A escassez de Bitcoin: a grande corrida digital do ouro e seus custos ocultos! 💰😅

Quanto Bitcoin é deixado para o meu?

Ah, Bitcoin! O ouro digital que promete riqueza além da imaginação, mas é algemado por um limite codificado de 21 milhões de BTC. Um boné tão firme, poderia fazer um burocrata soviético chorando de inveja. Esse suprimento finito não é apenas um número; É a própria essência do fascínio do Bitcoin como um ativo deflacionário, um farol de esperança em um mundo de desespero inflacionário.

Até esse fatídico maio, em 2025, foram extraídos 19,6 milhões de bitcoin (BTC), o que se traduz em cerca de 93,3% da oferta total. Isso nos deixa com apenas 1,4 milhão de BTC para serem desenterrados e deixe -me dizer que essas moedas serão extraídas em um ritmo mais lento do que uma tartaruga em um passeio de lazer.

O culpado por trás do ritmo deste caracol? O cronograma de emissão exponencial do Bitcoin, ditado pelo infame evento pela metade. Quando o Bitcoin agraciou o mundo em 2009, os mineiros foram recompensados ​​com 50 BTC por seus esforços. Mas a cada 210.000 bloqueios – aproximadamente a cada quatro anos – essa recompensa é reduzida pela metade. Fale sobre uma reviravolta cruel de destino!

Até o final de 2020, mais de 87% da oferta total já havia sido extraída. Cada metade reduz a taxa de emissão, o que significa que levará mais de um século para minerar os 6,7%restantes. Sim, você ouviu isso certo! Um século! Então, se você estiver esperando por essa fortuna de Bitcoin, convém pegar uma cadeira confortável.

As estimativas atuais sugerem que, até 2035, 99% de todo o Bitcoin serão extraídos, mas os últimos Satoshis permanecerão ilusórios até 2140. É como esperar por um ônibus que nunca chegue, mas ei, pelo menos é um ônibus com um brilhante logotipo de ouro!

Essa escassez de engenharia, combinada com uma tampa de suprimento imutável, faz comparações entre Bitcoin e ouro. Mas aqui está o kicker: o Bitcoin é ainda mais previsível! O suprimento de ouro cresce em torno de 1,7% ao ano, enquanto a taxa de emissão do Bitcoin está em um declínio constante. Quem sabia que a moeda digital poderia ser tão … previsível?

Did you know? Bitcoin’s supply curve is not terminal in the traditional sense. It follows an asymptotic trajectory — a kind of economic Zeno’s paradox — where rewards diminish indefinitely but never truly reach zero. Mining will continue until around 2140, by which point over 99.999% of the total 21 million BTC will have been issued. So, keep your pickaxes ready!

Beyond the supply cap: How lost coins make Bitcoin scarcer than you think

While over 93% of Bitcoin’s total supply has been mined, don’t get too excited! A significant portion is permanently out of circulation, lost due to forgotten passwords, misplaced wallets, and those early adopters who decided to take a permanent vacation from their digital riches.

Estimates from firms like Chainalysis and Glassnode suggest that between 3.0 million and 3.8 million BTC — roughly 14%-18% of the total supply — is likely gone for good. This includes high-profile dormant addresses, like the one believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto, which alone holds over 1.1 million BTC. Talk about a ghost in the machine!

This means Bitcoin’s true circulating supply may be closer to 16 million-17 million, not 21 million. And because Bitcoin is non-recoverable by design, any lost coins stay lost — permanently reducing supply over time. It’s like a digital Bermuda Triangle!

Now, let’s compare that to gold. Around 85% of the world’s total gold supply has been mined — approximately 216,265 metric tons, according to the World Gold Council — but nearly all of it remains in circulation or held in vaults, jewelry, ETFs, and central banks. Gold can be remelted and reused; Bitcoin cannot be resurrected once access is lost. So, good luck with that!

This distinction gives Bitcoin a kind of hardening scarcity, a supply that not only stops growing over time but quietly shrinks. It’s like watching your favorite ice cream melt away on a hot summer day.

As Bitcoin matures, it’s entering a monetary phase similar to gold: low issuance, high holder concentration, and increasing demand-side sensitivity. But Bitcoin takes it further; its supply cap is hard, its loss rate is permanent, and its distribution is publicly auditable. Who needs a crystal ball when you have blockchain?

This may lead to several outcomes:

• Increased price volatility as available supply becomes more limited and sensitive to market demand
• Higher long-term value concentration in the hands of those who remain active and secure in their key management
• A premium on liquidity, where actually spendable BTC trades at a higher effective value than dormant supply.

In extreme cases, this could produce a bifurcation between “circulating BTC” and “unreachable BTC,” with the former gaining greater economic significance, particularly in times of constrained exchange liquidity or macroeconomic stress. It’s like a financial game of hide and seek!

What happens when Bitcoin is fully mined?

There’s a popular assumption that as Bitcoin’s block rewards shrink, the network’s security will eventually suffer. But in practice, the mining economy is far more adaptive — and much more resilient — than that. It’s like a cockroach that survives a nuclear apocalypse!

Bitcoin’s mining incentives are governed by a self-correcting feedback loop: If mining becomes unprofitable, miners drop off the network, which in turn triggers a difficulty adjustment. Every 2,016 blocks (roughly every two weeks), the network recalibrates mining difficulty using a parameter known as nBits. The goal is to keep block times steady at around 10 minutes, regardless of how many miners are competing. It’s like a never-ending game of musical chairs!

So, if Bitcoin’s price drops, or the reward becomes too small relative to operating costs, inefficient miners simply exit. This causes difficulty to fall, lowering the cost for those who remain. The result is a system that continually rebalances itself, aligning network participation with available incentives. It’s the circle of life, Bitcoin style!

This mechanism has already been tested at scale. After China banned mining in mid-2021, Bitcoin’s global hashrate dropped by more than 50% in a matter of weeks. Yet the network continued to function without interruption, and within a few months, the hashrate fully recovered, as miners resumed operations in jurisdictions with lower energy costs and more favorable regulations. Talk about resilience!

Critically, the idea that lower rewards will inherently threaten network security overlooks how mining is tied to profit margins, not nominal BTC amounts. As long as the market price supports the cost of hash power — even at 0.78125 BTC per block (post-2028 halving) or lower — miners will continue to secure the network. It’s all about the bottom line!

In other words, it’s not the absolute reward that matters, but whether mining remains profitable relative to costs. And thanks to Bitcoin’s built-in difficulty adjustment, it usually does. It’s like a well-oiled machine!

Even a century from now, when the block reward approaches zero, the network will likely still be protected by whatever combination of fees, base incentives, and infrastructure efficiency exists at that time. But that’s a distant concern. In the meantime, the current system — hashrate adjusts, difficulty rebalances, miners adapt — remains one of the most robust elements of Bitcoin’s design.

Did you know? On April 20, 2024, following the launch of the Runes protocol, Bitcoin miners earned over $80 million in transaction fees within a single day, surpassing the $26 million earned from block rewards. This marked the first time in Bitcoin’s history that transaction fees alone exceeded the block subsidy in daily miner revenue. Now that’s a party!

The future of Bitcoin mining: Energy consumption

It’s a common misconception that rising Bitcoin prices will drive endless energy use. In reality, mining is constrained by profitability, not price alone. It’s like thinking you can eat cake every day without gaining weight!

As block rewards shrink, miners are pushed toward thinner margins, and that means chasing the cheapest, cleanest energy available. Since China’s 2021 mining ban, hashrate has migrated to regions like North America and Northern Europe, where operators tap into surplus hydro, wind, and underutilized grid energy. It’s like a green revolution in the digital age!

More miners raise difficulty, which compresses margins, capping energy expansion. It’s a delicate balance!

Renewable-based mining brings its own challenges, but the dystopian future of endlessly expanding fossil-fueled hash power is increasingly unlikely. So, let’s raise a toast to a greener Bitcoin future!