Topic: what happens when all bitcoins are mined? (Read 1874 times)

The shutting off of new bitcoins will not be a sudden process.  It will happen very slowly over more than 100 years.

Right now, every new block includes 25 new bitcoins.

In the year 2016, that will change to 12.5 new bitcoins in each block.

Then approximately every 4 years after that, the amount of new bitcoins in each block will be cut in half again.

Therefore, it will be:

• 6.25 new BTC in each block after 2020
• 3.125 new BTC in each block after 2024
• 1.5625 new BTC in each block after 2028
• 0.78125 new BTC in each block after 2032
• 0.390625 new BTC in each block after 2036

And so on until it is only:

• 0.00000004 new BTC in each block after 2128
• 0.00000002 new BTC in each block after 2132
• 0.00000001 new BTC in each block after 2136

And after 2140, there will be no more new bitcoins created.  But at that time, the amount of new bitcoins created per year will drop from 0.00000052 to 0.0  That's not a very big drop.

Either the system will automatically adjust over time to the increasing percentage coming from transaction fees, or else Bitcoin will completely fail LONG before we ever get to the point where the last piece of a bitcoin has been created.

Miners currently receive transaction fees. The consensus (or hope, take your pick) is that if Bitcoin is still around after all the coins have been mined, they will be worth a lot more than current value, earning miners much more value per transaction even if the percentage remains the same as it is now.

Pipe dream?

I've been at this for over a year and never really thought about it.  So when all the blocks dry up, miners continue to mine workable hashes for which they'd get a piece of the transaction fee?  It just seems like something that would be done by mainstream businesses as opposed to miners.  Are miners currently mining for a piece of the transaction fee?  Seems like that's not something exclusive to when the coins dry up but something that would be going on all along.

As other users have stated, when all bitcoins have been mined, the incentive for miners to continue will be transaction fees. There will need to be enough transactions going around or the price will have to be high enough for miners to continue while staying profitable, I assume.

I hope this answers your question!

Possible. To many bitcoiners, one of the big advantages of bitcoin is its low fee. If bitcoin price doesn't go high enough, the miners may start to ask for higher transaction fee as halving occurs, and start the vicious cycle (higher fee -> less transactions -> higher fee -> ... )

Interestingly, when bitcoin reward dropped from 50 btc to 25 btc, the transaction fee went down as well.

That's true, but what if the cost of the electricity and miners outweighs the fees. If the fees are too much users wont pay them and bitcoin could become useless if its not cost effective.

Bitcoin price may be a lot higher then, or there may be be less and less miners (hence lower and lower difficulty).

And wie have already so many Coins...curious

If you want to know what happens to miners: they're going to receive the bitcoins that come from the transactions fees.

If you're talking about our position, maybe each bitcoin is going to be more valuable, so… one unity can be split in more decimals.
Anyway, here you have bitcoin units like mBTC --> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Units  

Once all are mined, it will survive on transaction fees provided the price rises enough by then. Its still quite far away and there is some talk of moving it to a PoS based scheme later on which would mean mining wont be needed.

well, 2140 is a long way to go:

The fees will decrease to 1 Satoshi and the transaction volume to 1 Billion per day. Maybe...

Over 120 years from now, when we're all dead?  I'm sure they'll figure it out.  I'm not concerned.


"Mining" is actually a popular nickname for "transaction processing".  "Miners" confirm transactions into the blockchain, and in exchange for this service they receive a "Block reward" that is equal to the sum of the current block subsidy plus the transaction fees of all the transactions that they confirmed in the block.

The block subsidy is currently 25 newly created bitcoins every block.  That subsidy is cut in half (and rounded down to the nearest satoshi) every 4 years.  So, in 2016 the block subsidy will be reduced to 12.5 BTC, and in the year 2020 it will be reduced to 6.25 BTC, and so on.

Meanwhile, as bitcoin becomes more popular the total number of transactions will increase.  This will result in more transaction fees for the "miners".

Eventually the amount of the block reward from transaction fees will be larger than the amount from the subsidy.  Perhaps at that time we'll stop calling it "mining" and instead call it what it really is: "transaction processing".  Instead of calling people "miners", we may start calling them "transaction processors".

In a bit over 120 years, the subsidy will drop from 0.00000001 BTC per block to 0 BTC per block.  Long before that bitcoin will either have succeeded in maintaining security with transaction fees or it will be long since dead.

but i don't think they can sustain maining with it, unless they have free electricity

miners will continue to mine for tx fees
if you have noticed we pay a fees of 0.0001BTC when transfering bitcoin

You will loose all and the owners becomes millionare.

Thanks

Miners live off the transaction fees that will then drive the entire economics of mining

Main effects:

Bitcoin miners will only get rewards by transaction fees. So they might increase the transaction fees or shut down the machines.

Less Bitcoin will be dumped in the market by miners.

At least Doge more or less reached the end of mining reward phase. I hope Bitcoin does better when his time arrives

I'am not experienced on this field a lot but I guess none of us is going to be alive by then or we will be simply so so old . It will be taking much time for mining all the existing Bitcoins . but I would say the price will rise crazy if bitcoin is alive by then of course

This question has been discussed several times, you'll find a lot of answers here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/what-happens-if-all-bitcoins-are-mined-176365
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/what-happens-when-all-bitcoins-are-mined-52673
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/when-all-bitcoins-are-mined-then-what-3326