What is Max supply?
The hard ceiling on how many coins a protocol will ever create, where one exists.
Some protocols cap issuance — Bitcoin at 21 million — and some do not. A cap makes future dilution predictable; no cap means issuance is a policy decision you have to track.
A coin with no max supply is not automatically bad, but it needs demand to absorb new supply for holders to keep their share of the network.
Related terms
- Circulating supplyBasics
The coins that exist and can be traded right now, as opposed to the total ever created.
- HalvingBasics
The scheduled cut in new Bitcoin issued per block, every 210,000 blocks, roughly four years.
- InflationMacro
The rate at which prices rise, and the reason 'hard-capped supply' is a selling point.