The total supply of Bitcoin is just 21 million coins. As of now (November 29, 2025), about 19.95 million have been mined, leaving roughly the last 1.05 million, expected to be fully mined by 2140. This sounds like sci-fi, but it's exciting to think about: without new coin rewards, will miners still stick with the network? Will fees become too expensive to use? Will Bitcoin's security collapse? Today, I'll break down these pitfalls in plain English so beginners can get it in seconds.

Last week, Bitcoin just crossed the 95% milestone, sparking another wave of "world's end" panic on X, but it's stabilized now.

First, why does Bitcoin stick to the 21 million cap?  Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to create a hard currency where "central banks can't just print more? No way."  The US dollar gets hyperinflated at will, value plummeting; Bitcoin's supply is fixed—once mined, it's gone for good. That's the soul of "digital gold"—scarcity makes it valuable.

Last November, the price halved from $120K to $89K and climbed back; my friends jokingly call it the "pre-halving tremor."  Current mining reward is 3.125 BTC every 10 minutes, halving every four years—next in 2028 to 1.5625. It gets harder over time, with the last coin in 2140.  Even harsher: lost private keys or fried hard drives have already taken about 17-20% of coins offline forever, making the actual circulating supply far less than 21 million, and scarcity will only intensify.

Core Pitfall 1:

After mining ends, what do miners eat?  Miners now live on "block rewards + fees." Post-2140, rewards zero out, leaving only fees—will it collapse?  Don't worry, I think it's solid:  Fees will rise modestly; during peaks, pay more to jump the queue, like surge pricing for rides. But they won't skyrocket 10x—if too expensive, everyone jumps to layer 2.  Enter the Lightning Network: perfect for small transactions, seconds to settle, fees negligible. Last month, I bought coffee with it for pennies—awesome!  Mining farm shakeout: small players can't hang and exit; big operations with scale economies keep costs low and continue feasting on the fee pool. Difficulty auto-adjusts, so the 10-minute block rhythm stays steady.

Core Pitfall 2:

Without rewards, how's network security?  Some fear miners bail, letting hackers pull off 51% attacks. Overthinking it:  Daily fees are already over $400K; by 2140, usage multiplies dozens of times, fee pool only fatter.  Attack costs sky-high, remaining big farms concentrate hash power, making it even harder to budge.  You've seen Bitcoin's "self-healing" before: block size wars, regulatory hammers, hacks... which time didn't the community brainstorm + hard fork fix it? This 95% milestone mini-panic? X blows over in days.

Core Pitfall 3:

What about price?  Short-term (it's 115 years away) impact near zero.  Long-term, one sentence: scarcity maxed out, no more new coins, those 3-4 million lost forever won't return, supply-demand only tighter, institutions hoard like gold, price likely slow bull.

Core Pitfall 4:

What should us regular folks do now?  Three things suffice:  Hold what you should, scarcity is king.  Play with Lightning Network, get familiar with the future main payment tool.  Don't buy the "mining ends, it crashes" doomsday FUD—pure sheep-shearing nonsense.

Finally, from the heart:  2140 is Bitcoin's "coming of age"—upgrading from milk (block rewards) to earning its keep (fees), truly becoming a fully self-sustaining, decentralized perpetual motion machine.  Other coins copy homework, but Bitcoin's the first and toughest survivor.  Even if new issues arise, thousands of global nodes and millions of users shoulder it together—more reliable than any centralized system.

(Data from on-chain real-time stats + public reports; trends matter more than numbers, investing has risks, stay rational and enjoy the show)