90% of the Total Bitcoin Supply Has Been Mined, but It Will Take More Than 100 Years to Mine the Rest

Key highlights:

• 90% of the total Bitcoin supply has now been mined
• This figure is estimated to hit 95% in 2025, and 99% in 2035
• However, it will take until around 2140 to mine the last BTC

Bitcoin hits 90% supply milestone

Bitcoin has reached an interesting milestone, with 90% of the coin’s maximum supply now being in circulation. According to a dashboard created by Clark Moody, Bitcoin is expected to hit 95% supply in December of 2025, and 99% supply in February of 2035.

Bitcoin has a maximum supply cap of 21 million coins, after which no new BTC will be produced when miners add a new block to the Bitcoin blockchain. Even though 90% of all Bitcoin have already been mined now, miners aren’t panicking quite yet - the last Bitcoin is expected to be mined in 2140.

When Will The Last Bitcoin Be Mined?

The rate at which new BTC enters circulation is cut down by 50% approximately every four years in what are known as Bitcoin halvings. The third (and most recent) Bitcoin halving happened in May last year, resulting in the block reward dropping from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. With the current block reward, around 900 new BTC coins are mined every day. The next Bitcoin halving will likely happen between March and June 2024, and will cut the reward down to 3.125 BTC.

While about 18.9 million BTC have been mined so far, the number of BTC coins that are actually in circulation is significantly lower. According to an estimate that blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis provided in 2020, about 3.7 million BTC were considered lost. Chainalysis included all BTC that haven’t moved from their current set of addresses in 5 years or more in this estimate. 

We also shouldn’t forget that almost 1.1 million BTC were mined by the pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, per an analysis by Sergio Demian Lerner.

Bitcoin has been performing poorly in the market as of late, as it has seen a price drop of about 25% in the last 30 days. BTC recorded a new all-time high at around $69,000 on November 10, but the bulls couldn’t generate any additional momentum. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is changing hands at about $47,500.