitcoin organizing themselves: more miners raise difficulty, which presses margins, which leads to energy expanding.
It brings the based mining based on its challenges, but the future of expanding the scope of the retailer that fossils fed indefinitely.
