Bitcoin Forum

Ok, Now I know this might not be our problem, because we would be feeding the worms, when this happens, but I thought I'd just ask.

If everything goes, as planned with the Bitcoin protocal and difficulty etc...And the last BTC is mined in 2140, will mining still continue?

Currently miners do it, to get the Bitcoins as reward, for solving the blocks. And for the miners fee as a bonus. So in effect, even if you set no fee, your

transaction will still be processed, because the Bitcoins is still an incentive, for you to solve the block.

In theory, after 2140 there will be no more Bitcoins released as a reward, and the fee will be the only incentive to mine.

Will the fee be increased, when the Bitcoins reward fall away? And if so, will it still then be viable for a merchant or a individual to use the currency, if it has higher fees, than other alternative payment methods?  ???

It's hard question and nobody can answer it 100% sure. Bitcoin is still kind of experiment.
IMO only thing what will happen is there will be less "profit seeking" miners in future, because now most of new members come with exatly same vision .... make a fortune.

Here's the way I see it. If bitcoin is adopted, it will be worth much, much more than now. So in that sense, there should still be solid incentive for miners to process transactions. Well, I hope so, anyway. :)

Mining is essential to keep the network going. The 25 BTC with a block is called a block reward because it is what it says it is - a reward for successfully hashing the block.
Read up on the protocol documentation to find out more.

When 21M BTC are rewarded from blocks, there will be no more blocks that have a reward, but miners will still be rewarded with all the tx fees, just as they are now.

If everyone shuts down their ASIC units, the difficulty will go down, and GPU mining would then be back. But it's 2140, who knows what's gonna happen in 100+ years.

To be honest, I'd be very surprised if bitcoin survived that long. I think there could be existential threats (such as new decryption methods that threaten public/private key security, etc) that loom within that time. Hopefully not, but.... :-\

Couldn't care less about it. I'm not gonna live to see 2100.

Since no coins are being generated, the price should increase. More efficient ASICs would continue to be developed, small miners would be out of the game. People would be paying miners fees and the network would keep going as the watts/GH would be very low.

Exactly.

Some people think bitcoin will really last for than two/three decades will have a rude awakening one day.

We can make a fork to another algorithm, however, ASICs would have to be redesigned. I believe bitcoin can stay secure for a very long time or even forever.

We are building something for the future, even if you are not here anymore, your family and their children might be here still.

Image, after 100 years from now, your grand children find a paper wallet, and finds great Grandpa's BTC stash of 500 coins. And imagine, those coins are worth 8000 times, more than it's worth today. Well you get the point. We will never know, but it might just secure their future.

We cannot just say, we do not care, that attitude, is why we have so much environmental problems today and it will get much worst for our children and their children.

Read the post carefully, and try not, to just repeat what I have said.

1. How long, do you think, BTC will still be in use?
2. Do you predict, that another better Alt coin, will take it's place?
3. Will there still be miners, or would large corporations, again monopolize the mining, and we will again have a centralized currency?

Be imaginative, and think about these things.

We could still have pro-bono miners, who process certain transactions for free in 2140.   :D

One of the bitcoin millionaires could set up a trust, and ensure that bitcoin transactions get processed and transaction costs remain low.

Big companies would keep things floating, if this is driving the world economy. Even governments would use our tax to bail it out, if needed. How ironic would it be, if history repeat itself in a 100 years from now. {Like governments now, manipulating fiat, to keep it alive}

If not BTC but some other crypto currency, they developed.

I don't think that bitcoin will be around after 100+ years, maybe some other cryptocurrency wich bitcoin would be grand-grand-grand-grand father :)

At that time you will much likely to be dead, no offence.

IMO i dont think it will ever survive that long some alternative crypto coin will take over maybe 10+ yrs from now.

So? Why everyone uses this excuse?
You think our kids, or grand kids want to use Bitcoin if they ask what happens at 2140 and we just say that we don't give a shit because we will die before it...

Its a bit like looking at this in the 1880s:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/1885Benz.jpg

And trying to predict what all modes of transportation would be like in the year 2014.

2140 is just too far into the future to even begin to guess how technology will advance or to predict how the population of the future will engage in commerce.

Any attempt is nothing more than random guessing based on inadequate knowledge.

The "we'll be dead by then" is really just a poorly phrased way to say, "The system will either continue based on transaction fees, or something else will come along.  It is impossible to know how the future generations will want to use future technology to handle transactions.  It would be rather presumptuous of us to try and tell them how they should handle something over 120 years from now."

The.... Bla..Bla..Bla.. you will be dead is getting old. Read the whole thread and comment please.

Yea, we will be dead, and the people in the future, will say ..." Damn BTC could have been the de facto currency, if only they thought of this "

Nothing is more important, than what you leave behind. Our legacy to our children, is what we do today.... I'd like them to say.. Wow our fore father's was wise people, look what they did.

Right, and in the year 1888, they should have been determining what the speed limit on highways (that didn't even exist yet) should be in 2014.

Give me a break.

If the useless politicians in Toronto 50 years ago built the high way they were told to build it today we wouldn't have a traffic problem.. Instead they thought like you, decided it would be a great idea to save some cash.. and now everyone hates them.  Although everyone hates all politicians sooo who cares.

I never said anything about saving some cash.

I'm just pointing out that 120 years is a lot longer than some people around here seem to realize.

120 years ago...

• Automobiles were just being invented
• Orville Wright was 10 years old, and over a decade away from figuring out sustained heavier than air flight
• Marconi was 10 years old and Heinrich Hertz hadn't even conceived of sending and receiving radio waves yet

Do you really think anyone could have made any decisions about technology in 1884 (or earlier) that would have any merit today at all?

no one can predict how the future of bitcoin, but if you look at the difficulties that go up very significantly. I think would be very difficult at all and require a higher miner to mine bitcoin after 2140.
but it could have been a lot of new miner innovation, evolving to meet the difficulties bitcoin.
btw, I'm not going to live until 2140. :D

One thing to keep in mind about this 2140 number is that in the 4 years leading up to the very last block contaning a block subsidy the miners will be making only 0.00000001 BTC per block.  And in the 4 years before that they would be only making 0.00000002 BTC per block and in the 4 years before that only 0.00000004 BTC per block, and so on.

So either 0.00000001 BTC will be worth a heck of a lot by then OR more than likely the fees will have totally swamped this very small and probably insignificant amount of new BTC in each block by then.

This issue of how to pay the miners to keep mining will have to be solved way before 2140.

The hope is that as the block subsidy decreases and fees (volume) increases the cross over point where the fees become more than the block subsidy will happen in time to keep the whole thing going.  This cross over will probably have to happen way before 2140.

Ah at last, someone see my point.

No need to get personal, it's just a debate, trying to make improvements now, and making some predictions, on what may or may not happen in future.

spazzdla - You totally missing my point... If the town developers, did think like I did, you would not have needed roads at all.  :P

BurtW - When do you predict, would the cross over point be?