1. The 20 Millionth Bitcoin Was Mined — And Only 1 Million Remain
On Monday, March 9, the Bitcoin network quietly passed one of its most significant milestones: the 20 millionth bitcoin was mined by the Foundry USA pool at block height 939,999. That means 95.24% of all bitcoin that will ever exist is now in circulation. The remaining one million coins will trickle out over the next 114 years, with the block reward halving roughly every four years until it reaches zero around 2140. To put the scarcity in perspective, estimates from Chainalysis and River Financial suggest that somewhere between 2.3 and 3.7 million BTC are already permanently lost — meaning the effective circulating supply may never reach 18 million. This milestone is a quiet but powerful reminder of what makes Bitcoin different from every other monetary asset on the planet: absolute, mathematically enforced scarcity.
2. Wall Street Keeps Building — Even as the Price Drifts
Despite a bear market that has Bitcoin down roughly 23% year-to-date, institutional adoption marched forward this week. Kraken became the first crypto firm in history to receive a Federal Reserve Master Account, giving it direct access to the Fedwire payment system without needing an intermediary bank. The approval, granted by the Kansas City Fed after a five-year application process, is a landmark moment for the industry's integration into the traditional financial plumbing. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley named BNY Mellon and Coinbase Custody as custodians for its proposed Bitcoin Trust ETF and filed for a national trust bank charter to custody digital assets. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, invested in crypto exchange OKX at a $25 billion valuation. The infrastructure is being built regardless of where the price goes.
3. Iran, Oil, and the New Macro Regime for Bitcoin
The dominant force moving markets this month isn't an ETF approval or a protocol upgrade — it's geopolitics. The U.S.-Israel–Iran conflict has escalated dramatically, with oil surging toward $100 per barrel after attacks on oil tankers in Iraqi waters this week. Bitcoin initially dropped about 4% to $63,000 when U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran began on February 28 but has since recovered sharply and is trading near $72,400 today. What's interesting is the shifting narrative: CoinShares' James Butterfill argues that the traditional relationship between interest rate expectations and crypto has broken down, and geopolitics has taken its place as the primary price driver. Since the conflict escalated in late February, Bitcoin has outperformed both gold and equities — suggesting some investors are beginning to treat BTC as a geopolitical hedge rather than just a speculative risk asset.
4. Bear Market Deepens, but Smart Money Keeps Accumulating
The numbers paint a conflicted picture. Bitcoin spot ETFs absorbed over 11,200 BTC (roughly $734 million) in net inflows over the past seven days, even as the spot price drifted lower — a sign that long-only institutional mandates are deploying capital, not redeeming. At the same time, a classic head-and-shoulders pattern has formed on the four-hour chart, and investment firm ZX Squared Capital warned that BTC could fall another 30%, citing the historically predictable four-year cycle that sees prices peak roughly 16–18 months after each halving. With the FOMC meeting on March 18 and a persistent "sell the news" pattern around Fed decisions, short-term volatility is all but guaranteed. But large-scale investors have reportedly been buying the dips — a dynamic that has historically preceded periods of stronger performance.
Bitcoin Weekly Concept: The Halving and Why It Matters
Every 210,000 blocks (roughly every four years), the reward that miners receive for adding a new block to the Bitcoin blockchain is cut in half. This event is called the "halving." When Bitcoin launched in 2009, miners earned 50 BTC per block. After the most recent halving in April 2024, that reward dropped to 3.125 BTC. The halving is the mechanism that enforces Bitcoin's fixed supply cap of 21 million coins. It also creates a predictable supply shock: the rate at which new bitcoin enters circulation is suddenly cut by 50%, while demand can stay the same or grow. Historically, halvings have preceded major bull runs — though each cycle has played out differently, and past performance is never a guarantee. What the halving really represents is something deeper: a monetary policy that no government, central bank, or board of directors can change. It runs on math, not trust. And this week, with the 20 millionth coin mined, that scarcity became more real than ever.
Until next Friday, The Bitcoin Weekly