The total supply of bitcoin is limited to a final cap of 21 million. This is determined by bitcoin's source code which was programmed by its creator(s), Satoshi Nakamoto, and cannot be changed. Once all bitcoin is mined, the amount of coins in circulation will remain fixed at that level permanently. So, What happens when all bitcoin has been mined?
What happens when all bitcoin has been mined?
The biggest effect of approaching and eventually reaching the supply cap for bitcoin will be that mining will become much less profitable. But it will take more than a century for the process to be completed.
At that moment, bitcoin miners will still be rewarded, but only from transaction fees rather than from newly minted coins.
Since the cryptocurrency was introduced in 2009, about 19 million, or 90%, of bitcoin, have already been created through mining. Nevertheless, according to current predictions, the last bitcoin will probably not be minted until sometime around 2140.
It is planned for the mining of new bitcoin to slow down over time. The reward for mining each bitcoin block– done every 10 minutes – halves every 210,000 blocks. That's roughly once every four years. As of 2022, the reward per block had diminished from its initial reward of 50 BTC per block in 2009 to just 6.25 bitcoin.
At first, mining was rather fast; according to research firm Messari, half of the 21 million possible bitcoin had already been mined by late 2012. The supply rate decreased significantly in 2021, and less than 500,000 BTC were mined throughout the year.
If demand for bitcoin keeps increasing, it is likely that the price would rise when the supply is reached. This is due to the fact that anyone looking to buy bitcoin will have to do it from another individual, giving sellers control over the currency's price.
Fewer than 21million BTC will be in circulation
Much fewer than 21 million bitcoins will be in active circulation even when they have all been mined. Data analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that roughly a fifth of all coins mined to date are lost. That means those bitcoin are stuck in wallets with lost keys, which could be due to lost passwords, the physical loss of hard drives where those keys were stored or even stuck in wallets belonging to deceased owners who never passed on the passwords necessary to access them.
