Which cryptocurrencies have a fixed supply? Capped and uncapped coins
Bitcoin will never have more than 21 million coins. Ethereum, Monero, Dogecoin and Solana have no such limit. Many native cryptocurrencies carry a maximum supply, and together they hold most of the market's value — but a cap says when issuance stops, not who received the coins or how they were made.
Which cryptocurrencies have a fixed supply?
257 of the 504 native cryptocurrencies have a maximum supply, together 81% of their combined market cap. The best known are Bitcoin (21 million), Litecoin (84 million), Bitcoin Cash, Zcash, Kaspa and Cardano (45 billion). Ethereum, Monero, Dogecoin and Solana have no cap.
How the best-known caps work
| Cryptocurrency | Maximum supply | How the cap works |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | 21,000,000 | The block reward halves every 210,000 blocks, about every four years. More than 95% is already issued; the last fractions arrive around 2140. |
| Litecoin | 84,000,000 | Bitcoin's schedule with four times the coins and blocks four times as fast. |
| Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV | 21,000,000 | Inherited from Bitcoin at the 2017 and 2018 splits, with every balance from before the split. |
| Zcash | 21,000,000 | Bitcoin's schedule. A fifth of every block reward has gone to development funds rather than miners since launch. |
| Kaspa | ≈ 28.7 billion | The reward falls a little every month instead of halving every four years. |
| Cardano | 45,000,000,000 | Staking rewards are paid from a reserve that shrinks every epoch; the cap is the genesis supply plus that reserve. |
| XRP | 100,000,000,000 | Every coin was created at genesis. Nothing is mined; Ripple releases its holdings from escrow. |
| BNB | 200,000,000 | Created at launch; quarterly burns shrink the supply toward 100 million. |
The fixed-supply list ranks every capped coin by market cap, with its circulating supply and the share of the cap already issued, rebuilt every six hours.
The large coins without a cap, and why
Ethereum pays validators in new ether with no upper limit. Since August 2021 part of every transaction fee is burned, so in busy periods the supply has shrunk; in quiet ones it grows. The design aims at a stable security budget rather than a fixed count.
Monero finished its main emission in May 2022 and switched to a permanent tail of 0.6 XMR a block. The argument is about security: once the subsidy ends, miners on a capped chain live on fees alone, and nobody yet knows whether fees will pay for enough hashrate. The tail adds under 1% a year, a share that falls as the supply grows.
Dogecoin removed its cap in 2014 and pays 10,000 DOGE a block forever, about 5 billion a year — roughly 3.5% of the supply today, falling every year. Solana started at 8% annual inflation, cut by 15% each year toward a floor of 1.5%. Most proof-of-stake chains work the same way: stakers are paid in new coins, and the rate, not the total, is what the protocol fixes.
Capped and uncapped, by consensus family
| Consensus family | With a cap | Without |
|---|---|---|
| Proof of work | 70 | 55 |
| Proof of stake | 96 | 116 |
| Hybrid | 13 | 15 |
| Proof of space | 2 | 3 |
| Federated | 6 | 4 |
| Proof of authority | 20 | 2 |
| Other | 50 | 52 |
Live counts from the site's data. A coin counts as capped when the market-data sources report a maximum supply for it.
Proof of work leans toward caps because most mined coins copied Bitcoin's schedule. Proof of stake leans the other way: a staking chain has to keep paying validators, and new coins are the simplest way to do it.
What a cap does not tell you
Who got the coins. A cap is only a ceiling. XRP's 100 billion all existed on day one and went to its founders and Ripple; Hyperliquid's billion HYPE were created at genesis and are released on a schedule. Bitcoin's 21 million had to be mined by whoever turned up. The three caps look alike in a table and describe very different launches — which is why the fair-launch list and the premine figures on each asset page sit beside it.
Whether the cap is in the code. The figure comes from market-data sources, and they sometimes miss a cap the protocol has, or report one that governance can change. A token's "maximum supply" means little while its issuer can still mint past it.
How fast new coins arrive. An uncapped coin with a small tail can add fewer new coins a year than a capped coin early in its schedule. Monero's tail is a smaller share of its supply than many capped coins issue in their first years.
How the CoinSpectrum Grade counts a cap
The CoinSpectrum Grade scores supply inside its "minting and supply" criterion: 90% of the score is who can create new coins, 10% is whether the supply has a fixed maximum. A cap adds one point out of ten on that criterion, and an open-ended supply adds none. That keeps the cap as a small preference rather than a verdict: Monero, open to any miner with no premine, still scores 9 there, and Ethereum, uncapped and minted by stakers, scores 6.3. For a token, the point counts only when no one can mint any more. The highest-graded list shows where each coin lands overall.
Questions
Which cryptocurrencies have a fixed supply?
Bitcoin (21 million), Litecoin (84 million), Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV (21 million each), Zcash (21 million), Kaspa (about 28.7 billion), Cardano (45 billion), XRP (100 billion) and BNB, among 257 native coins with a reported maximum supply.
Does Ethereum have a maximum supply?
No. Ethereum pays validators in new ether without an upper limit. Since 2021 part of every fee is burned, so the supply can shrink in busy periods, but there is no cap in the protocol.
Does Monero have a maximum supply?
No. Since May 2022 Monero issues a permanent 0.6 XMR per block, so miners are always paid by the protocol and not only by fees. It adds under 1% a year, and less every year.
Does Dogecoin have a supply limit?
No. Dogecoin removed its cap in 2014 and issues 10,000 DOGE per block, about 5 billion a year. As the supply grows, that is a falling share of it, about 3.5% today.
Is a fixed supply better than an uncapped one?
It is a trade-off. A cap makes the total certain; a tail keeps paying the people who secure the chain once the subsidy would otherwise end. The CoinSpectrum Grade gives a cap one point out of ten on its minting and supply criterion, a small preference rather than a verdict.
What happens when all 21 million bitcoin are mined?
Miners are paid by transaction fees alone. Issuance falls by half every four years until then, so the change is gradual; the last new fractions of a bitcoin are expected around 2140.
How many cryptocurrencies have a fixed supply?
257 of the 504 native cryptocurrencies on the site have a maximum supply reported by the market-data sources; 247 do not.