As the next Bitcoin halving event continues to draw closer, Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, has reignited debates on the longstanding discussion about Bitcoin’s scarcity.
In a post issued earlier today, CZ emphasized Bitcoin’s nature, noting that it is a deflationary asset and its available supply may actually be less than expected.
20% of Bitcoin irrecoverable
In his statement, CZ expressed the belief that the actual amount of Bitcoin’s available supply could be much less than what many people expect.
According to his estimate, over 20.07 million Bitcoin have been mined as of August 2026 out of the total 21 million supply limit. As such, he noted that this leaves just 4.4% of Bitcoin’s maximum supply yet to be mined.
While about 20.07 million Bitcoin are expected to be available to the market since they have been mined, CZ mentioned that the tokens available to the market could be less than this figure, suggesting that Bitcoin is even more scarce than is often claimed.
Why is Bitcoin scarce?
To back his point, CZ further estimated that 10% to 20% of the available Bitcoin supply may be lost, stuck, or permanently unrecoverable due to various factors.
He mentioned that these irrecoverable tokens could include Bitcoin tokens held in wallets whose private keys have been lost or funds that are otherwise inaccessible.
As such, CZ has warned that the number of Bitcoin that can actually be bought, sold, or moved by potential traders could be substantially lower than the total number that has been mined so far.
