Bitcoin Forum

I guess this question pertains to Bitcoin as well as the newly created Bitcoin Cash.   Are there future plans for when all 21 million coins have been mined?  I have never mined, but I'm assuming the main goal of mining is to get the mining rewards of solving blocks.   Once all the coins are mined, what will be the incentive for people to continue running the expensive hardware and/or high utility bills if coins are no longer given as a reward?

I know that transaction fees will still be gained, but logically speaking, I don't think that would be enough to keep people mining, would it?


On a separate note, does bitcoin cash have a hard 21mill cap as well?

This question has been answered a few times before. Once all the coins are mined everything will be normal just like it is now. Miners would still process transactions and be paid only by transactions fees. As for the 21 million cap, this 21 million is easily divided into Satoshis and people will use lower amounts to make transactions. In other words everything will be normal, still you are asking about a distant time as mining will end in the year 2140.

And we are all dead on that year and we cant witness that situation on which the last bitcoin would be mined and as you said transactions would really be just like as of now which we are making transactions normally and i would say fees would really be high on those years and speaking with BCH i dont think people will switch into this if the supply of bitcoin have been already mined completely.

A widely accepted theory is that the Bitcoin price and the increased amount of transactions per block (meaning more total fees per block) will counter the fact that there will be no block reward. Though by then everything will be different.

And yes, BCH is a clone of BTC so it has the same maximum circulating supply as BTC does.

Thanks...I've been around for a while, but never got into the mining game.  I considered it, and then considered cloud mining when that came around, but ended up just purchasing bitcoin on my own over the years.  Yeah it is tough to imagine what things will be like in 5-10 years, as things change here so quickly in a matter of weeks, days, or even hours sometimes. 

It is true that the process of generation of all 21 million coins last untill 2140. but you should consider some thing.
The number of generated bitcoins halve every four years. In recent four years period generation rate of coins is 12.5 bitcoin per block. After eight years this number will reduce to only 3 bitcoin which is not very different from no generation of coins.

You probably made the right decision by purchasing your own bitcoin instead of cloudmining. The ROI on those sucked after the first few months the services were up. Others ran with peoples money.
 
Regarding mining, that should be completely covered by then in mining fees. If that doesn't happen, alternative ways of earning by mining can be implemented (e.g. an alt that distributes to miners).

If price keep on surging like this with growing demand for bitcoin and limited supply than the fee associated with transactions that will be included in a block could be enough for miners to remain profitable. But I think few group of people will hard fork bitcoin to increase its total supply but I don't know this is even possible or not.

None of us will be alive at that time so this might not concern us.