Topic: What will happen if all 21 million bitcoins are mined? (Read 233 times)

People love spreading doom and gloom about falling hashrate as the block reward drops.  I think it could be a positive for Bitcoin.  In a few years from now bandwidth, storage and processing power are going to be so cheap and plentiful that it should be trivial for individuals to run full nodes on their personal devices.  And these devices could be set to mine like the original bitcoin client.  If we were to see a fall in asic mining and large mining pools being replaced by every user on the network being a solo miner then hashrate and network security would likely increase.  As would decentralisation.  Currently people are looking at tomorrows problems with todays technology.  As long as devs and noderunners keep on top of things the network should be secure beyond the lifespans of everybody here.

What happens when the 21M BTC is mined? It's a completely new situation and no one knows for sure except for the fact that miners will only earn fees from transactions in a block they confirm. The lingering question I asked a while back was — will transaction fees alone be enough? Because mining companies rely heavily on block rewards for their earnings and yet, some of the mining firms have losses on their balance sheet. It should be much worse with just tx fees except Bitcoiners users are forced to pay higher fees.

LMAO this is great, I think for a lot of folks these threads are so way down in the inbox that people don't bother to use the search bar. Better off using google to check Btalk thread titles for samples of the same threads if they do exist. I think I might have even asked this question once or twice in my early days here. The miners will continue making money off transaction fees yadda yadda yadda....

I agree with you but such question is like a magnet to attract and convince people joining this market. Like they have strong belief in future of Bitcoin, like it won't die in and after 2140, they will have more reasons to hop on the Bitcoin boat.

I agree with you too, that we all can not live long till 2140 and even our children too so a more realistic concern would be how Bitcoin blockchain will be in next 20, 30 or 40 more years. People with more knowledge on Bitcoin and its designed inflation schedule will have concern like "What will happen next 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32 years" that are matched with next Bitcoin halving and bull market starts.

There's nothing to worry about here. It is highly unlikely that any of us or even our children will live long enough to see it. It's also very hard to predict what the world will be like at that point and whether Bitcoin will even be relevant in that world. So it might de facto die well before it's all mined, for example. Alternatively, there's no reason to believe that the end of mining will be the end of Bitcoin. The system is designed to keep functioning.

It is scheduled to happen approximately one hundred years from now. Is it truly necessary for us to speculate about it today? Does it really matter?

What I know is that by that time, it's going to be 100 years from here and that means many of us will be under 6 feet while another generation will be the ones adopting Bitcoin by thag time. As long as the code remain untampered and protocol remain the same across all miners, no any more Bitcoin will be issued. Just like many people said, miners are going to be compensated from transaction fees, that's the only way coins will be circulated.


I read one article about Bitcoin ordinals coming back in the future. The person said the developers allow Bitcoin ordinals to flourish which game make Bitcoin transaction to go up compensating miners, same will come later in the future but is going to be something more useful and not based on fomo like people did and forget so that miners can get incentive for running mining and helping Bitcoin stable but the circulation of Bitcoin supply is going to remain the way it's.

Dang! This change everything. I was considering 2040 and all these years I had the perception in mind that it is 2024 LOL. This is a long time over 100 and 16 years, we don't even know what is going to happen to the world. Why are we so worried about what is going to happen after 21 million bitcoins are mined ? 😂

Look at testnet3. There are still some new coins produced, but fees can sometimes be higher in sat/vB, than on mainnet. I guess if worthless coins encouraged users to pay so high fees, then worthy ones will do so as well.

There are some reasons to mine new blocks, even if the coinbase amount is equal to zero. For example: to unlock previously timelocked coins (because of coinbase maturity, other regular transactions with locktime, and so on). Also: if nothing else, then notarization and timestamping of things is one of those use cases, which can work without any coins.

If some miners will leave, then other miners will take their place. The minimal difficulty is CPU-mineable. And even on test networks, where coins are worthless, there are ASICs. Many people will just keep mining anyway, no matter what, for example because they have a choice: waste some energy, or use it for mining (so they keep mining to avoid that waste, and do something with that overproduction).

Fees will be higher in the future. Also because if there are many fees, then you can pay someone in your coinbase transaction, and if you align all amounts properly, then nobody can find out, which fees were used for payment, and which were just claimed by the miner.

For example: if you have testnet4, and you want to send someone 50 tBTC, then you can of course make a regular transaction. But: if you instead mine a coinbase transaction, and put the recipient's output there, then nobody will figure it out, what was the previous address, and who exactly did it.

Those, who will stay on-chain, will use direct payments, and will pay high fees, because of limited space. Those, who will use second layers, will batch their payments with a lot of other people, so a fee per user will be lower. For example: if you have Alice->Bob unconfirmed transaction, and it pays 1000 satoshis, and then you have Bob->Charlie transaction, also paying 1000 satoshis, then you can just create Alice->Charlie transaction, paying 2000 satoshis, and taking less space (so also having higher sat/vB rate).

If you have a minimal transaction fee of 1 sat/vB, then yes, more transactions simply means higher fee. And to fit all of that into blocks, and confirm in 10 minutes, it will have to be batched. And the obvious consequence of batching, is seeing a single transaction, paying more fees, and serving more than a single user. So, from the perspective of the current software, fees will be higher. But: the fee per user can be the same or lower, if transaction joining will work properly.

There cannot be transactions without mining. Therefore, there has to always be an incentive to mine. Since the block subsidy will drop to zero, the bet is that the network will sustain itself by transaction fees.

That's a good question. If fees are high, then that will discourage using it as currency, which will incidentally cause a decline in transaction fees. The answer to this question is that second layers are under development, which will allow you to transfer bitcoin off-chain. This can keep the network congested without paying outrageous amounts in fees.

Miners actually confirm blocks and get bitcoins as reward. When all bitcoins are mined, the incentive to mine comes from transaction fees. It is still a very long time away and lots of adjustments should be made to how fees are done before then, we can only speculate on how it turns out.

Nodes are different from miners.
Miners already get tx fees now already, then they will be incentivises exclusively by fees. What do you mean how honest will it be?

I guess what you meant was 2140 when the last Bitcoin block will be mined, right?

Yes, that's true, because I can remember when Bitcoin was been mind with the use of an ordinary P.C back then when it has got little or now value, and the more it got mined, the higher the difficulty and high fees, which is what to expect, but the beauty about it is that no matter how difficulty mining gets, or transaction cost, it can never stop people from investing in it.

Hmm, seems like this is the same question and the same concept that is discussed many times here, and in the above post fellows have already mentioned most of the previously discussed threads on the same topic.

Hmm as far as you are concerned with the Bitcoin network fees, you need to know it will be higher and higher for sure as the network is designed in such way to rewards the network participants and charge high for the reliability.

There is nothing to expect changed or happened by then, bitcoin will only increases in value, miners will have to depend on the transaction fee incentives for their rewards, then the network demand is going to increase like never before as well as the value of bitcoin, this will make it more decentralized in such a way that everyone will have access to sell or buy at the rate he so wishes while the value keep increasing over time.

This is very crucial which I believe the services of the miners are essential to the Bitcoin blockchain in other to keep the transaction network secured.

So technically since it is being aware that the total 21 million Bitcoin would be mined in matter of time in the future. So the alternative of the miners to earn rewards has already been earlier structured on the transaction fees.

Convinceably, there are percentage of transaction fees from the Bitcoin Blockchain which is being accumulating earlier on in regards to rewards miners after when the total Bitcoins are mined.

Year 2040 is still a long time to go. Bitcoin price will be at least 5x to 10x than it is now. I don't think electricity price is going to increase that much. So there are always profits in mining than whatever will be your investment.

I used this account to offer my service in the market section which i discontinued, (hence my username)

just testing out the waters on other sections of this forum

but you guys are right i should know better and just used the search function since its prolly disscused a million times already,

It seems this thing has crossed your mind rather late. You have been on the forum for more than eleven years and yet you're still asking this question. I suppose this curiosity about what will happen to Bitcoin after the last Satoshi is mined normally hits newbies, but you aren't one.

You must have already been sufficiently exposed to Bitcoin after getting to know it more than a decade ago, but I wonder why you're still asking it. Has this account changed hands?

Being the 94,933rd member of a forum that has already more than 3.6 million members, you must already be a Bitcoin OG more or less.

Time for reading

• How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?
• What Will Happen to Bitcoin After All 21 Million are Mined?

Bitcoin network can stop if all Bitcoin miners stop mining. What makes them continue to mine Bitcoin blocks and confirm transactions?

Profit is their reasons. Profit can come from Bitcoin block subsidy that halves every 210,000 blocks and will reach to zero in 2140; or from Bitcoin transaction fee. After all 21M bitcoins mined in 2140, Bitcoin miners will only get their mining income from Bitcoin transaction fee. If it is good, profitable for Bitcoin miners, they will continue their works.

Are you? Then better to read these existing discussions than asking the same questions over and over.

[2017-06-08] What Happens to Bitcoin After All 21 Million are Mined?
what will happen after 21 million bitcoins are mined? (in layman's terms)
What will happen if all 21 Million BTC are mined?
BITCOIN SUPPLY LIMIT
93 Percent of all Bitcoin Has Been Mined
Am I right about this or not

Currently there are roughly 19,800,762.5 in existinces, Im always wondering how things will continue when all of them are mined,

Offcourse its getting harder and harder and take longer each halving, but how is the bitcoin network gonna confirm transactions when there is no mining to be done?

Is it a matter of everyone just running a node instead ? or is it like that miners will get the transaction fee instead? and how honest will it be as in will the fees be super high will it be self regulated?

Is it like the more people mine the higher the difficulty be same as the more transactions there are the higher the fee will be?