Countdown to the Last Bitcoin: The Fierce Battle Begins

95% of bitcoin has been mined, with less than 1.1 million BTC left for the trillion-dollar race. But the real explosion may not come from the last coin, but from what happens right after. The Global Machine Never Sleeps A massive factory, stretching from the cool data centers in Sweden, through solar farms in Texas, to hydroelectric facilities in Paraguay and Ethiopia, does not produce cars or phones but produces something invisible: trust. The factory operates continuously without a second of rest. This is the bitcoin mining network. "Mining bitcoin is like playing a giant guessing game on the computer," explained Frank Holmes, CEO of Hive Digital Technologies. "You use super powerful machines to solve extremely difficult problems. Whoever solves it first will receive the reward of brand new bitcoins that we call Virgin Bitcoins." But this "number guessing game" has an even more important mission; it is to keep the entire system running. Every time a miner solves a problem, they not only receive bitcoin, but also have the right to validate the transactions that have just taken place, record them into a new data block, and attach that block to the public, immutable ledger known as the blockchain. This is the "heart" of bitcoin, ensuring that when I send you bitcoin, that transaction is real, irreversible, and cannot be fraudulent. And most importantly, no central organization has the power to control this process. "There is no Visa-type central entity that can shut down the system," Holmes emphasized. The bitcoin network is operated by over 21,000 independent network nodes worldwide. If a part of the network is attacked or goes down, thousands of other nodes still maintain, ensuring the safety and continuity of the entire system. This decentralization is the real revolution. It reminds one of Napster in the 2000s - the platform that demonstrated the power of (peer-to-peer) networks and shook the music industry. Bitcoin is doing the same with finance, creating a system that is beyond the control of major banks and governments. However, the game today is very different from the early days. You can no longer just use a laptop to "guess the number". The competition has become so fierce that miners are forced to use specialized machines called ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) - chips designed specifically for mining bitcoin with maximum efficiency and minimal energy consumption. "Every 10 minutes is a ball contest," Holmes metaphorically stated. "To win the ball (bitcoin), you need the strongest ASIC chip and the cheapest power supply." The "number guessing" has now become a billion-dollar industry - a global technological arms race where performance and energy costs determine victory and defeat. And all those enormous efforts are directed towards a single finish line, set from the very beginning: the magic number of 21 million. The Race Towards Absolute Scarcity Satoshi Nakamoto - the mysterious founder of bitcoin - has embedded a "golden rule" into the system: there will only be a maximum of 21 million bitcoins in existence, no more, no less. This is a hard limit, a mathematically committed guarantee of absolute scarcity. Now, the race to the number of 21 million is coming to an end. According to Bitcoin Magazine Pro, as of July this year, more than 94.75% of the bitcoin supply, equivalent to about 19.9 million BTC, has been mined. After 16 years, the "treasure" has almost been unearthed, with only about 1.1 million BTC left waiting in the "mine". So why have we mined 95% in just over a decade, but the remaining part will take more than a century? The secret lies in the mechanism of "halving" - a reduction of the reward by half. Every 210,000 new blocks, which is about once every four years, the reward for miners is cut in half. In 2009, each block yielded 50 BTC; by 2012 it decreased to 25 BTC, then 12.5 BTC in 2016. In 2020, it was only 6.25 BTC, and from 2024 it will be 3.125 BTC. If the schedule is correct, by 2028, each block will only bring in about 1.5625 BTC. This mechanism turns bitcoin into a truly deflationary asset, similar to a gold mine where after every 4 years, mining becomes twice as difficult. This is also the factor that has created historical price cycles and helped Bitcoin be likened to "digital gold." While the supply of physical gold still increases by about 1.7% each year, the "inflation" rate of bitcoin gradually decreases in a transparent and predictable manner. The release schedule of bitcoin is becoming even more special. By the end of 2020, over 87% of the supply had appeared; by 2035, it is expected to reach 99%. However, the final 1% - the tiny satoshis - will be mined sporadically until 2140. And the reality is even harsher: Chainalysis estimates that about 20% of the mined bitcoin may have disappeared permanently due to lost access keys, forgotten passwords, or the death of the owners. This means that the actual circulating supply may only be around 17-18 million BTC. In fact, the final number may not even reach 21 million, as the rounding method in the source code may cause the maximum supply to be slightly lower. We are living in the final stage of the "mining" era of bitcoin. And the biggest trillion-dollar question now is: When no new bitcoins are created, what will keep this "global machine" running? That is the biggest gamble of bitcoin. Life After 2140: The Biggest Gamble of bitcoin In 2140, the last block will be solved, and the new bitcoin reward will cease. From that moment on, the total supply of bitcoin will remain unchanged forever. But what will motivate miners to continue spending billions of dollars on electricity and hardware to secure the network? Satoshi's answer lies in another source of income: transaction fees. Whenever you send a bitcoin transaction, you can include a small fee to encourage miners to prioritize processing it. Currently, this fee only accounts for a small fraction of the block reward. However, in the future, it is designed to become the sole and crucial source of income for miners. This is a big gamble based on the assumption that by 2140, the bitcoin network is large enough and valuable enough for users to be willing to pay fees to use it. And the future could go in 2 main directions or a blend of both: Bitcoin becomes "gold 2.0": The ultimate value storage layer In this scenario, bitcoin is not something you use to buy a cup of coffee. The underlying blockchain of bitcoin will become a supreme layer for payment and value storage, reserved for large, high-value transactions, such as transactions between central banks, multinational corporations, or the transfer of assets worth millions of dollars. With such massive transactions, paying a fee of a few hundred, or even a few thousand dollars to ensure safety, security, and irreversibility is completely acceptable. In summary, these fees will be large enough to create a sustainable "security budget" that encourages miners to continue their work. The rise of "transaction highways" - Layer 2 To solve the daily transaction problem, "Layer 2" solutions (second layer) like the Lightning Network have emerged. Imagine the Bitcoin blockchain as a slow and expensive interbank transfer system, but extremely secure. The Lightning Network is like your credit card or digital wallet - fast, cheap, and efficient for small transactions. These solutions allow millions of small transactions to occur "off" the main chain instantaneously at almost no cost. They only use the main blockchain for the final "settlement" when necessary. This model allows bitcoin to scale to serve billions of users without congesting the main network. Transaction fees on the native blockchain remain high, but it does not affect ordinary users in their daily activities. The journey of bitcoin is shifting from a sprint to a marathon. The initial phase with generous block rewards was like a burst of speed to distribute bitcoin globally and kickstart the network. But now, extending all the way to 2140, it will be a long run, where the release rate slows down and the true value of the network is put to the test. After the year 2140, the race will become an eternal marathon. Network security will no longer be maintained by "printing" new coins but will completely rely on the economic value and utility it brings to users. The gamble of Satoshi Nakamoto lies in whether the economic model he designed is sophisticated and sustainable enough to operate autonomously for centuries. The answer will determine whether bitcoin will become a global financial platform or just a fleeting but memorable chapter in the history of technology. The greatest race of the digital era still has a long way to go.