That endpoint moved one step closer Sunday when miners pulled the 20 millionth coin from the network — exactly 17 years, two months, and one week after the first block was mined in January 2009.

A Pool Called Foundry USA Did The Work

The Foundry USA mining pool mined that coin at block height 939,999, collecting a reward of 3.125 BTC. That figure reflects the current payout level set by the April 2024 halving, which cut daily network production from 900 BTC to roughly 450 BTC.

The 20 million mark means 95.24% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist is now out in the world. For every 20 coins already mined, just one remains to be created. The remaining 1 million will take about 114 years to fully issue.

Not All 20 Million Coins Are Accessible

According to blockchain analytics firms River Financial and Chainalysis, between 2.3 million and 3.7 million BTC are gone permanently — lost to forgotten passwords, misplaced private keys, and early holders who never passed on wallet access.

Recent data has estimated about 1.8 million coins were lost during Bitcoin’s earliest years, when the asset had little value and storage infrastructure was unreliable.

Another 230 BTC is locked forever due to the original genesis block and early outputs written with scripts that cannot be spent.

The practical supply available to buy, sell, or hold sits well below 20 million. Miners Face A Long-Term Revenue Problem

The same halving schedule that caps Bitcoin’s supply also shrinks miner income over time. Daily issuance will fall below 30 BTC by the 2040s and below 2 BTC per day by the 2060s.

Once subsidies approach zero, transaction fees become the only compensation miners receive for securing the network. Whether those fees can sustain robust protection remains unanswered.

The milestone arrived while Bitcoin traded around $69,282, down nearly 21% year-to-date. Despite pressure from macroeconomic uncertainty and Middle East conflict, it gained about 3.44% over the past week.

The next halving is scheduled for April 11, 2028, cutting the block reward from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
source: https://www.tradingview.com/news/newsbtc:d2fb50f38094b:0-bitcoin-crosses-20-million-coins-mined-and-only-1-in-20-remains/