The Bitcoin network has reached a major milestone where 95% of the total BTC supply has already been mined as of Monday.
The feat means 19.95 million Bitcoins — of a maximum of 21 million — are now on the open market, according to data from blockchain tracker BiTBo.
Estimated Time To Mine The Remaining Bitcoins
Reaching the milestone took roughly 16 years since the first Bitcoins were mined on Jan. 9, 2009. However, the remaining 2.05 million supply is not expected to be mined until 2140, based on network activity estimates and Bitcoin’s halving schedules— roughly 115 years from now.
Bitcoin halving events are programmed to occur quadrennially, or approximately every 210,000 blocks. Once halving occurs, miners are awarded 50% fewer Bitcoins as a subsidy for processing transactions and validating blocks. But they continue to earn additional transaction fee rewards for each block mined as usual.
Miners currently receive 3.125 Bitcoin for each block they mine, following the reward’s reduction from 6.25 BTC after the fourth and most recent halving on May 11, 2024. This means that, on average, these miners now mint approximately 450 BTC in total daily compared to the previous 900 BTC.
It has long been estimated that by limiting the entrance of new supply, each coin’s value should increase as demand for new coins heats up while supply shrinks.
Notably, not all of 21 million BTC is expected to be available on the open market, as a substantial portion is gone forever. Analysts estimate up to 20% of all mined BTC are lost due to misplaced private keys, discarded hard drives, or forgotten passwords. A further 1.1 million Bitcoins are still held by Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, untouched because the mysterious person or persons mined the haul in the network’s early days. That suggests the practical supply available for use and trading is lower, making Bitcoin even scarcer than the raw numbers suggest.
The pioneering crypto traded hands for less than $0.10 when 10% of the supply was mined back in early 2010, and was worth around $7.50 when 50% of the supply was mined in December 2012. As of publication time, BTC trades at around $92,387, having declined 26.5% from its peak of $126,080 set earlier in October, according to data from CoinGecko.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/bitcoin-touches-new-milestone-with-95-of-total-supply-now-mined-heres-what-that-means/
