There has been enough time to mine 19 million bitcoins since the official launch of the Bitcoin blockchain on January 3, 2009. However, the remaining 2 million BTC will take about 118 years to produce. The reason for this is so-called halving, which is a reduction in the reward for miners for creating a new block, which occurs every 210,000 blocks or roughly once every four years.

Right now the figure is 6.25 BTC, and tentatively in 2024 it will drop to 3.125 BTC - and so on. Thus, the number of new bitcoins in circulation is decreasing and the cryptocurrency itself is technically becoming rarer: especially if the demand for digital assets is stable.

In 2140, new bitcoins will stop appearing, but that does not mean that the network will not work. In that case, miners will be relying solely on transaction fees. Read more about BTC mining after mining 21 million coins in a separate article.

How many bitcoins are in circulation

The 19 millionth bitcoin was mined by SBI Crypto pool in block number 730002. The pool received 6.32 BTC in fees and commissions, which is the equivalent of $293,000 at the current cryptocurrency exchange rate. Accordingly, 6.25 BTC was the reward for creating the block, while the remaining amount was received as transaction fees paid by users of the cryptocurrency network.

The event was warmly received by prominent crypto-enthusiasts and miners, as it was a reminder of the solid performance of the BTC blockchain and the genius of the first cryptocurrency. For example, Kryptovault CEO Kjetil Hove Pettersen noted in an interview with news outlet Cointelegraph that miners have less than 10 percent of the maximum number of coins in circulation left to mine. Here’s his rejoinder.

On the face of it, it’s a small number, but I believe the best days of mining are yet to come.

Bitcoin Bloem founder Bert de Groot said last week’s event will forever go down in cryptocurrency history. According to him, it also demonstrates how important and thoughtful Satoshi Nakamoto was.

We previously wrote about why the anonymous Bitcoin creator chose the number 21 million as the maximum threshold for the number of BTC in circulation. We recommend reading the material to understand the essence of what is happening.

Growth in the number of BTC in circulation

18.5 million BTC were mined in September 2020. The current coin issue rate is 6.25 BTC per block. The next halving in the blockchain is planned for 2024, at which point miners will start to receive already 3.125 BTC per block. Many cryptoanalysts suggest that halving cycles are the main driver of the global cryptocurrency bullpen. Or at the very least, market growth cycles coincide with four-year stretches during which the reward on the Bitcoin network falls by half.

Issue forecast with next halving

Read also: Experts believe Bitcoin could rise as high as $4.8 million. But under what conditions?

Over the past few days Bitcoin has set another important record: we are talking about the growth of mining complexity to an all-time high of 28.587 trillion units. As a reminder, this figure correlates with the processing power of the network, i.e. the hash rate. The higher the hash rate, the higher the complexity of the mining. In this way, the blockchain automatically balances what is going on in it and makes sure that block mining times average 10 minutes. This, in turn, guarantees the stability of issuance and inflation in the BTC network.

The complexity of Bitcoin mining

At the time of writing, the hash rate is at 201.84 hashes per second. A higher hash rate ensures that the cryptocurrency is resistant to so-called double-spending attacks. The latter are the process of conducting repeated BTC transactions through the blockchain by hijacking at least 51 per cent of the network’s processing power.

In other words, attackers can use the same coins multiple times, gaining financial gain. However, with the current popularity of Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency network as a whole, this is clearly not going to happen.

Bitcoin network hash rate

Back on March 4 – about a month before it reached an all-time high – the Bitcoin network experienced a slight decline from 27.96 trillion units to 27.55 trillion units. This was followed by another wave of declines to 27.45 trillion units. Prior to this, the Bitcoin network’s resilience in terms of hash rate and complexity had risen consistently since July 2021.

With only two million BTC left to mine as rewards, and the influx of miners into the business from around the world continuing, the Bitcoin network will become increasingly stronger and more decentralised. In the long term, this will make it virtually invulnerable to outside influence – and that includes large states that would like to weaken the influence of independent innovations like cryptocurrencies.


We believe that this event was indeed an important one for the first cryptocurrency. It proved once again that Satoshi Nakamoto's brainchild continues to perform as originally conceived. This means that there is no reason to doubt Bitcoin's further popularity and development.

What do you think about it? Share your opinion in our millionaires’ cryptochat. There we discuss other important topics that affect the digital asset industry.