What Happens After All Bitcoins Are Mined?
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Bitcoin has a hard-coded maximum supply of 21 million coins. As of 2026, more than 95% of that total has already been mined, leaving less than 1 million BTC still to be issued.

New bitcoins enter circulation through mining rewards. Miners who successfully add a new block to the blockchain currently receive a combination of newly created BTC (the block subsidy) and transaction fees paid by users. The block subsidy started at 50 BTC and is cut in half approximately every four years in an event known as the “halving.” After the 2024 halving, the reward stood at 3.125 BTC per block. Further halvings will continue reducing this amount.

The Final Bitcoin Around 2140

Because of the repeated halvings, the last fraction of a bitcoin is expected to be mined around the year 2140. At that point, the protocol will stop creating any new coins. The total supply will be permanently fixed at just under 21 million BTC (due to the way the code handles very small units).

How Miners Will Be Paid After 2140

Once the block subsidy reaches zero, miners will no longer earn newly issued bitcoin. Their only source of revenue will be the transaction fees that users pay to have their transactions included in blocks.

This shift has been part of Bitcoin’s design from the beginning. The network itself will continue operating in the same way: blocks will still be produced roughly every 10 minutes, transactions will still be confirmed, and full nodes will continue enforcing the rules. The change is limited to the economic incentive that motivates miners to secure the network.

Why This Matters

Today, the block subsidy makes up the majority of miner revenue on most blocks. Over the coming decades, as the subsidy declines with each successive halving, transaction fees are expected to become a larger share of miner income. By 2140, fees will be the sole source.

Whether those fees will be sufficient to keep enough mining power online to maintain network security is a long-term question that depends on future demand for Bitcoin block space, the adoption of Layer 2 solutions, and overall network usage. The transition will occur gradually over more than a century rather than as a sudden event.

In short, the end of new bitcoin issuance does not mean the end of the Bitcoin network. It marks the completion of Bitcoin’s predetermined monetary issuance schedule and a full shift to a fee-based security model that was planned from day one.