Bitcoin in numbers

Bitcoin can also be told in numbers. How many units exist, how much they're worth, how many machines secure the network, how many users rely on it. Here are the essential orders of magnitude as of May 2026, placed in historical context and compared to familiar references (gold, stock indices, central banks).

Market values (price, market cap) move constantly: we always indicate the date and source of orders of magnitude when relevant. Structural values (cap, issuance schedule, divisibility) are fixed by construction.

Supply: issued, remaining, lost, dormant

Of the 21 million×21 millionMaximum number of bitcoins that will ever exist, hard-coded in the protocol. This programmed scarcity is a founding feature. The last sat will be mined around the year 2140.See in the lexicon → bitcoins the network will ever see, about 20.03 million are already in circulation as of May 2026, that is 95.4% of the cap. The remaining 0.97 million will be issued very slowly, halving×HalvingScheduled event every 210,000 blocks (roughly every 4 years) that cuts the miner reward in half. This mechanism makes Bitcoin issuance decline towards the total cap of 21 million.See in the lexicon → after halving, until roughly 2140.

But the actually available supply is more limited. Several studies (Chainalysis, Glassnode, River) estimate that 17 to 23% of issued bitcoins are lost forever: private keys mislaid in the early years (notably the ~1 million BTC attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto×Satoshi NakamotoPseudonym of the creator (or collective) behind Bitcoin. Active on forums from 2008 to 2011, then vanished without revealing any identity. Holds roughly 1.1 million BTC that have never moved.See in the lexicon →, never moved), handling mistakes, destroyed media.

Other bitcoins are "dormant": they haven't moved in 5, 10 or 15 years. This category represents a significant share of the total and points to long-term holders who don't sell. In 2026, the share of bitcoins inactive for more than 5 years exceeds 30%.

Conclusion: the truly liquid supply, the share that could move tomorrow, is probably in the 11 to 13 million range, to be compared to an institutional demand that has only grown since the spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved in January 2024.

Market cap and place in global finance

Bitcoin's market cap is computed simply: BTC price times BTC in circulation. Over the past 18 months, it has moved within a range of about 1.3 to 2 trillion USD (1,300 to 2,000 billion USD).

To place these numbers in the global financial landscape:

• Physical gold: ~14 trillion USD. Bitcoin weighs 10 to 15% of gold, versus less than 1% in 2017.
• S&P 500 (top 500 US listings): ~50 trillion USD in total.
• Global stock market cap: ~115 trillion USD.
• Silver (precious metal): ~1.7 trillion USD. Bitcoin sometimes sits above, sometimes below.
• Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia (each): 3 to 4 trillion USD each in 2026. Bitcoin weighs about half of one such company.

Another useful benchmark: global M2 money supply (cash + deposits) exceeds 110 trillion USD. Bitcoin is less than 2% of that pool, leaving in theory a lot of headroom if monetary adoption continues. That's the argument long-term holders often use to justify much higher target prices.

The Bitcoin network in numbers

Behind the price sits a global computer network that never stops. Beyond the figures in the table above, a few orders of magnitude:

• Computing power: the hashrate×HashrateTotal computing power deployed by miners, measured in hashes per second (EH/s, exahashes). The higher the hashrate, the more expensive the network is to attack.See in the lexicon → reaches 883.5 EH/s, more than a hundred times its 2017 level (around 5 EH/s). This growth makes any attack on the network increasingly costly.
• Mining×MiningProcess of validating blocks through proof of work. Consumes electricity by design : that is what secures the network.See in the lexicon → difficulty: around 139 T (trillion), readjusted every 2,016 blocks to keep blocks at 10 minutes whatever the power plugged in.
• Node×NodeComputer that runs the Bitcoin software and takes part in the network by validating blocks and transactions. A « full node » keeps a complete copy of the blockchain.See in the lexicon → distribution: thousands of public full nodes across more than 100 countries, complemented by tens of thousands of private nodes (home Raspberry Pis, in-house corporate infrastructure).
• Throughput: 2 to 7 transactions per second on the base layer, with no fixed cap on secondary layers like Lightning.
• Median transaction fee: between 0.50 and 3 USD depending on congestion, sometimes more during peaks. On Lightning, fees are measured in millisatoshis, practically zero.
• Estimated electricity consumption: 150 to 200 TWh per year depending on the model (Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index), the order of magnitude of a country like Poland. More than half of the energy used now comes from renewables or otherwise-flared gas, according to the Bitcoin Mining Council.
• Addresses with a positive balance: more than 55 million. One person can hold many addresses, so this figure is not a unique-user counter.

Global adoption

Who holds bitcoins in 2026? A category-by-category tour:

• Individual users: estimated at 250 to 300 million people who have ever held bitcoins (Crypto.com surveys, Statista, World Bank Digital Finance). That's about 3.5% of the global population, but with strong concentration in North America, Europe and East Asia.
• Listed companies: more than 80 listed firms hold bitcoin on their balance sheet, including MicroStrategy×MicroStrategy (Strategy)US company led by Michael Saylor, which has made bitcoin its main treasury asset since 2020. More than 400,000 BTC accumulated by 2025.See in the lexicon → (~600,000 BTC, top corporate holder), Tesla, Block, Marathon Digital, Riot Platforms. Total estimated: ~1.2 million BTC in corporate treasury.
• Spot Bitcoin ETFs: approved in the United States in January 2024, they collectively hold more than 1.3 million BTC in 2026 (BlackRock×BlackRockWorld's largest asset manager. Launched its Bitcoin spot ETF IBIT in January 2024, which accumulated more than 500,000 BTC in 2 years.See in the lexicon →'s IBIT, Fidelity's FBTC, Ark's ARKB, etc.).
• States: El Salvador×El SalvadorFirst country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, in September 2021 under Nayib Bukele. Its status was amended in 2025 under IMF pressure.See in the lexicon → (legal tender since 2021, ~6,000 BTC in reserve), Central African Republic (briefly legal tender in 2022, abandoned), Bhutan (mining×MiningProcess of validating blocks through proof of work. Consumes electricity by design : that is what secures the network.See in the lexicon → via hydropower, undisclosed reserve estimated at several thousand BTC). The United States announced in March 2025 a strategic reserve made of seized bitcoins (~200,000 BTC). El Salvador has prompted discussions in several Latin American and African countries.
• Traditional banks: since 2024, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and several large Swiss banks (UBS, ZKB, Sygnum) offer bitcoin access to their institutional and wealthy clients.

Adoption also progresses on the merchant side: more than 30,000 brick-and-mortar venues worldwide accept bitcoin (often via Lightning), and tens of thousands of e-commerce sites offer it as a payment method, mostly through integrators like BTCPay Server or OpenNode.