People talk about the 21 million supply cap like it's a hard ceiling. It's actually a ceiling with a hole in it.

Best estimates put lost coins somewhere between 3 and 4 million. Satoshi's wallets alone 1.1 million Bitcoin that hasn't moved since 2009. Early miners who lost drives. Passwords forgotten. Wallets from exchanges that shut down years ago.

That's not coming back.

So the real number in circulation is closer to 17 or 18 million, and it's shrinking every year as more wallets go dormant, more seeds get lost, more hardware fails.

Meanwhile the issuance slows every four years. We're well past three halvings now. The rate of new Bitcoin entering circulation is tiny compared to what's already out there.

I ran ASICs for a couple years. Understanding how blocks actually work, how each halving is just math baked into the code, not a decision anyone makes. That's when the supply thesis stopped feeling like an argument and started feeling like a law of physics.

You can debate price all day. The supply schedule isn't debatable.

What does a hard cap of 21 million mean when 20% of it is already permanently out of reach?