No, all the bitcoins are not mined yet; new bitcoin enters circulation with each block until the fixed 21 million supply limit around the year 2140.
Are All The Bitcoins Mined? Core Facts
Many people hear that almost every bitcoin already exists and ask, are all the bitcoins mined? The direct reply is no. New coins still appear every ten minutes or so as miners add blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcoin has a hard coded supply cap of 21 million coins. As of 2025, more than nineteen million are already in circulation, which means over ninety percent of the supply exists, while a smaller slice still waits to be mined over the coming decades.
| Year Or Era | Approximate Bitcoins Mined | Share Of 21 Million Cap |
|---|---|---|
| 2009–2012 (50 BTC Reward) | About 10.5 million BTC | Around 50% |
| 2013–2016 (25 BTC Reward) | About 15.75 million BTC | Roughly 75% |
| 2017–2020 (12.5 BTC Reward) | About 18.375 million BTC | Near 88% |
| 2020–2024 (6.25 BTC Reward) | About 19.6875 million BTC | Just Under 94% |
| Since 2024 (3.125 BTC Reward) | About 20 million BTC+ | Over 95% |
| Next Halving Era (1.5625 BTC) | About 20.5 million BTC | Close To 98% |
| Around 2140 | Almost 21 million BTC | Cap Nearly Reached |
This schedule comes from the protocol rule that block rewards fall by half roughly every four years. Each halving slows new supply while nudging Bitcoin closer to the cap, so the leftover fraction shrinks while never fully reaching the exact 21 million figure.
If you want to see the live circulating total, you can check Blockchain.com’s total bitcoins chart, which updates as each new block arrives.
How Bitcoin Mining And Block Rewards Work
To answer are all the bitcoins mined in a useful way, it helps to understand how new coins appear in the first place. Bitcoin uses proof of work mining, where specialized computers compete to solve a puzzle and package recent transactions into a valid block.
The miner who finds a valid block header broadcasts it to the network. Other nodes verify the work and the transactions, then add the block to their copy of the chain. Inside that block sits a special transaction, the coinbase transaction, which grants the winning miner the current block reward plus any transaction fees.
Difficulty Adjustments And Mining Competition
Mining Is A Race
Each miner hashes candidate blocks again and again until one machine stumbles on a header that satisfies the current difficulty target. That target changes roughly every two weeks so blocks keep arriving near the ten minute goal, even if computing power joins or leaves the network.
When hash rate climbs, the protocol responds with a tougher target, so miners burn more energy to earn the same reward. When hash rate falls, difficulty moves the other way. This feedback loop helps keep block production steady while competition for new coins stays intense.
Why There Is A Fixed Supply Cap
Unlike fiat currencies that can expand at the discretion of a central bank, Bitcoin follows a fixed issuance schedule baked into its code. The original rules set the starting block reward at fifty bitcoin per block and specified that the reward halves every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years.
A well cited explanation of this schedule appears on the community maintained controlled supply wiki page, which shows how the sum of all future block rewards approaches, but does not exceed, roughly 21 million coins.
Each halving cuts new supply, so miners earn fewer new coins per block over time. This gradual reduction helps create digital scarcity and makes the question are all the bitcoins mined feel more pressing as the remaining tail of supply shrinks.
Block Rewards Versus Transaction Fees
Right now miners receive two income streams from the network. The first is the block reward, the new bitcoin created with each block. The second is transaction fees paid by users who want their transactions confirmed sooner.
As time passes and halving events continue, block rewards become smaller while the fixed cap comes into view. In the long run over many decades, once the cap is effectively hit, miners will rely mostly or entirely on transaction fees to cover their costs and keep the network running.
When Will All The Bitcoins Be Mined And What Happens Next
Bitcoin does not reach the cap in a sudden step. Instead, each halving reduces new issuance so that the leftover supply stretches out over many decades. Estimates based on today’s rules place the final fragment of block subsidy somewhere around the year 2140.
By that time nearly every bit of the 21 million supply will already exist. A tiny remainder may never be mined at all because of rounding in the code that handles tiny reward fractions.
Today, over nineteen and a half million coins have already been mined, with roughly one to two million left to arrive over the next century. Each new halving slows that pace, so the last slices of supply show up far more slowly than the early waves that miners earned in Bitcoin’s first decade.
Future Halvings And The Long Tail Of Supply
The halving that took place in April 2024 cut block rewards from 6.25 to 3.125 bitcoin, and the next halving will cut them again to 1.5625 bitcoin. Each step slices the new flow roughly in half, so fewer coins enter circulation each year.
Financial research sites and firms, such as large asset managers that track digital assets, often publish schedules that line up these halvings with projected supply totals so miners and investors can plan around the shrinking subsidy.
| Stage | Main Miner Income Source | Effect On The Network |
|---|---|---|
| Early Years | Large Block Rewards | New coins encourage miners to join and secure the chain |
| Middle Years | Mix Of Rewards And Fees | Fees grow in relevance as rewards shrink at each halving |
| Late Halving Eras | Smaller Rewards, Larger Fees | Miner income leans more on activity inside each block |
| Near 2140 | Almost Entirely Fees | Block space demand must support miner operating costs |
| After Rewards End | Only Transaction Fees | Security depends on fee market and mining efficiency |
Once block subsidies fade, miners will focus on fee revenue from users competing for limited block space. If people still value bitcoin and use the network heavily, fees can give miners enough income to continue investing in hardware and energy.
Bitcoin Supply Myths And Misunderstandings
The question are all the bitcoins mined? pops up in everyday conversation because supply feels tight and headlines talk about new all time high prices. That sense of scarcity leads to a few recurring myths that confuse mined supply with coins that are actually spendable.
Mined Coins Versus Accessible Coins
Not every mined coin remains accessible. Some early holders lost private keys or sent funds to wrong addresses, which removes those coins from circulation forever. Others hold coins in deep cold storage and rarely move them, which can look similar to loss when you check a block explorer.
Researchers and analytics firms publish estimates of lost supply, ranging from a few million coins to higher ranges, though nobody can prove an exact number. Even if the full 21 million cap is never reached, the pool of coins that actually move in the market stays smaller than the on paper supply.
For someone deciding how scarce bitcoin feels, those lost balances matter more than the theoretical ceiling written in the code. The spendable pool shrinks when people misplace keys or send funds to unusable addresses, which pushes a larger share of demand toward the coins that remain active on exchanges and payment channels.
Bitcoin Versus Bitcoin Forks And Other Coins
Newcomers sometimes stumble across assets such as Bitcoin Cash or other forks and think they add to the total count of bitcoins. In reality these are separate chains that share some early history with Bitcoin but now follow their own rules, tickers, and communities.
Only the chain widely recognised as Bitcoin, with the BTC ticker and the 21 million cap, matters for the question are all the bitcoins mined. Forked coins and copycat projects do not expand that cap, even if they use similar branding or code.
On trading platforms that list several similar names, it helps to double check the ticker, network fee, and deposit address before moving funds. That habit keeps you tied to the network you intend to use and avoids confusion when you read about metrics such as total coins mined or halving count.
What The Fixed Bitcoin Supply Means For You
For everyday users, the hard cap carries both benefits and trade offs. On one hand, a predictable supply path helps people reason about scarcity, since they know exactly how many coins will exist under the current rules.
At the same time, fixed supply can bring more price swings, because demand changes feed directly into market prices instead of being partly absorbed by new issuance. People who buy or accept bitcoin need to stay comfortable with that volatility and only commit money they can afford to see fluctuate.
Could The Bitcoin Supply Cap Ever Change?
Technically the rules that set the 21 million limit live in open source software, so developers could write new code that lifts or modifies the cap. For that change to matter though, the vast majority of miners, businesses, and users would have to adopt the new rules and treat that altered chain as the main Bitcoin network.
Many long time participants state that they would reject any update that undermines the fixed limit, since predictability is one of the core reasons they hold bitcoin in the first place. That social resistance makes a supply increase unlikely under the current culture around the project.
Planning Around A World With Nearly All Bitcoins Mined
Over the coming decades, most circulating coins already exist, and the remaining tail will arrive slowly over the next century. That means anyone who wants long term exposure to bitcoin needs to think more about how coins move between holders and exchanges, and less about fresh supply from miners.
If the network continues to attract users and developers, fees may create a healthy incentive for miners even when the cap is nearly reached. At the same time, tools such as hardware wallets, multisignature setups, and sound personal security habits help reduce accidental loss of coins so a larger share of the mined supply remains spendable.
So the direct answer to are all the bitcoins mined is still no, and that will remain true for many decades. Yet for practical day to day use, Bitcoin lives in a world where almost every coin that will ever exist has been created, and the focus now shifts toward how people store, move, and use those scarce digital units. Clear rules around supply help people plan over long horizons.