How many bitcoins are left to mine?
About 0.91 million BTC, as of block 969,939. That’s small next to the 20.09 million already out, and it comes out slowly. Every 210,000 blocks the reward per block halves, so each four-year stretch adds half as much as the one before.
21 million bitcoin, one dot per 210,000
Half of all bitcoin was mined in the first four years. More than 95% exists now, and 99% will by about 2035. The last 1% then takes more than a century. The halving guide has the full schedule era by era.
How many bitcoins are there right now?
20.094M
BTC issued so far
from the live height
95.68%
of 21 million
3.125
BTC added per block
until the 2028 halving
≈ 450
new BTC a day
at 144 blocks a day
That’s everything the schedule has paid out, including coins nobody can spend. It’s easy to count because it follows from one number, the block height. Every block pays its miner a fixed subsidy in a special first transaction, the coinbase, and nothing else creates bitcoin:
When will the last bitcoin be mined?
Around 2140. The subsidy halves 33 times in all. After that it rounds down to zero satoshis, so block 6,929,999 is the last one that creates any bitcoin. At 10 minutes a block that lands around January 2140. Drag through the years:
How much is left to mine on 1 January…
2030
Left to mine
514,965.63
Share of 21M left
2.5%
New BTC per block
1.5625
New BTC per day
≈ 225
Estimated at 10 minutes a block from today’s height. “Left to mine” counts to 21 million, so it never quite reaches zero: the last 0.0231 BTC is never issued.
The date is soft. So far blocks have come a little faster than every 10 minutes, because hashrate kept growing between difficulty adjustments. If that continues, the last satoshi arrives a few years earlier. The block number doesn’t move.
Why is the total just under 21 million?
Definition · Bitcoin max supply
The most bitcoin that will ever exist: 20,999,999.9769 BTC, usually rounded to 21 million. It follows from the block subsidy rule, which every node enforces, not from a stored limit.
The famous 21 million is where the schedule would end if it paid out exactly forever. In the code it can’t. Rewards are whole numbers of satoshis, the smallest unit, so every halving that leaves an odd number rounds down, and the total lands a hair under 21 million. A few quirks shave off more:
The headline cap
50 BTC a block, halving every 210,000 blocks, summed to infinity
21,000,000
Rounding to whole satoshis
each subsidy rounds down, and it hits zero after 33 halvings
− 0.0231
The most that will ever be issued
the schedule’s real total
20,999,999.9769
The genesis block’s 50 BTC
its transaction isn’t in the spendable set
− 50
Two duplicate coinbases in 2010
overwritten by later blocks, fixed by BIP 30
− 100
Burned and lost coins
sent to unspendable scripts or lost keys
− unknown
What can ever be spent
under 20,999,850
The Bitcoin Wiki documents each of these. None of them changes how many new coins miners get; they only lower what can ever move.
How many bitcoins are lost?
Nobody can know for sure, because a coin that hasn’t moved in ten years looks the same whether its owner lost the keys or is just patient. The best-known estimates come from blockchain analytics firms:
Estimates of lost or long-dormant bitcoin
Dormant coins do wake up. The same report notes billions of dollars of bitcoin thought lost moved again in the late-2020 bull run. So take any single number as a rough range: somewhere around 3 to 3.7 million BTC, or 14% to 18% of the cap, may never be spent again.
What happens after the last bitcoin is mined?
Mining doesn’t stop. Miners are paid the block reward: the subsidy plus the fees of every transaction in the block. When the subsidy is gone, fees are the whole reward. Today they’re usually a thin slice on top:
What miners got in the last 12 blocks
fees were 0.3% of it
The whitepaper planned for this: once a set number of coins is out, “the incentive can transition entirely to transaction fees.” Whether fees alone will pay for as much mining as today is an open question, and it’s one that changes a little at every halving. Fee levels move a lot from day to day; the mempool guide shows why.
What does a shrinking supply mean for mining rewards?
Each halving cuts the new bitcoin per block in half, so the same machine mines about half as much the next day, unless the network shrinks. Mining apps feel it too: CloudMineCrypto’s estimates use the block reward, so they drop at a halving as well. The ways to earn stay the same. You mine for free with the free plan, ads, games, offers and the daily check-in, with no hardware or power bill, and withdraw to your own wallet, Lightning included.
Frequently asked questions
How many bitcoins are left to mine?
About 0.91 million BTC, as of block 969,939. That’s 4.32% of the 21 million cap, and it will take until around 2140 to mine, because the reward per block keeps halving.
How many bitcoins are there?
About 20.094 million BTC have been created so far (95.68% of 21 million). Fewer can be spent: the genesis block’s 50 BTC never could, and millions are thought to be lost.
What is Bitcoin’s max supply?
21 million is the headline. The exact most that will ever be issued is 20,999,999.9769 BTC, because each block’s subsidy is rounded down to a whole satoshi.
When will the last bitcoin be mined?
Around 2140, at block 6,929,999, the last block that pays any subsidy. That date assumes 10-minute blocks, so it will drift.
How many bitcoins are lost?
Nobody knows exactly. Chainalysis counted about 3.7 million BTC untouched for five years or more in 2020, and Glassnode estimated about 3 million lost for good. Some long-dormant coins do move again, so treat both as rough estimates.
What happens when all bitcoins are mined?
Miners keep working, paid by transaction fees alone. The subsidy shrinks toward zero long before then, so fees make up a bigger share of the reward with every halving.
Can the 21 million limit be changed?
Every node checks the rule and rejects a block that creates more bitcoin than it allows. Changing it would need the people running nodes to switch to software with a different rule, which is why the cap is treated as fixed.
How many bitcoins are mined per day?
About 450 BTC: roughly 144 blocks a day at 3.125 BTC each. It halves at the next halving, in 2028.
Sources and further reading
- Controlled supply: the schedule, the 20,999,999.9769 total and spendable supply · Bitcoin Wiki
- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (the whitepaper) · Satoshi Nakamoto, 2008
- Block chain guide: coinbase transactions and the block subsidy · Bitcoin developer documentation
- Genesis block: the unspendable first 50 BTC · Bitcoin Wiki
- BIP 30: duplicate transactions · Bitcoin Improvement Proposals
- Lost bitcoin: 3.7 million bitcoin are probably gone forever (Chainalysis and Glassnode estimates) · Decrypt, January 2021
- Recent blocks, rewards and fees · mempool.space
Live figures on this page come from the CloudMineCrypto API or from the public blockchain data services named next to them, refresh on a schedule, and are labelled where they appear. This guide is educational and not financial advice. CloudMineCrypto is not an investment product; rewards in the app are estimates and aren’t guaranteed.
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