What is Circulating supply?
The quantity of bitcoin that has been mined, verifiable directly against the issuance schedule.
Unlike almost every other asset in this field, Bitcoin's issued supply is a hard number: it follows deterministically from block height and the halving schedule, and every node checks it.
Issued is not the same as available. An unknown quantity is permanently lost, and a further share sits in custody arrangements that never move on-chain.
Related terms
Block subsidy
The newly issued bitcoin paid to the miner of each block. It began at 50 BTC and halves every 210,000 blocks.
EconomicsHalving
The scheduled 50% reduction of the block subsidy, occurring every 210,000 blocks — roughly every four years.
On-chain dataDormant supply
Coins that have not moved for a long period, often used as a proxy for long-term holding or permanent loss.
Economics21 million cap
Bitcoin's maximum supply, which emerges from the halving schedule rather than being set as a separate…
This definition is part of the Bitcoin Logical glossary. For the fuller explanation, start with Learn, or see the live numbers on The Bitcoin Signal.