's familiar 84 million figure describes a rounded issuance ceiling under the current subsidy rules. It is not the number of coins available for sale, the value of a 's immediately spendable outputs or a measurement of how many owners still possess their keys. To answer “how many Litecoin are there?”, first choose a definition and a .
This guide provides the integer subsidy rule, correct era boundaries and a dated height-based calculation. It replaces the earlier floating “roughly 76 million in 2026” estimate. The calculation is reproducible; it is deliberately not presented as a full audit of historical coinbase claims, burns, MWEB accounting or lost keys.
Five supply questions that need different evidence
| Quantity | What it describes | Main limit |
|---|---|---|
| Rounded headline cap | The familiar 84,000,000 LTC ceiling | Does not include the detail of integer truncation |
| Scheduled subsidy allowance | Sum of permitted subsidies through a specified height | Not proof every permitted amount was claimed or remains spendable |
| Provider circulating supply | A provider's defined supply measure at a timestamp | Definitions and adjustments need inspection |
| Unspent or currently spendable value | A defined chain-state or wallet view | Locks, maturity, ownership and accounting scope matter |
| Accessible or freely traded supply | Coins whose holders can or may transact | Private-key availability and willingness to sell are not a chain census |
These quantities can legitimately differ. A newly created coinbase output may be unspent while still subject to maturity rules. An old output may be unspent with a perfectly usable . An 's aggregate balance may represent many customers. None of those observations alone establishes supply.
Why the cap is approximately four times Bitcoin's
For the reviewed Litecoin mainnet rules, the starting subsidy is 50 LTC and the interval is 840,000 . Ignoring integer truncation, the first full era permits 42 million LTC and an infinite geometric series doubles that to 84 million. The decisive arithmetic is the starting subsidy multiplied by the number of blocks in each era, then summed across reductions.
The 150-second target makes those eras last approximately four years in calendar time. Faster blocks alone do not force a particular total supply: a designer could choose a different reward or interval. Litecoin's mainnet parameters specify the chosen values. Bitcoin's versioned mainnet configuration uses a 210,000-block halving interval, one quarter of Litecoin's.
“Four times” is a useful comparison of those issuance designs, not evidence of a fourfold valuation, equal demand or a required . The exact smallest-unit schedules also need integer arithmetic rather than an infinite sequence of decimal fractions.
The subsidy belongs to a height, not a calendar date
Let h be a nonnegative mainnet block height and e = floor(h / 840000). The permitted subsidy in is 5000000000 >> e, with the implementation returning zero explicitly once the shift would be outside its supported range. Dividing by 100,000,000 converts litoshis to LTC. The reviewed rule is GetBlockSubsidy; the mainnet interval comes from the separate parameter file.
The initial era begins at genesis height 0. The reduced subsidy applies at each multiple of 840,000. The earlier table incorrectly put the first reduced reward at the following block. Indexing from block 1 while assigning a full first era obscures that boundary and the special treatment of genesis.
| Era | Inclusive mainnet heights | Subsidy per block |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0–839,999 | 50.00000000 LTC |
| 1 | 840,000–1,679,999 | 25.00000000 LTC |
| 2 | 1,680,000–2,519,999 | 12.50000000 LTC |
| 3 | 2,520,000–3,359,999 | 6.25000000 LTC |
| 4 | 3,360,000–4,199,999 | 3.12500000 LTC |
The next boundary after the captured height below is 3,360,000. Its calendar date is an estimate based on a starting height, timestamp and assumed future block interval. The halving page shows the freshness of its inputs. A changing projected date does not change the scheduled height.
A dated calculation at height 3,199,297
The site's Blockchair-derived network feed reported height 3,199,297 with source observation time 21 October 2026, 23:00:52 UTC. We captured the response at 23:00:59 UTC. This is a preserved provider-feed observation, not a new independent node measurement. Its JSON capture identifies the source, height and timestamps.
At that height, eras 0–2 contribute 42,000,000 + 21,000,000 + 10,500,000 = 73,500,000 LTC of scheduled allowance. Era 3 contributes 3,199,297 − 2,520,000 + 1 = 679,298 blocks. Multiplying by 6.25 LTC adds 4,245,612.50 LTC. The sum is therefore 77,745,612.50000000 LTC, including the scheduled genesis allocation.
The inclusive “+1” is important: the block at the supplied height is included. Through height 3,359,999, the same schedule sums to 78,750,000 LTC. Adding block 3,360,000 increases that allowance by 3.125 LTC, yielding 78,750,003.125 LTC. It does not add one more 6.25-LTC block.
The captured allowance is about 92.55% of the rounded cap. It is a fixed historical calculation, not today's continuously updated circulating-supply counter. For a later observation, obtain the fresh height and its source time, then rerun the worksheet. Do not silently relabel the frozen value as current because the page has been reloaded.
Reproduce the sum with integer units
For each positive-subsidy era e, count the heights from e * 840000 through the lesser of h and (e + 1) * 840000 - 1. Multiply that count by the integer subsidy for the era. Add the integer products and convert to LTC only for display. This avoids a separate rounded floating-point reward being accumulated millions of times.
Download the calculation script, the boundary checks and the full era worksheet. The script uses only Python's standard library and accepts an explicit height. It does not connect to a , request credentials, query a private balance or .
The checks cover the blocks immediately before and at each subsidy transition, the captured-height sum and the first zero-subsidy era. The rule is mainnet-specific: a regtest configuration can use a shorter halving interval. Copying a regtest result into a mainnet schedule without changing the parameters would be another counting error.
The exact theoretical tail is slightly below 84 million
Once integer truncation matters, a later era need not issue exactly half the preceding era's total. For example, era 9 pays 9,765,625 litoshis per block. Era 10 pays 4,882,812, not 4,882,812.5. There is no half-litoshi output amount. This is where a decimal geometric-series explanation stops being an exact representation of the implementation.
Summing the full positive schedule gives 83,999,999.90760000 LTC, including genesis. That is 0.09240000 LTC below the rounded 84 million headline. Era 32 pays one litoshi per block from height 26,880,000 through 27,719,999. Height 27,720,000 begins era 33 and has zero subsidy. The defensive guard at era 64 does not imply a positive reward until era 63.
The existing complete block-reward guide supplies the same schedule. The final calendar year depends on future block production. An early-2140s projection is not a protocol deadline of 2142, and fee incentives after subsidy ends are an economic question rather than a guaranteed security budget.
Why the allowance is not spendable circulating supply
The reviewed source describes the genesis generation output as unspendable. Removing its 50 LTC from the full theoretical schedule gives 83,999,949.90760000 LTC, but that subtraction alone still does not establish an exact spendable-supply total. Historical underclaims, provably unspendable outputs and the definition of the accounting view need separate treatment.
A block's permitted coinbase payout includes subsidy plus eligible fees. Fees transfer existing value; they are not additional scheduled issuance. If a miner claims less than the permitted total, determining the monetary consequence requires the complete block accounting, not just comparing the coinbase output with the nominal subsidy. The schedule calculator deliberately does not claim to perform that historical audit.
A node's unspent-output statistic is also a defined view, not an automatic census of usable private keys or freely traded coins. For Litecoin, reconcile -related accounting with transparent value rather than adding independently reported balances and accidentally counting transfers twice. Moving LTC into or out of a supported privacy layer is not a second block subsidy.
To publish a precise observed monetary total, preserve the chain boundary, relevant block identity, software and command, returned fields, accounting method and exclusions. The provider-feed snapshot in this article supplies a height for a scheduled calculation; it does not supply all those audit ingredients.
Daily issuance is a target-rate scenario
At a 150-second target interval, one 24-hour day corresponds to 86,400 / 150 = 576 blocks. At a 6.25-LTC subsidy that implies 3,600 LTC per target-rate day. At 3.125 LTC it implies 1,800. These are model outputs for an unchanged era and target average, not a guarantee that each calendar day contains exactly 576 blocks.
The familiar 1,314,000 LTC figure is 3,600 multiplied by 365: an annualized scenario at that subsidy. It is not necessarily the amount issued in a real year that includes a halving, nor a measurement of the captured year's block count. For an actual period, sum the applicable allowances or measured block accounting across the chosen inclusive heights and report elapsed time separately.
Miners' total revenue also includes fees and can include separate DOGE payouts under merged- arrangements. A halved LTC subsidy does not mechanically halve every miner's combined receipts. See the merged-mining explanation and its payout-policy distinction.
Unspent, dormant and lost are not synonyms
Age is observable; loss of a secret generally is not. A holder who keeps a backup safely for a decade and a holder who lost it can leave indistinguishable dormant outputs. Transaction inactivity therefore cannot be turned into a precise lost-LTC deduction without additional evidence.
Our 998-output early-chain study makes that boundary explicit. It examined a stated selection of at a frozen height, not a representative sample proving a network-wide percentage lost. Its unspent results must not be multiplied by the headline cap to manufacture an estimate of inaccessible coins.
Likewise, supply concentration by is not concentration by person. Custodial services can aggregate many customers; one controller can distribute holdings across many addresses. A provider's circulating number is useful only with its definition, and it does not tell you how much holders are willing or able to sell.
What supply does and does not say about price
For a consistently defined supply, a quoted is price multiplied by that supply. Rewriting that relationship as price equals capitalization divided by supply does not predict future demand. Comparing one LTC with one BTC by sticker price alone also ignores the different units and supply bases.
Under the reviewed rules, increasing the permitted issuance would require changed rather than a miner merely choosing a larger subsidy. Whether participants adopt incompatible new rules is a coordination question; unanimity by every computer on the internet is not a technical activation requirement. This article describes the present reviewed schedule, not an irrevocable promise about every future fork using the Litecoin name.
This revision corrects the era indexing, the explanation of the fourfold cap, the exact integer tail and the distinction between allowance and availability. It adds a datestamped provider-height capture and reproducible files. No full historical monetary audit or private-key-loss census was performed.
Frequently asked questions
How many Litecoin were scheduled through the captured height?
At height 3,199,297, the integer schedule permits 77,745,612.50000000 LTC including genesis. The preserved feed observation is from 21 October 2026 at 23:00:52 UTC. This is a scheduled allowance, not a live spendable-supply census.
Is the exact theoretical total 84,000,000 LTC?
The rounded ceiling is 84 million. Integer-truncated subsidies sum to 83,999,999.90760000 LTC including genesis under the reviewed rules. Actual availability requires additional accounting.
Does the next reduction start at height 3,360,001?
No. Height 3,360,000 is the first block with a 3.125-LTC subsidy. Height 3,359,999 is the last block in the preceding 6.25-LTC era.
Does Litecoin always issue 3,600 LTC each day?
No. That is 576 target-rate blocks multiplied by a 6.25-LTC subsidy. Actual daily block counts vary, and the applicable subsidy changes at height boundaries.
Can old unspent outputs be counted as lost coins?
Not from age alone. Long-term holding and lost-key cases can look identical . A dated observation does not establish who can still authorize spending.
When does the subsidy become zero?
The first zero-subsidy mainnet height is 27,720,000. The final positive era pays one litoshi per block. A calendar date depends on future block production and is not fixed in the subsidy rule.
