Key takeaways
- Foundry USA mined block 939,999, pushing Bitcoin's circulating supply past 20 million coins for the first time.
- Fewer than 1 million bitcoin remain to be mined, representing less than 5% of the fixed 21 million cap.
- Post-April 2024 halving, the block reward dropped to 3.125 BTC, meaning the final satoshi won't arrive until roughly 2140.
The Block That Made History
At block 939,999, mined by Foundry USA, Bitcoin crossed 20 million coins in circulation -- a milestone 17 years in the making since the genesis block in January 2009. Over 95.2% of the protocol's hard-capped supply now exists. What remains is a shrinking window: fewer than 1 million bitcoin, spread across roughly 114 years of issuance.
The math is worth sitting with. The block reward that started at 50 BTC in 2009 sits at 3.125 BTC today, following the fourth halving in April 2024. Each successive halving stretches the remaining issuance further into the future, compressing new supply while demand continues to grow. Next halving: estimated April 11, 2028.
Some of those 20 million coins are already gone. The genesis block's 50 BTC are permanently unspendable by protocol design. Another 230.09 BTC sit in scripts that cannot be spent. Private keys lost to hard drive failures and forgotten passwords have permanently removed an unknown but likely substantial quantity from any possible circulation. The real available float is smaller than 20 million -- and getting smaller.
Zettahash Competing for Scraps
Bitcoin's hashrate now measures in zettahashes per second -- an almost incomprehensible scale of computational effort -- all competing for a block reward that halves every four years. The economic pressure this creates for miners is real: fee revenue must eventually replace the subsidy as the primary incentive to secure the network. That transition plays out over decades, not quarters, which means the design is working exactly as intended.
Why It Matters
Twenty million mined is not just a number. It is a live demonstration that the protocol does exactly what it promised in 2009: fixed issuance, predictable schedule, no exceptions. No central bank decided to print a few extra million. No emergency measure extended the cap. The code ran. The miners secured it. The milestone arrived on schedule. Every fiat currency that has ever existed has been debased by the institution that issued it. Bitcoin cannot be. That is not a feature in the marketing sense -- it is the entire point.
