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Bitcoin Data GuideBitcoin Reference

Cycles & Supply

The supply schedule, epoch by epoch

Bitcoin's supply is not managed; it is scheduled. This page sets out the block reward for every epoch, the coins each one issues, and how the cumulative supply converges on twenty-one million without ever quite reaching it.

2009-2024Source: Bitcoin block chain records; protocol subsidy scheduleEpoch issuance assumes 210,000 blocks per epoch at the protocol's ten-minute target.

Epochs scheduled

1

Including the current epoch

Current block reward

50 BTC

Epoch 1

Annual issuance

2,628,000 BTC

At 52,560 blocks per year

The schedule in full

Each row is one epoch: the block height at which it begins, the reward a miner receives for a valid block during it, the total coins the epoch issues, and the cumulative supply once it is complete. The final column expresses that cumulative figure as a share of the twenty-one million cap. The progression is the whole story of Bitcoin's monetary policy in one table, and it is fixed in advance rather than set by any authority.

Bitcoin supply schedule by epoch, with the starting block height, block reward, coins issued in the epoch, cumulative supply and share of the twenty-one million cap.
EpochFrom blockBlock rewardIssued in epochCumulative supplyShare of cap
1050 BTC10,500,000 BTC10,500,000 BTC50.0%

2009-2024Source: Bitcoin block chain records; protocol subsidy schedule

How the schedule is built. The block reward starts at 50 BTC and halves every 210,000 blocks. Each epoch therefore issues 210,000 times its reward, and the cumulative column adds those issuances in order. The sum is a geometric series: 10.5 million coins in the first epoch, half that in the second, half again in the third, converging on 21 million. Because the reward is denominated in whole satoshis and eventually rounds to zero, the final coins are issued well into the next century and the cap is approached rather than reached.

Why a fixed schedule matters

The supply schedule is the part of Bitcoin's design that is least like a conventional asset. A central bank decides how much currency to create and revises that decision as conditions change. Bitcoin's issuance is written into the protocol and enforced by every node independently: a block that claims more than the current subsidy is rejected outright, no matter how much work went into finding it. No committee can vote to issue more, and no miner can claim more than the rule allows.

The consequence is that the future supply is knowable decades in advance. A reader can state today how many bitcoin will exist in 2032 and be confident of the answer, because the schedule that determines it is already fixed. That predictability is the property the asset's monetary case rests on, and it is a genuine difference from every currency whose issuance is a policy choice.

What the schedule does not determine is price. A fixed supply says nothing about demand, and demand is what sets the price. The schedule is a constraint on one side of the market, not a forecast of the other. Readers who want to see how the issuance rate has declined across the epochs, and what that decline means for supply growth, will find it on the issuance and inflation page. The halving history page covers the events themselves.

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