Worried About What Happens When All 21 Million Bitcoins Are Mined? You Have a Bit of Time!
What happens when all 21 million bitcoins are mined? That thought popped into my head earlier today. Will there be no incentive left for block producers to continue on?
21 Million Coin Timeline
First things first. When exactly can we expect to hit 21 million?
How about in about 120 years. Yeah, I didn't see that coming either considering 17 million coins have already been mined in just under a decade.
Graph courtesy of cointelegraph
However, lest not forget that the block reward continues to half. Currently it is 12.5 bitcoins and is estimated to hit 6.25 in May of 2021 according to bitcoinblockhalf.com
Granted the 120 year timeline assumes no changes to the current protocol, so who knows.
What I am more concerned about (whether I will be living then or not) is what a fully mined bitcoin network looks like. What fee structure needs to be in place for block producers to profitably continue on?
Maybe the number of block producers will decrease to find a equilibrium between price and volume of transactions. Thus making transactions fees affordable while giving a producer enough volume so running a node makes sense.
In the end this is just an example of how young bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market is. It will be crazy to look back in 25 years even and think, wow I remember when...
Don't know about you, but I look forward to it!
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Disclaimer: All info in this post is my opinion and for informational purposes only
Free e-book: ScaredyCatGuide to Knowing What the Heck Bitcoin Is
Disclaimer: All info in this post is my opinion and for informational purposes only
I think transaction fees will support the network going forward but I also think that the cost to mine will also decrease as energy prices come down due to continue alternative energy technology development as well as general technology advances that may permit miners to run operations more efficiently. However, transaction fees can’t go too high as it will defeat the purpose of mass adoption for the unbanked.
In fact I think the opposite will happen, energy is a resource that is always in short supply, think about leaps in technology like Electric Vehicles, when 10 billion people all want to charge an EV, where will the energy come from for PoW; electricity prices are set to rise sharply in the near future, and however much is produced we will always need more.
This is why I personally think PoW is a dead-end for crypto-currency, and for humanity at large. We need better mechanisms to secure the block-chain.
yes
we have time .but we always want to get more cheap price for btc
I bet, transaction fee will touch the sky !! it will be adopted globally and because of that, there will be more demand and less supply.. it will also take too long for a txn to take place.. ultimately a new cryptocurrency will step in ☺️
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Yeah, I can agree with that. I think bitcoin will become digital gold and something like steem or eos will be more transactional.
true that ☺️☺️ we will be millionaires by that time .. hopefully 😆😆
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You are always great. I like your writing the most.
If 21 million already mines, probably miner stops and the transaction will stop.
I have faith in the developers in the BItcoin community to develop suitable solutions to scaling etc to ensure the progression of BTC. Well let's hope anyway.
Interesting mind pretzel ....
Great perspective.
It's really not an issue. Mining rewards will be so small (in BTC terms) prior to the transition to no reward, that the difference will hardly be noticeable. Mining fees will adjust within two or three blocks and life will go on.
That is of course, as you say, if nothing major changes in the interim.