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Topic: What will happen when all the bitcoins are mined? - page 2. (Read 1574 times)

sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
If anybody tries to mine a block with too high of a reward, then that block is just ignored by the rest of the network.

Exactly. That wouldn't happen if 51% decided to accept them instead.

Think of it from the other point of view, look ahead to the mining reward dropping from 12.5 to 6.25.
There could be hundred of millions of dollars invested in mining equipment by that point.
Difficulty will be so massively high that only huge pools would have any real chance of finding blocks at a consistent rate.
Why wouldn't people vote to pay themselves more money?
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
If all the BTC Users don't switch to their fork they would simply mine a new coin that nobody uses.Worth = 0. While the miners that staid on the old chain would get a nice chunk in transaction fees due to limited competition.

The users wouldn't have to switch.
They would have their transactions confirmed (most of the time) by the 51%, because they have more hash power.
Miner rewards are simply an extra transaction included by miners in each mined block.
Currently everyone agrees to use the same formula for calculating them (current 25 BTC per block).
I could decide to mine for myself, and pay myself 100 BTC per block instead, but noone else would accept my blocks, so there wouldn't be much point.
But if over half of the network decide to accept those blocks, those blocks get built into the blockchain, and the new reward structure works.
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye
What is everyone going to do with these rigs and companies building rigs? Will another virtual currency just come along and bitcoin will quietly become a second life comparison?



One word: Transaction fees.


Controversial: It will never happen.
Ultimately, the people who control things like miner rewards are ... the miners.
If 51% of the hashing power decides to change the rewards, the other 49% has the choice of either going along with it, or forking to their own chain, and having two competing Bitcoins, with theirs being less powerful. 51% means the owners of the 2-4 largest pools.
There will be too many people who have invested too much money in mining equipment, and who have no philosophical attachment to a deflationary currency, to simply accept seeing their income vanish. At the moment, there are still probably too many people with ideological reasons to oppose this for it to work, they would simply switch to different pools. In 10/20/50 years time, that will no longer be the case.
They will find some way to rationalise the decision as being in everyone's best interests, but ultimately turkeys won't vote for Christmas.


Miners don't have so much say in this.

If all the BTC Users don't switch to their fork they would simply mine a new coin that nobody uses.Worth = 0. While the miners that staid on the old chain would get a nice chunk in transaction fees due to limited competition.

+1

The mining reward dropped by half last November, I don't remember seeing anybody trying to mine 50 btc blocks afterward.

If anybody tries to mine a block with too high of a reward, then that block is just ignored by the rest of the network.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
Controversial: It will never happen.
Ultimately, the people who control things like miner rewards are ... the miners.
If 51% of the hashing power decides to change the rewards, the other 49% has the choice of either going along with it, or forking to their own chain, and having two competing Bitcoins, with theirs being less powerful. 51% means the owners of the 2-4 largest pools.
There will be too many people who have invested too much money in mining equipment, and who have no philosophical attachment to a deflationary currency, to simply accept seeing their income vanish. At the moment, there are still probably too many people with ideological reasons to oppose this for it to work, they would simply switch to different pools. In 10/20/50 years time, that will no longer be the case.
They will find some way to rationalise the decision as being in everyone's best interests, but ultimately turkeys won't vote for Christmas.


Also, not only the operators of these mining pools but allow the miners would have to go along with this ridiculous plan as well.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1001
Controversial: It will never happen.
Ultimately, the people who control things like miner rewards are ... the miners.
If 51% of the hashing power decides to change the rewards, the other 49% has the choice of either going along with it, or forking to their own chain, and having two competing Bitcoins, with theirs being less powerful. 51% means the owners of the 2-4 largest pools.
There will be too many people who have invested too much money in mining equipment, and who have no philosophical attachment to a deflationary currency, to simply accept seeing their income vanish. At the moment, there are still probably too many people with ideological reasons to oppose this for it to work, they would simply switch to different pools. In 10/20/50 years time, that will no longer be the case.
They will find some way to rationalise the decision as being in everyone's best interests, but ultimately turkeys won't vote for Christmas.


Miners don't have so much say in this.

If all the BTC Users don't switch to their fork they would simply mine a new coin that nobody uses.Worth = 0. While the miners that staid on the old chain would get a nice chunk in transaction fees due to reduced competition.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 250
Controversial: It will never happen.
Ultimately, the people who control things like miner rewards are ... the miners.
If 51% of the hashing power decides to change the rewards, the other 49% has the choice of either going along with it, or forking to their own chain, and having two competing Bitcoins, with theirs being less powerful. 51% means the owners of the 2-4 largest pools.
There will be too many people who have invested too much money in mining equipment, and who have no philosophical attachment to a deflationary currency, to simply accept seeing their income vanish. At the moment, there are still probably too many people with ideological reasons to oppose this for it to work, they would simply switch to different pools. In 10/20/50 years time, that will no longer be the case.
They will find some way to rationalise the decision as being in everyone's best interests, but ultimately turkeys won't vote for Christmas.
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
Do you really think it will take that long considering how fast computing power is getting to mine bitcoins and large startups are taking millions in funding.

the difficulty increases along with the increased hash power. Bitcoin blocks are found once every 10 minutes regardless of the power

Actually they are found a bit faster, because the difficulty adjustment isn't immediately.
But mining will still ne needed when all bounties are gone (at least if Bitcoin is still around at that time), so transaction fees have to cover the costs instead.
newbie
Activity: 12
Merit: 0
there are other alt coins, and something else probably come along
legendary
Activity: 924
Merit: 1000
Do you really think it will take that long considering how fast computing power is getting to mine bitcoins and large startups are taking millions in funding.

the difficulty increases along with the increased hash power. Bitcoin blocks are found once every 10 minutes regardless of the power
member
Activity: 62
Merit: 10
Do you really think it will take that long considering how fast computing power is getting to mine bitcoins and large startups are taking millions in funding.
legendary
Activity: 924
Merit: 1000
What is everyone going to do with these rigs and companies building rigs? Will another virtual currency just come along and bitcoin will quietly become a second life comparison?



dont worry about it you most likely will not be around when that does indeed happen (2140)
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1015
member
Activity: 62
Merit: 10
What is everyone going to do with these rigs and companies building rigs? Will another virtual currency just come along and bitcoin will quietly become a second life comparison?

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