The 20,000,000th Bitcoin Has Been Mined!

Bitcoin has reached one of the most significant milestones in its history today – the Bitcoin network has mined the 20,000,000th Bitcoin. This historic moment occurred on March 9, 2025, in the afternoon.

In practice, this means that more than 95% of all bitcoins that will ever exist are now already in circulation. The total maximum supply of Bitcoin is permanently set at 21 million BTC, which is a rule encoded directly in the protocol by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

The Last Million Will Be Mined for More Than 100 Years

Although it may seem that the last million bitcoins will be mined quickly, the opposite is true. Due to the halving mechanism, which reduces the reward for miners by half approximately every four years, the rate of new BTC issuance continues to slow down.

When the network launched in 2009, miners received 50 BTC for every mined block. After the first halving in 2012, the reward decreased to 25 BTC, in 2016 to 12.5 BTC, in 2020 to 6.25 BTC, and after the halving in 2024 miners now receive 3.125 BTC per block.

This mechanism ensures that new bitcoins are added to circulation more and more slowly. While the first 10 million BTC were mined in roughly four years and the 19 million BTC milestone was reached in 2022, mining the last million will take significantly longer.

It is estimated that the last million BTC will be mined over more than 100 years, and the final satoshis (the smallest units of Bitcoin) will be mined around the year 2140. At that point, miners will no longer receive new bitcoins as a block reward – their primary source of income will be transaction fees for processing transactions on the network.

How Bitcoin Supply Grew Over Time

Bitcoin was created in 2009, when the first block – the so-called genesis block – was mined. At that time, the reward for mining a block was as high as 50 BTC (approximately €2.9 million at today’s prices), while blocks in the Bitcoin network are mined on average once every ten minutes.

Some interesting milestones in the history of Bitcoin issuance:

• 2009 – the first Bitcoin was mined after the network launch
• 2013 – approximately 10 million BTC in circulation, representing half of today’s supply
• 2017 – 16.7 million BTC mined, meaning more than 80% of the total supply in circulation
• 2024 – the fourth halving reduced the reward to 3.125 BTC per block
• 2026 – the 20 millionth Bitcoin was mined

Interestingly, most bitcoins were created during the early years of the network’s operation. Today, new bitcoins are entering circulation much more slowly, which increases their scarcity over time.

Bitcoin’s Transparency Is One of Its Greatest Strengths

This mathematically predictable and limited supply is one of the reasons why Bitcoin is often referred to as digital gold – unlike traditional currencies, no one can decide to simply “print” new bitcoins into circulation. At the same time, the entire issuance process is fully transparent, as all new bitcoins are created through mining and their issuance can be tracked in real time directly on the public blockchain. Anyone can therefore verify how many bitcoins have already been mined and at what rate new ones are being added.

The milestone of 20 million BTC therefore symbolically confirms one of Bitcoin’s most important characteristics – its absolute scarcity.

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