Cointelegraph’s X account posted this stat: “There are only 1,035,659.4 BTC left to mine.” It’s a real snapshot estimate (as of that post), but it’s easy to read it like “we’re almost out of Bitcoin” and that’s not really what it means.

bitcoin’s max supply is 21 million. “left to mine” is just 21m minus what’s already been created through block rewards. that number ticks down a little with each new block, so it’s always moving.

and the decimals are normal. btc is divisible, and block rewards aren’t whole numbers anymore, so you’ll see supply figures like this.

also, “left to mine” isn’t the same thing as ""left to buy.” a lot of btc is held long term and doesn’t trade much. plus some btc is effectively gone forever because keys got lost or storage got thrown away. so the liquid supply (the stuff actually moving and available) can be way smaller than the total supply chart.

at today’s block reward of 3.125 btc, miners create roughly 450 btc per day (give or take). but that pace slows over time because of halvings. every few years the new supply gets cut in half again, which is why mining doesn’t finish soon. most of the remaining coins come out earlier, then the last stretch takes decades, reaching out to around 2140.

so the real takeaway isn’t “only 1.0m left.” it’s that new supply keeps shrinking, and price ends up being more about demand and holder behavior than miner issuance.