On November 17, the amount of mined bitcoins exceeded 19.95 million BTC — this is 95% of the limit of 21 million set by Satoshi Nakamoto. Less than 1.05 million BTC remain to be mined. The mining difficulty of bitcoin has reached an all-time high of 152.27 T.

Each halving reduces the block reward by half. After the last one in April 2024, the reward decreased from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC, and now miners are mining about 450 BTC per day, instead of the previous 900. The next reward reduction is expected in April 2028. The last 5% of coins will be mined very slowly — until 2140, due to halvings over the next 115 years. This scarcity is part of the network's security model, as gradually, instead of new coins, user fees will provide an incentive for miners to maintain the hash rate and network security.

Against the backdrop of these changes, most mining companies are shifting to infrastructure servicing for AI to remain competitive. Bitfury, one of the largest and oldest mining companies, which has been operating for 14 years – since 2011 – has decided to completely exit mining and launch a tech fund of $1 billion for investments in AI, quantum technologies, and startups.