How many bitcoin are there? 20.11 million, with around 2.9 million lost

How many bitcoin are there? As of November 14, 2026, around 20.11 million bitcoin are in circulation. The figure follows from the current block height of 975,752 and the fixed issuance schedule that every bitcoin node recalculates. Under these rules there will never be more than 21 million BTC. A considerable share of existing coins can no longer be reached, however, because the keys are missing: estimates range from around 2.9 million to 3.8 million BTC.

This scarcity is at the heart of what sets bitcoin as a currency apart from the euro or the dollar. If you want to understand what you actually acquire when you buy bitcoin, you should know the arithmetic behind it: how many coins already exist, how many are still to come, when the last fraction will be created and how many will never move again. How the bitcoin price emerges from this fixed quantity and fluctuating demand is covered in the last part of this article.

Bitcoin circulating supply in November 2026: 20.11 million BTC from 975,752 blocks

For bitcoin, circulating supply means all coins created through mining so far. There is no central bank or company issuing coins at will. Every new block contains a special transaction, the coinbase transaction, through which the successful miner receives the block reward. That is the only way new bitcoin come into the world.

The arithmetic can therefore be checked with a handful of numbers. The first 210,000 blocks paid 50 BTC each, the next 210,000 paid 25 BTC each, then 12.5, and since April 2024 each block pays 3.125 BTC. On Saturday morning, November 14, 2026, the block height stood at 975,752 according to the block explorer Mempool.space. That gives our own calculation:

• Blocks 0 to 209,999: 210,000 × 50 BTC = 10,500,000 BTC
• Blocks 210,000 to 419,999: 210,000 × 25 BTC = 5,250,000 BTC
• Blocks 420,000 to 629,999: 210,000 × 12.5 BTC = 2,625,000 BTC
• Blocks 630,000 to 839,999: 210,000 × 6.25 BTC = 1,312,500 BTC
• Blocks 840,000 to 975,752: 135,753 × 3.125 BTC = 424,228.125 BTC

Together that makes 20,111,728 BTC. That leaves around 888,272 BTC, or about 4.2 percent, to go before the cap of just under 21 million. 95.77 percent of all bitcoin that will ever exist have already been mined. The network passed the 20 million BTC mark at block 940,000, as we reported on March 9, 2026.

Not all of this gross figure can actually be spent. Some coins have been technically locked since they were created: the 50 BTC of the genesis block from January 2009 cannot be spent, two duplicated coinbase transactions from 2010 rendered another 100 BTC unusable, and in 2017 a miner forfeited a full 12.5 BTC reward through a bug. At least some 160 BTC are thus counted in the gross supply but can never be moved.

The 21 million bitcoin cap follows from a geometric series

The supply cap is not stored in the bitcoin protocol as a single number. It results from two rules that Satoshi Nakamoto wrote into the cryptocurrency's first software in 2009: the reward starts at 50 BTC per block and halves every 210,000 blocks. Calculate 210,000 × 50 + 210,000 × 25 + 210,000 × 12.5 and so on, and the sum approaches 21 million without ever reaching it.

Because bitcoin does not compute internally with decimals but with its smallest unit, the satoshi, each halving is rounded down. One satoshi is one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin, or 0.00000001 BTC. The Bitcoin Wiki page on controlled supply therefore puts the exact theoretical maximum at 20,999,999.9769 BTC. The round 21 million is a simplification that has become standard in practice.

Incidentally, the figure of 21 million does not appear in the 2008 bitcoin whitepaper. The document only describes new coins being created as an incentive for participants, and that this incentive can later be replaced by transaction fees. The concrete issuance curve only came with the source code.

Halving: how the block reward falls every 210,000 blocks

The halving is the moment when the block reward for miners drops by half. Because the network adjusts mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks so that a block is produced roughly every ten minutes on average, about four years pass between two halvings. There have been four so far:

• November 2012: from 50 to 25 BTC per block
• July 2016: from 25 to 12.5 BTC
• May 2020: from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC
• April 2024: from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC

At around 144 blocks a day, about 450 new BTC are currently created daily, or just over 164,000 BTC a year. Measured against 20.11 million BTC in circulation, that is an annual inflation rate of about 0.8 percent. For comparison, the European Central Bank targets inflation of 2 percent for the euro area.

The fifth halving comes at block 1,050,000. From the current height, that is another 74,248 blocks. At ten minutes per block, that would be around 515 days, so the halving would probably fall in April 2028. Until then, about 232,000 BTC will be added; after that, the reward drops to 1.5625 BTC per block.

When will the last bitcoin be mined?

On current calculations, the last fraction of a bitcoin will be created around the year 2140. Depending on assumptions about future block times, the Bitcoin Wiki gives dates in May or October 2140. A precise date cannot be fixed, because blocks are sometimes found faster and sometimes slower.

The distribution over time is striking: more than 95 percent of all bitcoin were created in the first 17 years or so. The network needs about another 114 years for the remaining 888,000 BTC or so. After the 2028 halving, each four-year period adds only half of the previous amount, and towards the end it is single satoshis per block.

What happens to miners after that? Their income already has two parts today: the block reward and the transaction fees users pay for their transfers. After 2140, only the fees remain. Whether they will be enough to secure the network adequately is an open debate among developers and economists.

Lost bitcoin: estimates between 2.8 million and 3.8 million BTC

For bitcoin, lost means the coins sit at an address for which nobody holds the private key any more. Without that key, no transaction can be signed, and the coins are locked forever. There is no authority that could unlock an account. Typical causes are discarded hard drives, forgotten passwords, lost seed phrases and inheritances in which nobody knew about the access.

The blockchain does not show whether a coin is lost or merely dormant. Estimates therefore work with the time since the last movement, and the results vary widely:

• The analytics firm Chainalysis arrived at 2.78 million to 3.79 million lost BTC in 2017.
• In a joint analysis with Fortune from April 2024, Chainalysis counted 1,798,681 BTC at addresses that have not moved since 2014. Adding the roughly 1.1 million BTC attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto gives about 2.9 million missing bitcoin.

Such holdings are not always lost for good. According to the same analysis, old wallets from the early days wake up almost every week; in the week from March 25, 2024, alone, 172 long-dormant addresses became active again. Chainalysis expects the number of truly lost coins could settle at around 1.5 million in the long run, not counting Satoshi's holdings.

Satoshi Nakamoto and the Patoshi pattern: around 1.1 million BTC

The largest single item among dormant coins goes back to bitcoin's inventor. In 2013, security researcher Sergio Demian Lerner examined the first blocks and found a distinctive pattern in the data of an early miner, which he called the Patoshi pattern. The blocks attributed this way contain around 1.1 million BTC in total.

What this establishes is that a single early participant found a large share of the first blocks. That this was Satoshi is considered likely but has not been proven. Other analyses arrive at much lower holdings of around 750,000 BTC. Much of this stash has not moved since 2010. At a price of around €61,000 on November 14, 1.1 million BTC have a notional value of about €67 billion.

Effective bitcoin supply: around 17.2 million BTC are actually available

Subtracting the estimates for lost coins from the gross supply shrinks the available amount noticeably. Our calculation using the figures from November 14, 2026:

• Mined: 20.11 million BTC
• minus around 2.9 million BTC (Chainalysis and Fortune 2024, including Satoshi): about 17.2 million BTC available
• with the higher 2017 estimate of 3.79 million BTC: about 16.3 million BTC available

The effective supply thus lies somewhere between 16.3 million and 17.2 million BTC. Even once all remaining coins have been mined by 2140, at most around 18.1 million BTC will be within reach of buyers and sellers on the 2024 estimate. On top of that, another effect reduces the freely tradable amount further: a large share of bitcoin sits with long-term investors, funds and companies that hold their positions for years. How unequally ownership is distributed is the subject of a separate analysis of bitcoin distribution.

Bitcoin per person: 245,000 satoshis for everyone on Earth

In its 2024 population projections, the United Nations puts the world population at around 8.2 billion people. Dividing 20.11 million BTC by that number gives each person a notional 0.00245 BTC, or 245,000 satoshis. At the November 14 price, that is roughly €150. Using the effective supply of 17.2 million BTC, the share falls to 0.0021 BTC, around 210,000 satoshis or about €128.

This arithmetic explains why many buyers think in satoshis rather than whole bitcoin. Owning a whole coin is not necessary: most crypto exchanges allow you to buy small fractions from a few euros, and a savings plan spreads the entry over many months. How providers differ on fees, minimum amounts and custody is shown in our crypto exchange comparison.

Changing the bitcoin supply cap: what a hard fork has to do with consensus

Technically, the issuance rule could be changed; in practice, the hurdle is very high. A hard fork is a rule change that older software no longer accepts. Every bitcoin node checks for itself that a block does not contain more new coins than the rule allows. A block with a higher reward would be rejected as invalid by all nodes running the existing software.

A higher cap would therefore have to be adopted jointly by users, exchanges, custodians and miners. Anyone who does not change their software stays on the old blockchain with 21 million. This very consensus has been missing in every contested change so far: in the 2017 block size dispute, Bitcoin Cash emerged as a separate blockchain while bitcoin kept its rules. Because a higher cap would dilute the share of every existing holder, the largest user groups in particular have little reason to install such software.

Scarcity and the bitcoin price: fixed supply, fluctuating demand

A fixed cap makes bitcoin scarce, but it does not set a price. The price is formed on exchanges by supply and demand, and demand fluctuates strongly. The present shows this: on November 14, one bitcoin was worth around €61,000, or $67,300, below the $70,000 mark, even though nothing has changed in the issuance schedule.

Halvings ensure that the inflow of new coins falls in a predictable way. Whether a halving lifts the price depends on whether demand rises over the same period. Historically, previous halvings were each followed by boom phases, but four cases are too few to derive a rule. If you buy bitcoin, you are betting on a scarce digital money supply, but you carry the full price risk, up to and including a total loss.

How gains from selling bitcoin are taxed depends on the country you live in.

Bitcoin supply: fewer than 900,000 BTC still to come by 2140

The numbers are clear: 20.11 million BTC exist, just under 888,000 BTC will be added over more than a century, and between 2.9 million and 3.8 million BTC are considered out of reach. If you want to draw conclusions for your own holdings, you can proceed like this:

1. Buy fractions rather than whole coins: a small amount is enough to get started. Providers with low fees for small purchases are in our comparison for buying bitcoin.
2. Secure your keys so your coins do not join the lost ones: if you hold your own coins, write down the seed phrase offline and keep it somewhere safe. Devices for this are listed in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Choose a regulated exchange: make sure the provider is licensed in the EU and offers SEPA deposits. Our crypto exchange comparison gives an overview.

(As of November 14, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)