Out of the 21 million Bitcoin minimum supply, 20 million coins have now been mined. This is how long it will take the remaining tokens to circulate.
Bitcoin supply reaches 20 million milestone after 6,267 days
In a new post on X, a chain analysis company Glassnode discussed the latest milestone achieved by the Bitcoin network: now more than 20 million tokens have entered circulation. The supply of cryptocurrency increases every time miners add a new block to the chain and receive the corresponding block reward. This asset inflation is not fixed, it decreases over time as events called Halvings occur. Initially, Bitcoin started with a block subsidy of 50 BTC, but since then there have been four Halving events, reducing this metric to just 3,125 BTC.
A halving occurs approximately every four years, and the next such event is expected to occur in 2028. Thus, over time, the block reward will only decrease further, slowing down the growth rate of the asset supply. There is a limit to the reduction of the block reward, however, because the supply of the cryptocurrency itself has a limit: 21 million tokens. Once this number is reached, no more block subsidy will be given, so no more Halving events will occur.
With the Bitcoin supply now at 20 million, over 95% of all BTC that will ever be in circulation has been released. This phase was cleared on Monday as 940,000 blocks were mined. It took the network 6,267 days, or about 17 years, to reach this point. Glassnode shared a chart that compares the supply record to some of the other 20 million Bitcoin milestones in its history.
The supply milestone is the latest in a large list of records | Source: Glassnode on X
Now, the question is: when will BTC reach the final milestone of 21 million supply? Since the growth rate of BTC slows down only after Halvings occur, the remaining 1 million will take longer than any previous 1 million batches. In fact, the remaining stockpile of tokens will take several times longer to mine than all the coins available today: around 114 years. This puts the record’s likely record date in the year 2140.
The consequence of limiting the supply of Bitcoin is that miners will eventually stop receiving a portion of their earnings. These chain validators generate revenue through two streams: block subsidies and transaction fees. When Halvings occur, the former decreases over time, but it remains the main source of income for miners today.
When the entire supply of Bitcoin is exhausted, miners will have to rely solely on transaction fees to make ends meet. Currently, payments are not enough to sustain this group, but it is anyone’s guess what the picture will look like in 2140.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $70,800, up more than 5% over the past week.
Looks like the price of the coin has rebounded since its drop | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com
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