How many bitcoins exist, and how many there will ever be

95.8% of all bitcoins already exist

Coin Metrics, which counts every coin the network has issued, put the supply at 20,110,804 BTC on November 11, 2026, when block 975,498 was the latest. That is 95.77% of 21 million — the round number everyone quotes, which the total approaches but never quite reaches (more on that below).

Picture the 21 million as 210 bricks of 100,000 coins each. 201 are full, the next one is 11% done, and 8 are still empty. Half of all bitcoins — the first 105 bricks — existed by Nov 2012, 3.9 years after the first block.

Coins whose keys are lost still count. They can never move again, but they stay in the supply; nobody knows exactly how many there are, and this article does not guess.

The halving staircase to 2140

The reward for a new block started at 50 bitcoins and halves every 210,000 blocks, about every four years: 4 times so far, in 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024. It is 3.125 BTC now; the next cut, to 1.5625, is due around Apr 2028 (see the halvings).

Each step mints half as many coins as the one before: the first era alone made 50% of all bitcoins, the second 25%. That is why 95.8% already exist though mining goes on for another 114 years. By the schedule, 99% of all coins will exist by about 2035 and 99.9% by about 2048; the reward shrinks to a single satoshi — 0.00000001 BTC — around 2136 and becomes zero at block 6,930,000, around 2140.

New coins a day: 7,396 then, 452 now

At one block every 10 minutes the network makes 144 blocks a day, so the daily issuance is the reward times 144: 7,200 coins a day in the first era, 450 now, 225 after the next halving. Under 100 a day from about 2036, under one coin a day from about 2060.

Real blocks come a little faster or slower than the target. From 2009 to 2012 the network issued 7,396 coins a day on average, and over the last 30 days 452 — about 16 times fewer. In 2009, the first year, it was only 4,551 a day: blocks came more slowly than planned while few computers mined.

Supply growth: bitcoin +0.82%, the dollar's M2 +5.7%

Over the 12 months to November 11, 2026 the number of bitcoins grew by +0.82%. The US money stock M2 — currency, checking and savings deposits, small time deposits and retail money funds — grew by +5.7% in the 12 months to Sep 2026.

Bitcoin's supply grew faster than M2 every year from 2010 (×3.1 in that year) to 2016. 2017 was the first year it grew more slowly: +4.3% against +4.9%. In the 8 years since, to 2025, M2 grew faster in 5; the exceptions were 2018, 2022 and 2023. M2 shrank in 2022 and 2023 — its only calendar-year falls in the data since 1959.

By the schedule, the supply grows about +0.40% in 2029, the first whole year after the 2028 halving, and +0.20% in 2033, after the 2032 one: each halving roughly halves the growth. Gold's stock grows too, by whatever the mines produce each year — the gold standard article measures it.

Why just under 21 million

The 21 million is the sum of the schedule: 210,000 blocks × 50 coins = 10.5 million in the first era, then 5.25 million, 2.625 million and so on, each era half the one before. Halves of halves add up to twice the first term: 2 × 10.5 million = 21 million.

But rewards are counted in satoshis — hundred-millionths of a bitcoin — and each halving drops any half satoshi. The halves stay exact for the first 10 eras; from era 11, around 2048, they round down. After 33 eras the reward is a single satoshi, and the next halving makes it zero. So the schedule ends at 20,999,999.9769 BTC: 2,310,000 satoshis (0.0231 BTC) short of 21 million.

The supply counted here never reaches even that. The 50 coins of the very first block, the genesis block, can never be spent and are not counted; and miners of a few blocks claimed less than the full reward — 80.14 BTC so far, which nobody can claim later.

When the new coins run out: miners and fees

Miners are paid twice for every block: the new coins of the subsidy and the fees of the transactions they include. Fees are not new bitcoins — users pay them out of coins that already exist. Over the last 12 months fees were 0.6% of what miners received in bitcoin; the subsidy, 99.4%.

The share swings with the demand for space in blocks: 2017 was the highest year so far at 12.6%, and the day with the highest share was April 20, 2024, when fees came to 1,206 BTC — 75% of that day's income.

Every halving moves more of the miners' income — the money that pays for the computing power securing the network (the hash rate) — onto fees. Whether fees will be enough once the subsidy is gone is an open question: some expect fuller blocks and higher fees, others a smaller security budget. After about 2140, fees will be all there is.