Let's Mining! The World's Bitcoin Supply Remains 10 Percent

Bitcoin mines are dwindling in number. (photo; pixabay)

JAKARTA - Total Bitcoin (BTC) in circulation reached an important milestone on Monday, December 20, the morning, a year and a half after the last Bitcoin halved. Currently, 90% of the total maximum supply has been mined.

Recent data from Blockchain.com shows Bitcoin in circulation topped 18,899 million as of Monday, meaning only 10% of the total supply remains to be mined. While the first 90% of BTC takes about 12 years to mine, the rest will take a little longer.

Bitcoin has a maximum limit of 21 million coins set by its anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. These restrictions are written in the Bitcoin source code and enforced by network nodes. Hard limits on Bitcoin are critical to its value proposition as a currency and an investment tool.

As Cointelegraph detailed, it will take 119 years from now to complete the Bitcoin mining process as the production rate of new Bitcoins is cut in half every four years in a predefined execution protocol, also known as Bitcoin halving.

Since the Bitcoin blockchain only creates new BTC as a reward for miners who verify new blocks, halving ensures fewer Bitcoins are produced as the total circulating supply increases.

Since May 2020, miners have earned 6.25 Bitcoins for every new block verified. This rate will drop to 3.125 BTC per block in the next halving in 2024.

By 2040, the block reward will be reduced to less than 0.2 BTC and only 80,000 Bitcoins out of 21 million are left up for grabs. The last Bitcoin will take almost 40 years to mine.