According to data from Glassnode, 90% of all bitcoins had been mined by Monday morning. This means that there are now 18.89 million Bitcoins – out of a maximum of 21 million – on the market.

Source: Glassnode

This milestone will be reached almost 12 years after the first Bitcoin was mined on January 9th, 2009. However, the remaining supply will not be depleted until February 2140 based on network activity estimates and halving plans.

The price has already reflected the supply as the demand for newer bitcoins has increased. The asset traded for less than $ 0.10 when 10% of the supply mined in early 2010 and hovered above $ 7.50 when 50% of the offer mined in December 2012. At press time, it was trading at nearly $ 49,000, 29% less than its high of $ 69,000 earlier this year.

Source: TradingView

Bitcoin, a Proof-of-Work (PoW) network, relies on network participants known as “miners” – they continuously process transactions and validate blocks in a process collectively known as the “mining” waterfall.

Miners make their computer and hardware resources available to solve millions of complex calculations in the Bitcoin network every second, and receive Bitcoins as a “reward”. Miners are currently receiving 6.25 BTC for every block they mine, which will drop to 3.125 after the next halving in 2024.

In the meantime, it is expected that not all of the 21 million BTC will be available in the market. Cryptocurrency research firm Chainalysis estimates that 3.7 million BTC are “lost” based on an analysis of address activity for reasons ranging from loss of private keys to death. Another 1 million BTC owned by Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto – hasn’t moved since that mysterious father mined in the network’s early days.

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