There is a number worth doing some serious math on: the 21 million cap of Bitcoin you know about may have already become a relic of the past.

Why do I say that? Because the coins that are dormant on the blockchain are real. The brother in Wales lost a hard drive containing 8,000 coins, and the former Ripple technical lead completely forgot the password for 7,002 coins—these kinds of events happen silently every day. Satoshi Nakamoto's original statement now seems like a prophecy: "If you lose it, just treat it as a donation to everyone." Now, the scale of this "donation" is enough to change the entire market dynamics.

The on-chain data is right there. Of the approximately 20 million mined Bitcoin, analysis firms generally believe that the permanently lost coins fluctuate between 2.3 million and 8 million. Using the most conservative estimate of just over 3 million, you can see: the actually circulating coins might have already been moving between 12 million and 17 million.

What are institutions and large holders fighting over now? Basically, they are fighting over the remaining "living water." The market discusses daily how much each institution has bought, how much money has flowed into ETFs, and so on. But if you reverse the calculation: subtract the permanently lost (at least 3 million) from the mined (about 20 million), then subtract the long-term believers who have locked up (around 14 million), and then subtract the holdings of major institutions and national treasuries (a few million), what’s left is just a small amount. This is truly what the market is competing for.