Topic: what happens when all bitcoins are mined ? - page 4. (Read 4248 times)

I've once read an article about the same question posed in this thread: what will happen if all the 21m coins were mined? As most of us know, the transactions on the blockchain are moved by the miners. The incentive that keeps the miners processing these transactions is 25 btc per block as of the current time. However, this reward is designed to halve every halving (forgive me but I forgot how many blocks were needed before the halving take place :v), so as to prevent a fast minting of coins. So why would the miners continue to process these transactions if in the end they cannot even pay the bills with the rewards they are getting? That's when the problem occurs. The miners' rewards weren't enough to keep them from running these miners and helping the transactions move, unless the reward system is change: a reward system that would benefit the miners, the users, and the network as a whole.

thanks for great explanation.
indeed, this is hard times for bitcoin right now, i hope everything goes back to normal soon.
hope to see BTC rise above 1000 $ anytime soon.

The blockchain reward halves every 210000 blocks, so before the reward becomes 0 BTC around 2140, it will have already been 0.00000008, 0.00000004, 0.00000002, and 0.00000001 BTC for eight years. The economy will have to transition to a reward based on transaction fees long before the reward actually becomes zero.

The question is then one of investment vs greedy reward. Will companies who have a million-dollar-a-year bitcoin business invest in mining just to defend the blockchain against attack? Will the fees (which have been drastically reduced recently way beyond sustainable levels) create enough incentive on their own to continue mining with strong enough difficulty? Will there be $1000 in fees per block because each bitcoin is worth a luxury house? All of these are unknown, but the rules of the currency and the money supply inflation rate are well known for hundreds of years and available for all to plan for the future, unlike all government currencies.

I should add that the mining difficulty is ridiculous right now because $1.8 Million worth of BTC is being printed every day and goes solely to the miners. A lot of the mining capacity online now was planned when the value was only increasing exponentially (up to $1000/BTC and beyond), not the finally stable $500/BTC we've had for six months.

what happens when all bitcoins are mined ?as far as i know the mining ascis are needed to complete the transaction of bitcoins between wallets, but when all coins will be mined all ascis will be shut down because there is no need for them anymore,right ?
how will the transactions be made then withtout the asics to process them ?