Countdown! Only 1 million coins left to mine $BTC , and the last one might not be mined until the 22nd century? Your grandchildren will be the ones to witness history!

On the evening of March 10th, the 20 millionth $BTC was mined from the network. This means that over 95% of the total supply cap of 21 million coins has entered circulation. The remaining mining process will take approximately 114 years, with the last coin expected around 2140.

Since the genesis block on January 3, 2009, seventeen years have passed. During this time, the price of $BTC has risen from less than a cent to $126,000 in 2025, with a market cap once surpassing $2.5 trillion, transforming from a technical experiment into an asset class that cannot be ignored.

Beyond its astonishing price trajectory, the history of $BTC is composed of a series of data milestones. Analysts have created a chart with the horizontal axis extending from 2010 to 2026, where each bar represents the number of days needed to reach a specific milestone.

The earliest milestone was “On-chain transfer volume surpassing 20 million $BTC,” achieved in just 729 days, around early 2011. At that time, $BTC was inexpensive, but on-chain liquidity was already accumulating significantly. Subsequently, total transfer volume, market cap, and daily transfer volume each surpassed the $20 million mark, taking 830, 841, and 880 days respectively. These early signals marked $BTC’s transition from protocol to valuable asset.

As the network grew, the time to reach subsequent milestones lengthened. Daily transfer volume exceeding 20 million $BTC took 1,336 days; creating and spending 20 million UTXOs took 1,398 and 1,436 days respectively; and completing 20 million transactions took 1,636 days. Most of these milestones occurred between 2013 and 2014, right after the first halving, during the network’s substantial expansion phase.

One of the longest durations was “Total transaction fees exceeding $20 million,” which took 2,906 days, nearly eight years. This reflects the early low fee environment, with fees only becoming a significant miner revenue source after demand surged and block congestion became routine.

The number of “Addresses with non-zero balance,” “Profitable addresses,” and “Monthly active addresses” reaching 20 million took 3,197, 3,198, and 3,248 days respectively, pointing to the 2017 bull market. During this period, $BTC truly entered mainstream consciousness, and the holder base rapidly expanded.

Among all milestones, the longest was “20 million $BTC mined,” taking 6,267 days, about seventeen years and two months. This directly relates to its core issuance mechanism: a maximum supply of 21 million, released through block rewards that halve every 210,000 blocks (roughly four years).

Initial reward was 50 $BTC, halved to 25 after the first halving, then to 6.25 in 2020, and after the most recent halving in April 2024, the current reward is 3.125 $BTC. Each halving cuts the new issuance rate in half, forming the basis of its scarcity narrative.

Based on current rewards and the halving schedule, approximately 1 million $BTC remaining to be mined will take about 114 years. Currently, about 164,000 new coins are added each year; after the 2028 halving, annual issuance will drop to around 82,000, and will continue decreasing. In the final phase, new coin issuance will proceed very slowly, measured in “satoshis.”

This is the essence of Satoshi Nakamoto’s economic design: rapid distribution early on to bootstrap the network, followed by a tapering issuance rate approaching zero, mimicking and reinforcing the “digital gold” narrative. In the future, miners’ revenue will have to shift from block rewards to transaction fees to maintain network security.

Therefore, the 20 million milestone is not the end but the beginning of a new phase. As the remaining supply is released at an extremely slow pace, the narrative of $BTC as a scarce digital asset will only become stronger.

Follow me for more real-time analysis and insights into the crypto market! $BTC $ETH $SOL

#Gate February Transparency Report