Why There’s Not Enough Bitcoin for Every Millionaire

Only 21 million bitcoins will ever exist — and a chunk of those may already be gone forever. This blog unpacks what that scarcity really means: why there isn’t enough BTC for every millionaire, how halvings cut new supply even further, and whether models like Stock-to-Flow still make sense in today’s unpredictable markets. Featuring insights from Don Kruger, Head of Platform at EasyEquities.

1. There’s not enough Bitcoin to go around – Only 21 million BTC will ever exist, and nearly 4 million are already lost forever. That makes the real supply closer to 17 million, with over 56 million millionaires globally.
   
   
2. Bitcoin can’t be printed like rands or dollars – Unlike fiat currencies, which governments inflate with money printing, Bitcoin’s supply is capped and shrinks every 4 years thanks to “halving” events.
   
   
3. The Stock-to-Flow model tries to explain Bitcoin’s value – It links scarcity to price and worked for a while, but real-world demand shifts (like interest rate hikes) can still override the model.

Imagine a pie that only ever has 21 million slices – and no baker on Earth can whip up more. That, in a nutshell, is Bitcoin. It’s mathematically programmed to have a hard cap of 21 million coins ever. As of today, about 19.8 million BTC have been mined, and the ovens are slowing down. To make the pie slices even smaller, a hefty chunk of those coins are effectively off the table – studies estimate 3–4 million BTC are lost forever (forgotten passwords, lost hard drives, you name it). So the real available supply might be closer to ~17 million coins for the whole world.



Now, consider this jaw-dropping scenario highlighted by BlackRock: there are around 56 million millionaires globally (with a good few thousand in South Africa alone). If every U.S. millionaire – never mind global millionaires – wanted to own just 1 BTC, they literally couldn’t; there wouldn’t be enough Bitcoin to go around. 

This is an example of scarcity economics in action – a limited supply and growing interest. In theory, when demand increases for a fixed-supply asset, its price may reflect that imbalance over time.

When something is truly scarce and many people want it, Economics 101 says its price tends to shoot up. Bitcoin is designed to be that kind of scarce. No central bank, no tech wizard, not even Elon Musk with all his rocket genius, can create a new Bitcoin out of thin air. The code won’t allow it.

And demand? Retail investors, institutions, nation-states – everyone’s dipping their toes (or diving headlong) into Bitcoin. Companies like MicroStrategy have stockpiled thousands of BTC, and even stablecoin issuers like Tether quietly grabbed 8,888 BTC in one swoop recently (worth close to $1 billion) and continue their acquisition strategy. With big players hoarding and long-term “HODLers” refusing to sell, the coins in circulation each day are shrinking. It’s a bit like property in an upmarket Cape Town suburb – very few listings, plenty of buyers.

Money Printers vs. Hard Money: Bitcoin vs. Fiat Currencies
So Bitcoin is scarce – provably scarce. Big deal, right? Can’t governments just make their own money and forget this crypto nonsense? Ah, they do make their own money – by the trillions. That’s precisely the point. In the fiat currency world (think rand, dollar, euro), central banks have a magical money printer, and boy do they use it. “In a world where central banks print trillions of dollars at will, Bitcoin stands apart as the hardest form of money ever created,” as one analysis succinctly put it.

Unlike your rands or dollars, which can be produced in unlimited quantities with a few keystrokes at the Reserve Bank, Bitcoin’s supply is inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the Bitcoin protocol won’t churn out more than 21 million. It’s locked tighter than a vault – it is quite literally the most deeply encrypted technologically secure system to have ever existed, and the more society participates, the more secure it becomes.

Why should we care?
One word: inflation. When governments flood the economy with new money, the value of each unit of currency falls. Prices at the shop rise – you’ve probably noticed your grocery or petrol bill climbing each year.

The South African rand has lost about half its value against the US dollar in the past decade alone. Put differently, what cost R100 in 2013 might cost around R200 today just due to currency debasement. And the U.S. dollar – supposedly “stable” – has lost ~90% of its purchasing power since the 1950s. This is not a design flaw; it’s a feature of fiat money. Central banks aim for a bit of inflation (usually ~2% per year), and often overshoot. They’ll tell you it’s to encourage spending and growth. Maybe so, but it also means the cash under your mattress quietly loses value over time.

Now contrast that with Bitcoin: zero money printing, ever. Bitcoin is often called “hard money” because it’s hard to increase its supply. Think gold, but even more extreme – gold miners can dig a little faster or find new deposits if price spikes, but with Bitcoin, no amount of demand can make more than 21 million exist. This built-in scarcity is why Bitcoin enthusiasts call it an inflation hedge.

As investor Anthony Pompliano put it during a 2024 TV interview, Bitcoin’s inherent scarcity – only 21 million coins – gives it a leg up on fiat currencies like the dollar or rand, which can be printed ad infinitum. Fiat loses value with each new banknote printed; Bitcoin appeals to some users because its supply is predetermined and cannot be inflated or diluted by design.

For South African investors used to seeing the rand slip year after year, Bitcoin was designed to be immune to monetary expansion – its supply is fixed and not subject to changes by central banks or governments. Of course, Bitcoin’s price in rand or dollars can swing wildly (it’s a young, volatile asset), but its monetary supply is solid and predictable.

Many now view it as “digital gold” – a store of value to park wealth long-term. In some countries experiencing high inflation or currency instability, Bitcoin adoption has increased – often driven by a search for alternative stores of value or means of exchange. When your alternative is a bank balance that buys 10% less each year, a bit of volatility in a non-depreciating asset can seem quite attractive!

Halving Events: Programmed Scarcity on Steroids
If Bitcoin’s fixed supply is its superpower, the halving cycle is the steady heartbeat that makes it all work. Now, “halving” might sound like something out of a horror film (“The Halvening”!), but it’s actually a planned event every four years or so that cuts the rate at which new bitcoins are created. Think of it as Bitcoin tightening its own belt on a schedule. Every 210,000 blocks (roughly every 4 years), the reward miners receive for producing a new block is slashed by 50%. This is not a policy decision or a response to market conditions – it was hard-coded by Bitcoin’s creator (Satoshi Nakamoto) from day one.

Why halve the rewards? Because it ensures that the supply of Bitcoin grows at a decreasing rate over time, trending toward that 21 million cap asymptotically.

In the beginning, Bitcoin miners got 50 BTC as a reward for each new block (back in 2009 when 50 BTC was worth basically nothing). Then came the first halving in 2012 – the reward dropped to 25 BTC. In 2016, it halved to 12.5 BTC. In May 2020, it became 6.25 BTC. And most recently in April 2024, it halved again to 3.125 BTC per block. From now until the next halving in 2028, only 3.125 new bitcoins are minted roughly every 10 minutes. After that, it’ll be ~1.5625 BTC, and so on. By design, minting slows down over time and effectively stops by the year 2140.

The halving is basically a scheduled supply shock. Overnight, the flow of new coins entering the market is cut in half. Basic economics suggests that if demand stays the same (or rises) and new supply drops, upward price pressure builds. And indeed, after each of the past three halvings, Bitcoin has seen massive rallies in the ensuing 12–18 months. We’re talking on the order of +300% or more gains in the year following those halvings.

Analysts continue to debate whether halvings directly drive Bitcoin’s price movements. Regardless, these events often renew focus on the asset’s fixed-supply narrative. It’s like a built-in marketing event where Bitcoin reminds the world: “Hey, I just became twice as scarce relative to demand!”

Iif every four years the supply of new gold coming out of mines was cut in half – you’d probably bet on gold prices rising over time, right? Bitcoin does this like clockwork, with no need for miners to go on strike or OPEC-style supply agreements. It’s simply how the code works. This predictable scarcity schedule is one reason people feel comfortable projecting Bitcoin’s value decades into the future – something virtually impossible to do with fiat currencies. (Quick: what will the rand’s supply be in 2030? Even the Reserve Bank can’t tell you exactly, because it depends on economic conditions and policy decisions. But we know almost to the decimal how many bitcoins will exist in 2030.)

The Stock-to-Flow Model: Quantifying Scarcity (and Why It’s Not Magic)
All this talk of supply, demand, and halvings naturally led some analytically-minded folks to try putting Bitcoin’s value into a mathematical model. Enter the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, a concept borrowed from commodities like gold and silver.


In simple terms, “stock” is the existing supply of an asset (all the gold above ground, or all the bitcoins in circulation) and “flow” is the new supply added each year (gold mining output, or new bitcoins mined annually). The S2F ratio is stock divided by flow – a measure of how scarce (or “hard”) an asset is.

The higher the number, the longer it would take for new production to double the existing supply. Gold has a high S2F (around 60+ years worth of production to match current stock), which is partly why it’s so valuable. Bitcoin’s S2F keeps increasing due to halvings – making it arguably even more scarce than gold over time.

The S2F model for Bitcoin was popularized by a pseudonymous analyst known as PlanB in a 2019 paper titled “Modeling Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity.” The model essentially plotted Bitcoin’s historical price against its S2F ratio over time (which jumps upward at each halving). The relationship looked striking – a nice upward slope – suggesting that as Bitcoin’s programmed scarcity increased, so did its market value. PlanB’s thesis: scarcity drives value, and you can quantify that scarcity with S2F.

At the time, this was an exciting idea: a single elegant formula to predict Bitcoin’s price based on a built-in feature (limited supply). It gave some investors a comforting sense that there was a “fundamental” valuation model for Bitcoin, akin to how we value stocks (by earnings) or real estate (by rental yield).

According to S2F, after the 2020 halving Bitcoin was on track to reach price levels in the high five or low six figures (in USD) in the early 2020s. For a while, reality seemed to roughly follow the model’s trajectory… until it didn’t. By late 2021, PlanB’s model famously missed its target – predicting ~$98,000 when Bitcoin actually stagnated around ~$57,000. That miss sparked a lot of debate. Critics pointed out that S2F looks only at supply (which is indeed fixed and programmatic) but ignores demand fluctuations. Sure, Bitcoin was getting more scarce, but why assume investors would value that scarcity the same way forever?

In late 2021, macroeconomic factors (like central banks tightening credit) put a damper on Bitcoin’s price, model or no model. In other words, real-world demand is fickle and can’t be fully captured by a neat formula.

Today, even PlanB acknowledges the model is just one lens to view Bitcoin’s value, not Gospel. The S2F model has been called “broken” by some analysts after that 2021 miss . Still, it’s worth understanding why S2F gained popularity: it underscored the narrative that Bitcoin is uniquely scarce and that this scarcity can be measured. If nothing else, S2F helped communicate to a broad audience that Bitcoin wasn’t just magic internet money – it was quantifiably rare.

The takeaway for a sensible investor? Scarcity is certainly a factor (a big one) in Bitcoin’s value, but it’s not the only factor. Human sentiment, regulatory developments, technological improvements, competition from other assets – all these also play roles. No single model can capture something as complex as a global adoption phenomenon. But S2F does illustrate a key truth: as Bitcoin’s new supply shrinks, if demand even just stays where it is, upward price pressure is logical. And if demand grows… well, you do the math.

Simplicity is Genius: Scarcity’s Value Doesn’t Need Fancy Math
After all this talk of models and halvings, you might wonder if you need a PhD in cryptography or economics to justify Bitcoin’s value. Fear not. The beauty of Bitcoin is that its core investment thesis can be dirt simple: there’s a fixed supply and a growing number of people who want it. That’s it. As an investor, sometimes the simplest story is the most powerful. You don’t necessarily need esoteric models or to follow every blockchain technical upgrade. Scarcity plus demand is a tale as old as markets themselves.

Consider antique cars or rare art. You don’t need a calculus equation to guess that a 1961 Jaguar E-Type in mint condition (very few made, beloved by collectors) might fetch a fortune at auction – because it’s scarce and desired. Bitcoin takes that dynamic and amplifies it on a global scale, with the added twist that its scarcity is transparent and unchangeable. We know exactly how many bitcoins exist now and will ever exist, and we roughly know how many people own or want Bitcoin (tens of millions and climbing). There’s no central authority that will flood the market with “Bitcoin v2” without consensus, no surprise increase in supply. It’s refreshingly straightforward in a world of complex financial engineering.

Prominent crypto investor Anthony Pompliano captured this idea well, arguing that Bitcoin’s real strength lies in its straightforward, no-nonsense approach: with a fixed supply and clear long-term proposition, Bitcoin “eliminates the need for complex financial strategies like leverage or market timing”. In other words, one doesn’t have to get too fancy – just holding this scarce asset over time has been a winning strategy historically, especially compared to holding cash that steadily loses value.

It’s a bit ironic: we have this revolutionary, cutting-edge technology (a decentralized digital currency!) but the reason it appeals to many is not that it’s complicated – it’s that it brings us back to a very simple, sound form of money. No printer go “brrr,” no dilution – just a reliable store of value, if you have the patience for some ups and downs.

Some analysts have built elaborate valuation models (like S2F, or demand-based Metcalfe’s law models linking value to network users), and those are intellectually interesting. But you don’t necessarily need them to justify Bitcoin’s place in a portfolio. The supply is limited and the potential demand – if Bitcoin becomes a global reserve asset or “digital gold” – is enormous. That asymmetry is enough for many investors.

As Morgan Housel might remind us: sometimes the best investment narratives are “simple to understand, but hard to execute” (the hard part with Bitcoin being the emotional rollercoaster of its price volatility). Simplicity, however, shouldn’t be confused with easiness. The concept is simple; sticking with it through wild market swings takes conviction.

Escape Velocity
For years, skeptics snickered that Bitcoin would “go to zero” – that it was a passing fad, akin to tulip mania or Beanie Babies. Those days are fading fast. Bitcoin has been around for 15 years now, and with each passing year it’s burrowed deeper into the financial world’s consciousness. At some point in the past couple of years, Bitcoin appears to have reached what can only be called escape velocity – the point where opting out of it becomes riskier for institutions and even countries than embracing it.

Consider this: over 300 million people globally now own or use Bitcoin, and about 50 million of those are in the United States alone. 98% of South Africans are now aware of cryptocurrencies and a significant number own some. This breadth of ownership and awareness provides a kind of implicit insurance that Bitcoin won’t disappear overnight.

Pantera Capital’s Dan Morehead put it well in late 2024: “I used to tell people it could definitely go to zero… I don’t think it’s possible now. Fifty million people in the US own it, 300 million globally. BlackRock and Fidelity are selling it. It really has reached escape velocity.” In other words, there are so many participants and so much infrastructure around Bitcoin that it’s achieved critical mass. Even if one big player were to falter, the network and community are robust enough to keep going. It’s too adopted to fail, if you will.

Look at the signs of societal familiarity and creeping inevitability: Governments are crafting regulations for crypto rather than banning it outright. Blue-chip companies are adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets or accepting it as payment. Every major bank or fintech now offers some form of crypto service to clients (or they’re scrambling to do so).

Bitcoin ETFs – basically Bitcoin in a stock wrapper – have launched and attracted billions in investment, including funds managed by household names like BlackRock, and the South African JSE also starting to get their ducks in a row for a crypto ETF listing. When the world’s largest asset manager and the old guard of finance start embracing an asset, you know the game has changed.

There’s now even talk of sovereign wealth funds and central banks dipping a toe into Bitcoin as part of their reserves. What was once ridiculed as “internet funny money” now gets discussed in the same breath as gold in boardrooms.

This shift in mindset is crucial. We’ve likely passed the point of no return where Bitcoin could fade into obscurity. Short of an unforeseeable catastrophic technology failure (which seems exceedingly unlikely after all this time and testing), Bitcoin looks set to stick around and keep ingraining itself into the global financial system.

People aren’t shocked by the concept of digital currency; they’re curious how it might shape the future and how they can be a part of it. Bitcoin has achieved a level of inevitability in the eyes of many investors – they may not know exactly when it will reach certain price or adoption milestones, but they increasingly view its long-term survival and growth as a given.

Conclusion
The great Bitcoin supply crunch is essentially a story of supply and demand on a collision course. Unlike the price of oil or maize, where higher demand eventually brings out more supply, Bitcoin’s supply curve is fixed and knows no master. That’s an unprecedented situation in finance. It doesn’t guarantee short-term price moves (so don’t go mortgaging the farm expecting a quick buck), but it does set up a structurally bullish case over the long term. And importantly, you don’t need complex models or an MIT degree to grasp that case – scarcity is a simple concept, easy enough for anyone to get.


Don Kruger - Head of Platform


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References
1.    Africa.com – Crypto Awareness in South Africa: “Crypto awareness is nearly universal in Nigeria and South Africa with 99% and 98% reporting familiarity with the concept.” Nigeria and South Africa Lead Global Crypto Ownership Rankings, Dec 17 2024.
2.    BlackRock Investment Institute – “Why Bitcoin? A Model Portfolio Builder’s View.” Highlights Bitcoin’s 21 million cap, 3–4 million lost coins, and scarcity relative to millionaire numbers.
3.    AFS Wealth – Rand Trends Over The Long Term (Jan 2023).
4.    NPR – “A big thing has just happened to Bitcoin. It’s called the halving,” Apr 16 2024.
5.    Morpher Blog – Steven Holm, “The Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow Model: A Comprehensive Overview,” Feb 12 2024.
6.    Bookmap – Owain Higham, “Is PlanB’s Stock-to-Flow Model Broken?” Dec 1 2024.
7.    Bitget News – Cryptodnes, “Bitcoin’s Simplicity and Scarcity: A Stronger Hedge Against Inflation?” Oct 21 2024.
8.    The Daily Hodl – “Pantera Capital Sees 131,165% Performance on BTC As CEO Dan Morehead Says Bitcoin Has Reached ‘Escape Velocity’,” Nov 26 2024.
9.    Medium – Shelley Mae, “The Hidden Bitcoin Grab: Institutions Are Eating the Supply,” Apr 30 2025.

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