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On November 17, 2025, the total supply of Bitcoin surpassed 19.95 million BTC, representing 95% of the hard-coded 21 million limit intended by creator Satoshi Nakamoto. This marks a historic milestone—almost all Bitcoin has been mined. Only less than 1.05 million coins remain to be mined.

With each halving—an event that occurs approximately every four years—the block reward is halved. The last such reduction occurred in April 2024, when the block reward fell from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC. As a result, daily mining output was cut almost in half: from 900 BTC per day to around 450 BTC. This isn't just a technical change—it's a fundamental shift in the network's economic model.

The next halving is scheduled for April 2028, when the reward will drop to 1.5625 BTC per block. But even after that, the process will continue—slowly, almost imperceptibly. It's estimated that the last 5% of Bitcoin will be mined over the next 115 years, until 2140. This means that even if you're alive today, your grandchildren, and perhaps even great-grandchildren, will have yet to see the last Bitcoin emerge from the miners' processors.

This programmed scarcity is not an accident, but a deliberate security design. Bitcoin was designed as a digital equivalent of gold: limited, scarce, and inflation-resistant. As the supply approaches its limit, miner subsidies (new coins) will gradually disappear, and the network will transition to a fee-based economy. Users seeking faster transactions will pay for priority inclusion of their transactions in blocks—and these fees will become the primary source of income for miners.

This transition is a key stage in Bitcoin's evolution. It should ensure the network's stability even without new emissions. Without incentives, miners could stop maintaining the hashrate, making the blockchain vulnerable to attacks. Fees, however, create an economic incentive to maintain the network—even when mining runs out.

This shift is already impacting infrastructure. Mining difficulty has reached historic highs—at the time of the last update, it stood at 152.27 TH (tera-hashes). This means that efficient mining requires highly powerful ASIC miners, massive energy consumption, and cost optimization. Many mining companies are being forced to rethink their business models: some are investing in renewable energy, others in cooling and logistics, and increasingly, they are shifting to maintaining AI infrastructure. Computing power previously dedicated to hashing is now being used to train neural networks—a new "second life" for mining farms.

Thus, reaching 95% production isn't just a figure. It symbolically marks the end of the growth phase and the beginning of a new era. Bitcoin ceases to be a "new asset" and becomes a digital asset with a fixed supply—like gold, a rare artifact. Its value will now be determined not by how many new coins are created, but by how high demand remains while the supply remains constant.

Some analysts believe this stage should steadily increase the price of BTC —the law of supply and demand in action: fewer new coins, more people willing to buy them—a logical price increase. However, most experts lean toward a more cautious assessment: the event is more symbolic than a market catalyst. The market has long priced this scenario in—Bitcoin's price is shaped by macroeconomic factors, regulatory decisions, institutional demand, and technological development, and not just by halvings.

However, the very fact that Bitcoin is approaching its limit is proof of its uniqueness among all other cryptocurrencies. No other digital coin has such a rigid, predictable, and unchangeable issuance model. This is what makes it not just the "first cryptocurrency," but the first digital asset in history with a physical equivalent—scarcity.

In the coming decades, Bitcoin will do more than just store value—it will prove that scarcity in the digital world is possible, sustainable, and valuable.