Less Than One Million Bitcoin Left to Mine: What It Means for Miners

On March 9, the volume of Bitcoin yet to be mined fell to the 1 million mark. This means more than 95% of BTC's hard-capped 21 million supply is already in circulation. The remaining million coins will be gradually released through mining rewards until approximately 2140.

Why This Matters

Bitcoin operates on a fixed emission schedule that has governed its monetary policy since inception. The network produces an average of 144 blocks per day, with difficulty adjustments occurring every 2,016 blocks — roughly every two weeks. The defining mechanism is the halving: block rewards are cut in half every 210,000 blocks, approximately once every four years.

Following the 2024 halving, the reward stands at 3.125 BTC per block, placing the network in its fifth emission epoch. The next reduction is expected in April–May 2028, when the reward will drop to 1.5625 BTC per block.

Growing Economic Pressure on Miners

Each successive halving slashes miner revenue and intensifies the economic strain on their operations. Transaction fees are expected to eventually become the primary income source, but currently they represent a relatively small share of total miner compensation.

According to CryptoSlate's analysis using Riot Platforms as a benchmark, the breakeven point considering electricity costs alone is around $74,000 per BTC. When factoring in hardware, infrastructure, cooling systems, maintenance, and financing, the true breakeven figure may exceed $100,000 per coin. A significant portion of miners are already operating "underwater" — running at minimal margins or at a loss.

Network Resilience Against Physical Attacks

Researchers at the University of Cambridge conducted an extensive analysis spanning 11 years of data and 68 submarine cable fault events. Their conclusion: random physical cable breaks pose virtually no threat to the Bitcoin network.

"Just published: first study of Bitcoin's resilience to submarine cable failures, using 11 years of P2P network data & 68 cable fault events. Random cable failures are mostly harmless, but targeted attacks on 5 hosting providers could take out 95% of clearnet nodes." — Jameson Lopp (@lopp), original post

The average node drop during cable failures was just 1.5%, with zero price correlation. Disconnecting 10% of nodes would require severing between 72% and 92% of all intercontinental cables.

The real vulnerability lies elsewhere. A targeted attack on five major hosting providers — Hetzner, OVHcloud, Comcast, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud — could theoretically disable up to 95% of visible nodes by removing just 5% of capacity.

Tor as a Structural Defense Layer

Even a complete clearnet shutdown would not bring the Bitcoin network down. Tor has emerged as a critical resilience layer: the share of nodes running through the anonymous browser grew from zero in 2024 to 63% today (14,602 nodes).

The researchers also highlighted a paradoxical effect of China's 2021 mining ban. The crackdown dispersed hashrate across the globe, and increased censorship pushed node operators toward Tor. As a result, the network's critical vulnerability metric improved from 0.72 to 0.88, meaning Bitcoin became more resilient.

Separately, in March 2026, startup Starcloud announced plans to mine Bitcoin in space, aiming to launch a satellite equipped with ASIC miners into orbit before the end of the year.