Many people have been deceived: Bitcoin can never be fully mined.
You must have heard this saying:
👉 "The total amount of Bitcoin is 21 million coins, and it will eventually be mined out."
Wrong.
In a mathematical sense, Bitcoin will never be 'fully mined'. You'll understand once I'm done explaining.
⛏️ The 'dead rule' set by Satoshi Nakamoto
Every 210,000 blocks, the block reward halves:
2009: 50 BTC
2012: 25 BTC
2016: 12.5 BTC
2020: 6.25 BTC
2024: 3.125 BTC
From then on: it keeps decreasing, keeps decreasing……
This is an infinitely decreasing geometric series.
Mathematically:
👉 It approaches 21 million infinitely, but will never reach 21 million.
It's like a glass of water; every time you pour out half,
you will never pour it all out.
🧮 Why won't it 'go to zero'?
The smallest unit of Bitcoin is 1 Satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC
When the reward decreases to 1 Satoshi, it cannot be reduced any further.
So the result is:
The reward approaches 0, but will never truly equal 0.
⏳ Time stretched to the limit
By the year 2140:
New production will be negligible,
but on paper—it's still not 21 million. Currently mined: 19,680,000+
Less than 1.3 million coins remain,
and the further we go, the slower it gets.
❓ What will miners rely on to make money in the future?
There is only one answer: transaction fees.
By 2025, it has already appeared:
🧾 Single block income 3.147 BTC
It's not about the rewards, but the skyrocketing transaction fees.
As long as someone uses Bitcoin for transactions:
✔️ Miners will have income
✔️ The network can operate
✔️ Mining will not stop
🧠 The truly terrifying part is this
The scarcity of Bitcoin
is not written by consensus,
is not chanted as a slogan,
but is written in a mathematical formula.
👉 New supply will always exist
👉 But the speed approaches zero infinitely
This is also why:
The 'scarcity' of Bitcoin will become harsher year by year.
Do you understand now?
21 million is not the 'endpoint',
but an ultimate value that can never be reached.
