written by George Danayan, December 13th 2021

90% of all Bitcoins that will ever exist, have now been mined.

As of 6:04 PM UTC, December 13th 2021, block 714,000 on the blockchain was mined. While this may seem like an arbitrary number, the block reward that was included in that block pushed the number of Bitcoin in circulation over an impressive milestone. Of the 21 million Bitcoin that will ever exist, only 2.1 million have yet to be mined.

This supply schedule has been laid out since the beginning of Bitcoin over 12 years ago. Since then, 90% of all Bitcoins have been mined. The remaining 10% however, won’t come as quickly. Estimates put the last Bitcoin being mined at sometime around the year 2140. While these numbers may seem arbitrary, the supply of Bitcoin is predetermined by mathematics. It is a predictable and transparent phenomenon, which is why estimates as far out as the year 2140 are even possible in the first place.

New Bitcoin are brought into the world approximately every 10 minutes by miners, when a block is found. Currently, this equates to 6.25 Bitcoins per 10 minutes, or roughly 900 new Bitcoin per day. Every four years this figure is cut in half, making the supply of incoming Bitcoin deflationary. It only took 3 years and 10 months for the previous 2.1 million Bitcoin to be mined, compared to almost 120 years for the next 2.1 million Bitcoin.

Lost, Forgotten, and a gift to the rest of us.

While 18.9 million Bitcoin currently exist now, that isn’t to say all of them are still in circulation. Estimates put conservatively 3-4 million Bitcoin are inaccessible due to owners forgetting their seed phrases, losing their hard drives, or even sadly passing away without having a contingency plan in place for their heirs. A large portion of these lost Bitcoins were lost before Bitcoin had any tangible value, as many people didn’t care to keep track of or properly store thousands of Bitcoins when they were worth pennies. These lost figures are just estimates though, as it’s impossible to tell if Bitcoin is lost, or dormant.

Lost Bitcoins are a gift to the rest of us with access to our BTC, as it means the total supply shrinks and your Bitcoin is now a greater percentage of the supply that exists!

What happens after all 21M have been mined?

Right now, miners are incentivized through the block rewards given to them when they find a block. As of today, those 6.25 Bitcoins created for each block are worth $380,000 CAD. By the year 2040, instead of 6.25 BTC, miners will be rewarded around 0.195 BTC. The diminishing amount of Bitcoins given as a reward creates a supply shock and has historically made the price increase as Bitcoins become harder to attain.

By 2140, there will no longer be a block reward and no new Bitcoins will be created. However miners and the network will not need to worry, as block rewards are not the sole income source that is used as an incentive for miners. At some point in the future, the revenue that miners receive from transaction fees will outpace the revenue they receive from the Block reward, this inflection point will bring stability to Bitcoin long after new Bitcoins cease to be created.

For now, we must take advantage of being as early as we are and stack Bitcoin before the rest of the world clues into the true scarcity of this once-in-a-lifetime asset.