Track Bitcoin's journey to 21 million. Live supply data, scarcity metrics, and the countdown to the final satoshi.
It took ~18 years to mine 0.00% of all Bitcoin. The remaining 100.00% will take ~114 more years due to halvings.
0.00 BTC
0.00%
21,000,000.00 BTC
100.00%
2.3M – 3.7M BTC
14.29% (midpoint)
-3,000,000.00 BTC
Mined minus estimated lost (midpoint)
~450.0 BTC/day
144 blocks/day × 3.125 BTC/block
164,250.0 BTC
Inflation rate: 0.00%
3.125 BTC
Post-2024 halving
Only ~5% remains, but it takes ~114 years.
Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21,000,000 coins \u2014 written into the code, enforced by every node on the network. Of those, 0 BTC (0.00%) have already been mined since January 2009. That leaves just 21,000,000 BTC still to be created.
But not all mined coins are available. Researchers estimate that 2.3 to 3.7 million BTC are permanently lost \u2014 sent to wrong addresses, locked in wallets whose keys were forgotten, or held by Satoshi Nakamoto (who has never moved their estimated ~1.1 million coins). Using the midpoint estimate of 3,000,000 lost BTC, the effective circulating supply is closer to -3,000,000 BTC \u2014 and shrinking relative to demand.
Sources: Blockchain.info (total mined), Chainalysis & Glassnode (lost coin estimates). Supply data refreshes every 60 seconds.
Bitcoin is capped at 21,000,000.
“In every other industry, if the price of a product goes up, the producers make more of it to capture profit. In Bitcoin, if the price goes up, the network simply makes it harder to produce. This makes Bitcoin the only asset in human history where the supply is completely decoupled from the effort used to find it.”
This is the core insight. Gold miners dig faster when gold prices rise. Oil companies drill more when oil prices rise. Bitcoin doesn't work that way. No amount of mining power can speed up the supply schedule.
In gold mining, if the price doubles, miners can dig faster and pull more out of the ground. If oil prices spike, companies drill more wells. Every commodity works like this \u2014 except Bitcoin.
The Self-Adjusting Sudoku
Imagine a global Sudoku competition where 100 people are playing. Every time someone solves a puzzle, they get a prize. If 1,000 more people join with faster brains (better hardware), you'd expect puzzles to be solved every few seconds.
But Bitcoin has a twist: every two weeks, an invisible “Game Master” checks how fast the puzzles were solved. If they were solved too fast, the puzzles get exponentially harder. If people leave, they get easier.
No matter how much computing power joins the network, new blocks \u2014 and new Bitcoin \u2014 enter the world at a fixed speed: one block every ~10 minutes.
The Digital Clock Tower
Think of miners not as “creators” of money, but as the gears of a clock tower. Every 10 minutes, the bell rings \u2014 a new block is produced. You can't make the bell ring faster by adding more gears. The supply of time is fixed.
The Numbers Behind the Clock
Bitcoin's protocol targets exactly 600 seconds (10 minutes) per block. Since January 3, 2009, the network has produced over 880,000 blocks \u2014 and the historical average block time across all of them is 9.9 minutes. The clock has never missed a beat.
The network's computing power (hashrate) has grown from roughly 7 MH/s in 2009 \u2014 a single laptop \u2014 to over 800 EH/s today. That's a 100-trillion-fold increase in raw power. Yet blocks still arrive every ~10 minutes, because the difficulty adjustment absorbs every surge.
Stress Test: The China Ban
In June 2021, China banned Bitcoin mining overnight. Roughly 50% of global hashrate vanished in a matter of weeks \u2014 the largest sudden drop in the network's history.
What happened? Blocks slowed temporarily to ~14 minutes. Then the difficulty adjustment kicked in: difficulty dropped 28% in a single recalibration \u2014 the largest downward adjustment ever recorded. Within one adjustment cycle (~14 days), block times returned to ~10 minutes. The clock tower kept ringing.
The Difficulty Adjustment recalibrates every 2,016 blocks (~2 weeks) to keep the block interval at ~10 minutes. It has self-corrected through mining booms, busts, hardware revolutions, and nation-state bans without a single manual intervention since 2009.
The Sinking Island
Imagine an island where people mine for fresh water. Every four years, the pipes magically shrink by 50%, letting only half as much water through.
Even if the population doubles and everyone buys better pumps, the pipes stay small. The water just gets more valuable because less of it arrives each day.
Bitcoin is the first “inelastic” commodity. For gold, if the price doubles, miners dig more. For Bitcoin, if the price doubles, the supply stays exactly the same.
The halving cuts the block reward in half approximately every 4 years. Here's what that looks like:
| Year | Block Reward | Daily Issuance | Era |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 50 BTC | 7,200 BTC | Genesis |
| 2012 | 25 BTC | 3,600 BTC | 1st halving |
| 2016 | 12.5 BTC | 1,800 BTC | 2nd halving |
| 2020 | 6.25 BTC | 900 BTC | 3rd halving |
| 2024 | 3.125 BTC | 450 BTC | Current era |
| 2028 | 1.5625 BTC | 225 BTC | Next |
Annual Inflation Rate Comparison
~0.84%
Bitcoin (2024+)
~1.5\u20132%
Gold
~6\u20137%
USD (M2 avg)
Bitcoin is now “harder” money than gold \u2014 it has a lower inflation rate than the world's oldest store of value. (As of post-2024 halving. Gold supply growth per World Gold Council; USD M2 historical average per Federal Reserve data.)
Some people say Bitcoin is “backed by nothing.” That's not quite right. Bitcoin is backed by the cost of the energy required to create it.
The Energy Floor
Research from Cane Island Alternative Advisors and Glassnode suggests that Bitcoin's price often tracks its production cost \u2014 the electricity and hardware needed to mine a single coin.
When the price drops below the cost to mine it, inefficient miners shut down. This creates a natural “floor” under the price. Mining is expensive on purpose \u2014 that expense is what gives Bitcoin its unforgeable costliness.
The cost of mining acts as a price floor. Miners won't sell below their production cost for long. When they capitulate (shut down), hashrate drops, difficulty adjusts down, and balance is restored.
Stock-to-Flow: Measuring Scarcity
Stock-to-Flow (S2F) measures how much of an asset currently exists (Stock) divided by how much is produced annually (Flow). A high S2F means the asset is hard to inflate \u2014 it's genuinely scarce.
After the 2024 halving, Bitcoin's S2F ratio doubled again. Bitcoin now has a higher Stock-to-Flow ratio than gold, making it the scarcest liquid asset on Earth by this measure.
Every halving doubles Bitcoin's Stock-to-Flow ratio, making it progressively harder to dilute. By 2028, the annual new supply drops to just 225 BTC per day.
What Mining Cost Captures
Difficulty Adjustment
The network's thermostat. Every 2,016 blocks (~2 weeks), Bitcoin recalibrates puzzle difficulty to keep blocks arriving every ~10 minutes \u2014 no matter how many miners join or leave.
Hashrate
The total computing muscle of the network, measured in hashes per second. Higher hashrate means more security \u2014 it becomes exponentially more expensive to attack the network.
Block Subsidy
The newly created BTC in each block \u2014 currently 3.125 BTC. This is the primary reward miners receive and the mechanism through which new Bitcoin enters circulation.
Transaction Fees
The other part of mining revenue. Users pay fees to have their transactions included in blocks. As block subsidies shrink toward zero, fees will become the primary incentive for miners to secure the network.
Hash Ribbons
A market indicator that tracks when miners are “capitulating” \u2014 shutting down because mining isn't profitable. Historically, miner capitulation has signaled price bottoms and buying opportunities.
Stock-to-Flow (S2F)
A scarcity metric: existing supply (stock) divided by annual production (flow). Higher S2F means harder to inflate. After the 2024 halving, Bitcoin's S2F surpassed gold's.