Bitcoin Forum

So it is year 2024 and the max BTC supply is reached at ~21M. 

I'll speculate that the price of energy around the world will be higher than it is today, so that will cut into the miners profits. They will also be receiving their BTC on fees alone, not the generation of BTC for completing the block (like today).

Will it be economical to continue mining BTC going forward? The large mining operations can always set up a solar panel system to reduce energy costs.

Even if some of the larger miners shut down, I'm sure there will be enough miners around the world where the blocks will still be completed, but it may take longer. (The mempool may grow like it did before X-mas last year)  I'm not exactly sure how the lightning network will affect the mempool....?

Is it possible that the S/W for BTC may be augmented to a semi POS type of system?

Wrong. We will be there approximately at the year 2140. The bitcoin as block reward or subsidy halves every 4 years that's way it will take much longer than you think.


Hard to say but someone should've discovered something that would make the production of electricity cheaper. And also someone should've made something significant in making mining more efficient.


Not sure how to answer this but I doubt this will happen.

This may sound foolish but given difficulty can be scaled upwards can it not also be scaled downwards, if we reached such a scenario where mining was inefficient could the difficulty not just be reduced so that it is then more efficient?

Even though the difficulty might increase, isn't it possible that (even with the electricity thing) that the gpus that far in the future will be super powerful? What if they start mining coins without any issues at all? Does that change anything about how long it'll take to get to 21M or am I completely wrong?

I don't know much about the workings behind mining and I've always wanted to know. I'm sure these are questions that others might have.

Make it a century further away, more like 2140.


Since it's a speculation we can go with this but do we also speculate what is happening to the price of miners?


Just putting up solar panels means nothing.
If the thing you do, be it mining, manufacturing or anything else is not profitable then it's stupid to build solar panels and use that energy for it. It would be far better to just sell the energy you make with the panels.


This will last only till the next difficulty adjustment, then the difficulty will go down and blocks will just get mined at normal intervals.


For the first one I must admit I have absolutely no clue as there is not just the LN to take into account but the percentage of users using LN, those using on-chain transaction and further more how many of those use segwit and how many they are in total.
If 100 000 users turn to LN but we have 500 000 that will still do normal transactions the mempool will go again to those levels and beyond.

As for the second, I said it before, the date is 2140, who cares what solution they will adopt at that time.

There are many things can happen in the future. I believe that developers will try to do their best to save bitcoin and improves its blockchain. I do agree that energy is an important issue and if we keep mining bitcoin like that, the world will become polluted and the cost of fuel will be extremely high. Bitcoin will soon become POS coin

Last supply of bitcoin would be mined is on year 2140. I dont know where you do get that year 2024 but it isnt the right year. Miners would be still on work even though they are not mining but yet they would still earn profits on making confirmations or pushing up transactions among the network and i do believe on those years fees would really be high for sure.The question is if bitcoin would able to survive into those years.

Wrong prediction, the max supply of BTC will mine in 2140 because the amount to be mine will divide in two for four years. It means that as long as it will move every year, the amount of BTC mine will not reach the total supply until 2140.
BTC is proof of work and after it reached the total supply which is 21million BTC. The miner will make a profit to the transaction process.

It is a long time before bitcoin can reach 21 millions coin. It takes approximately 122 years and in less than 10 years, the technology of bitcoin will be changed and we can expect that they will improve bitcoin to make it stronger and people do not need to use power to increase the number of bitcoin every day

They are working in the lighting network so I think they are still has a long way to go (because if they are thinking on another way, they will put thier resources in discovering other alternatives to mine) not build a LT.
Same as you I dont have any knowledge but Im hoping that the Microsoft giants or other big companies will participate on the blockchain and font a way (a greater way to mine this cryptos).


Solar panels are only efficient for off-grid systems, because of its high initial price, people will choose the grid. And if someone will build solar PV system, they will profit more on incentives and like you have said, selling electricity than mining BTC is the best choice

We have a lot of problems in the supply of energy nowadays, if this mining will caused so much power then this will not be efficient in the long run, what i mean is it is better to give people the power sources than spending it on mining IF ONLY they cant find a way to mine in an efficient manner.

Transaction fees collected by the miners could be huge in 100 years.

If a large mining operation invested in solar to supplement the energy costs, why sell the energy when you can use it specifically to run the hardware?

I did not calculate the last bit of mining for BTC, I just read it somewhere and apparently the information that I read was incorrect. (And I am no veteran w/BTC or cryptos in general, but I have learned a lot so far)

With other digital currencies available, if the transactions costs are high w/BTC, people will not use it. (Well, I will not) If the miners need a high transaction fee to be profitable for them, I think that will be a problem... People are not going to put up with high transaction fees period.........  They are better off using Western Union or Paypal...  Who cares if you on a centralized network.

That is the problem by the next generation! 2140 is too far in our time! We are all dead if the miners will put high transaction fees. I have two assumptions if bitcoin supply will already circulate to our economy, one thing is that it will suffer to a catastrophic event by means of bitcoin's falling down or it will change its system, making it as proof of something than proof of work. Anyways, I never really matters that all. I just wanted to know when does bitcoin circulate its max supply so I gather some information.
P.S.
As of now, there are 16 million of bitcoins that already circulated to our economy but as I also take a look on what others speculations, bitcoin already achieved its max supply and I doubt of it.

What can happen in the future maybe hard to predict or project especially since we are talking here of Bitcoin. What can be sure is that as long as there is money to be made then maybe miners will still be there. Now, in case a big reduction as to the potential of earnings will happen, this can mean that less miners would be operating business so that they can still be able to make some profits...meaning there can be less competition in the market. Anyway, we should not worry to much on this as this will be the problem for the next generation of people who will be in Bitcoin (that is it it will really survive).

The max BTC supply will be reached not as soon. The more BTC there will be already - the more difficult it will be to mine them. Mining will be profitable, I think, because now miners gain more from transaction fees, than from receiving BTC. When there will be 21M of them there will be so much transactions daily, that miners will easily compensate energy expenses.

Maybe its possible but it take years though , but nobody can say , if you mine all that then the blocks gonna be zero and theres nothing left to mine. Its up to you how you can do it , but I think it would be possible though but it takes time and its worth it really worth it.

When 21 million dollars are over, the transfer fees will be profitable. This sector never dies

It's not that we are all dead there could be a lot of untouched coins in the future that would make bitcoin harder to get and we can't be sure if bitcoin would still be valuable or alive during that time there could be other altcoins dominating the market 100+ years is a very long time. Also it's not the miners that have to put high transaction fees we do and not them.

As pointed out its year 2040 or 2041. Even the last bitcoin mined is unpredictable AFAIK. Its really depends on how the blocks is mined (every 10 minutes?).

I think there's going to be a Asics or mining hardware in the future that will be "eco-friendly", that will not consumed so much hash power. Oh yes, solar panel will be a good alternative as well.

As for the software, not sure though it we need to augment. It doesn't really makes sense.

Nowdays mining is pretty complicated and also requires enormous capital to see the results that much. thats is because of the block of bitcoin itsself
but if the price is really going to reach 100k I think it's no longer a problem. because now this miner more judge than the amount of coin. not from the amount value of usd .

Anyone could have predicted bitcoin would survive or not, depending on the bitcoin enthusiasts in the next generation if there are still many devotees until whenever it will definitely last long and if no fans are sure to collapse, I think we better not most predictions better keep quality to last long.