In a round million milestone, 17 mln bitcoins (BTC) have now been mined as of today, April 26, according to data from statoshi.info. Because of Bitcoin’s supply cap of 21 mln, this means that only 4 mln Bitcoin, or about 19 percent, remain to be mined.
The last time the number of Bitcoin mined hit a round million mark was in late November, 2016. Bitcoin’s code dictates that there is a 21 mln coin cap, created as a way to introduce digital scarcity to the cryptocurrency. The protocol is also designed to make the rate that coins are produced slower over time – every 210,000 blocks the network halves the block reward, meaning that the rate of new BTC creation exponentially slows down.