What will happen if the last bitcoin is mined?

[Snike]

 I've asked myself a lot of times when thinking about bitcoin. What will happen if the last bitcoin is mined? How will miners be paid when all btc is mined. And what do we need miners for if btc is all mined up? Because miners will only get the transaction fees from mining and that would end up in a lot of miners to stop mining because its not profitable anymore. So only certain people would mine them and they'ld have the control about the transactions. That would make bitcoin kind of not so decentralized... If I'm not mistaken at least.

Correct me if I am thinking wrong right now

 

[kulegutten]

who knows maybe the bitcoin prize goes skyrocketing or it goes down to hell maybe fees become super expensive hard to know

[Snike]

1 minute ago, kulegutten said:

who knows maybe the bitcoin prize goes skyrocketing or it goes down to hell maybe fees become super expensive hard to know

There is no positive way out of this tbh... Why would it go skyrocketing if miners cant be paid?

2 minutes ago, SuddenlyBroke said:

Really interesting question. 

I just checked out what some other people have to say as I was stumped when I starting thinking about it: 

• The question boils down to will transaction fees be enough to keep mining profitable once the last bitcoin has been mined. 
• In 100 years, mining technology may have evolved so much that every smartphone can mine, so it might not be a costly thing to do any more. 
• If all the world is using bitcoin when the last bitcoin is mined Tx fees might be high enough in themselves (unlikely but maybe).
• This would require the gradually increasing block size that we have now to be abandoned.
• But abandoning the gradually increasing block size is likely more of a threat, as it could result in dropped transactions and very high Tx fees which could put people off BTC.
• Once all 21 coins have been mined, the supply can't increase, even though there may still be growing demand. This will mean the purchasing power of bitcoin will increase over time, if this happens mining might still be profitable, but turn into more of a long term investment strategy. 

Really thought provoking question!

I got the above points out this article: 

https://news.bitcoin.com/what-happens-bitcoin-miners-all-coins-mined/

The point with the mining technology evolving is quite possible. But why would it take 100 years for (according to coinmarketcap) 4,3 million bitcoin ,the amount left of the 21 million bitcoin supply, to be mined? 

I actually cant think of a positive and possible answer to the question... Maybe satoshi nakamoto got something planned

[meislucky]

Hmm, I think the value will start to grow really fast then, as no one will be able to get new bitcoins. But that will be around 2141 or something, so long way to go, I won't definitely catch it.

[kulegutten]

1 minute ago, Snike said:

There is no positive way out of this tbh... Why would it go skyrocketing if miners cant be paid?

Because there will be no more bitcoin so it will be harder to get meaning that the prize would be go up, not sure though it's hard to predict

[Snike]

Just now, kulegutten said:

Because there will be no more bitcoin so it will be harder to get meaning that the prize would be go up, not sure though it's hard to predict

But to send transaction (receive) you have to have someone mining it. (At least thats how I understood it) So if there is no miners because there is no bitcoin to be mined. There cant be any transactions and stuff. Someone would have to pay the miners.

[Snike]

2 minutes ago, SuddenlyBroke said:

Well the article said 100 years. My friend said 2040 to the me the other day. 

But production of bitcoin is not linear, because when mining happens too fast the network makes it harder to mine, so there's a continual balance of supply and demand.

Couple this with the idea that technology made massive strides in the last years since bitcoin started because it was motivated to by the financial rewards, bitcoin was motivating chip improvements even more than computers were. But now we are at about the limits of what we can do with mining technology, so it will improve over time, but not as the same rate, so it will take longer to mine the last say 5% of coins that it did a tonne of coins before it. 

So if mining is to fast it gets harder? so mining is like a curve of speed? but getting slower the more time passes? Or did I get it wrong?

[barbaris]

Good question.The price of bitcoin will be really high and stable.

[meislucky]

I think the price of btc will be really stable and high. We won't get there tho, since it's still a long way to go!

[Snike]

5 minutes ago, SuddenlyBroke said:

Yes exactly, 

See this video from 9:40 , where he talks about the concept of difficulty and adaptive difficulty algorithms. 

The time section from:  9:40 - 16:50

This guy is awesome at explaining bitcoin, and he explains this whole concept of mining getting harder as technology gets better really well. 

Wow his explanation with the sudoka is awesome. Made it much clearer for me! Thanks for sharing