Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys! So, yeah, as you must know already, all crypto has a finite supply meaning its not going to be mineable forever I guess, but what actually happens when bitcoin hits 21 million max besides it not being mineable anymore? Does this increase the value quicker? Let me know if you know, i dont know the answer and would love to hear what you have to say

It will still be POW but miners will only receive the fees involved instead of coins additionally. In theory if nothing changes demand ways then the price should increase because there's less downward pressure on the price by miners selling their coins. Of course we'll all be dead by then anyway.

inflation will take care of that, most likely the price of bitcoin will be a lot higher than now
the miners will then depend solely on fees from mined transaction to support (calculate profit) their mining operations
you can read more about "finite bitcoin supply" topic on this wiki page
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply#What_happens_when_all_the_bitcoins_are_mined.3F

this could be one of the speculations, and maybe this might actually happen ..
and now, let's review, if we look at the trading system (legal) bitcoin prices could have gone up, when the demand for orders is still a lot. because with a limited supply, this will be very profitable, because fewer items, if with a lot of enthusiasts, it will be expensive

The question has been asked thousands of times. A simple search would have given you the answer:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+happens+when+Bitcoin+hits+21M+circulating+supply

Its not so much a question of what happens when all 21 million bitcoins are mined. But rather a question of when will all 21 million bitcoins be mined. The current estimate for 100% of all bitcoins being mined is the year 2140. This means all bitcoins being mined likely won't become a real issue until 122 years in the future.

The typical question people ask when hearing of this is: "what happens if people buy a lot of ASICs and global mining power increases exponentially, won't all 21 million bitcoins be mined faster"? If hashpower increases at a high rate, mining difficulty will also increase in an effort to maintain a steady and consistent flow of new bitcoins being introduced into supply.

Anyways long story short, all 21 million bitcoins being mined likely won't happen until 122 years from now. By then someone will likely have found a solution or built a better bitcoin, in which case, it isn't likely to be a major or critical issue.

Your question is not properly formulated in my estimation. Everyone is giving you advice on where to read more about this, and I suggest you do the reading they are suggesting to you. You are able to use the search function and find endless discussion on this topic.

I just have one basic correction, Bitcoin will never reach 21M in circulating supply. There have been too many bitcoins lost to missing keys, the genesis block not having private keys and things like this. Circulating supply is much lower than the amount in existence. Bitcoin mining will not conclude within any of our lifetimes, so I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you're planning on writing prophetic visions.

LOL  so true. Subtracting to that 21M supply also, is Satoshi Nakamoto 980,000 bitcoins stash which idly sitting only. This means that bitcoin right now is still undervalue if you compared to the world population. If each one has 1 BTC, it only needs 21,000 people but the world has billions inhabitants. The proportion is huge, where bitcoin will likely to be more expensive in the  future.

Thanks for your answer. I see what your saying, i asked out of curiousity as of what, but had also asked the question of when. Good questions.

wow really 980k BTC stashed by Satoshi Nakamoto? can you give me link to more info about it.
it will be an interesting one to read, I wonder if anyone tracking these coins.
it could lead to the discovery who Satoshi actually is.

would circulating supply be similar to money supply? maybe we should say spendable supply instead

No more rewards for people in bitcoin for mining, and I'd guess the rest of it would have to be made up by fees being increased. Though we wouldn't have to get to the amount of fees were at now due to the fact that the mining equipment is going to have to innovate, prices are going to decrease and mining is going to get quicker --> that's how the world works.

So yeah, no more rewards.

You can just easily search that on google. If you're lazy here's the thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175996.0) about satoshi having 1 million bitcoins. I doubt those bitcoin address would help us find who Satoshi really is.

Right, at the moment it's almost at 17 million. It depends on your preference both have the same meaning. Most people here are used to seeing "circulating supply" because it's used in the website of coinmarketcap.

Given that the difficulty increases exponentially as we reach closer to the 21 million cap, it's going to take a while for it to happen but when it does, prices would already be going berserk towards the sky. The only question is when it will happen and if miners will be ready to sustain just from the transaction fee. All we can do is wait and watch as things unfold.

Price would definitely be higher considering no new coins are being mined, no to mention all the coins that got lost along the way. The supply and demand factor of the price would still be in play but how much that would affect the priced depends on how much bitcoin has penetrated the economy at that time. If it has already become a secondary currency in many countries, I can't see the price falling drastically even in the worst of times.

I totally agree with this. Coins lost + no new coming into circulation + further expansion and application of the coin must increase it’s value, almost surely.

^^ Doesnt have to be true and depends how you measure price.  In dollars every price rises as the government continually spends more then is made in tax revenue and so the monetary base is growing more then the economy leading to higher prices for anything.
Thats not a crypto effect and will occur in any case.

Mining still occurs as transactions are confirmed in this way, fees will form the block reward and there is none given by the network itself.   Efficiency could also mean the block is cheaper to solve at that point even if difficulty has risen.    Every economy has a tendency to move towards efficient working process, or the path of least resistance.

theymos has said several times in the past that satoshi having "1 million coins" is more like a myth than reality. The amount of people mining on the early days is higher than expected. For example theymos said that he was mining way earlier than a lot of people would expect, so im sure there are more people like that mining since the early days, at some point you can't really know how many coins satoshi really had.

And as far as 21 million coins mined, we will be all dead by then, let the people of the future worry about that, but the idea is that the transaction fees will be enough of an incentive for miners to keep mining.

I never made an estimate because I thought I would not live until that time. Most likely Bitcoin will reach very serious values until then. On the subject of mining, I think people will turn to other crypto currency derivatives. As a result, Bitcoin is the best in the market, but not in a monopoly market.

Well, in my opinion, by the time that this actually happens, I think that bitcoin's issues would have been solved already. Now if that would be the case , then I think that the prices by this time would be very expensive and would be much more stable and slowly rise up as the demand increases and the supply being held on to tightly by the owners. It would most likely be an expensive collector's item / great store of value like gold. That is what I think.

Yes it will increase the value very fast considering the fact that the demand is still high. Other wise there will be no effect on the prices if the demand goes down over the time with the supply as well. However there will be dramatic changes in the fee structure and mining abilities. Miner will be there to confirm your transactions and the reward that they will receive will be part of the fees and nothing else. That is how they will earn the whole thing so to keep it running they will need to grab huge fees and thus over the time bitcoin could get costly when we will come to extinguishing level.

This will be the end of bitcoin mining ⛏ a 21M circulating supply will be a history in a making that for sure we won’t be alive in that era.. With slowdown of cryptocurrency adaptation,, the number of miners decreases and the timeline for acquiring the full supply longer than expected..

Every Satoshi counted more valuable at that time and it worth more than any coins in the market.. I can’t wait this to happen,, but we won’t experience this phenomenon..

No it won't be the end of bitcoin mining.

What will happen is miners will continue to mine to confirm transactions.

My mistake,, what I mean is the small miner like me.. The difficulty and the fee,, I don’t think it’s worth mining at that time.. The improvement of Segwit and future updates in the lite network will lessen the possibility of higher transaction fees then those factor alone won’t be beneficial to a miner cost production..

I hope I’m wrong and correct me if i am Sir..

False statement. There are cryptos that haven't got a finite total supply. Examples of such coins are ethereum, Waves. You can check the coinmarketcap for that info.


Truth is that the 21million supply can never be achieved. Already, there are some bitcoin lost and can't he retrieved as a result of lost of PKeys, death, malwares etc. But once the peak (no matter what number is reached) in supply is achieved, investors will begin looking for other crypto options. I really don't see getting to the highest supply being a problem for anyone.

Yeah the small miners will definitely have the choice to stop if all coins will be mined. Difficulty will totally increase and if you can see that it's worth it anymore then you have to look for some other coins to mine during that time. But you know what? the year that all bitcoins will be mined, I don't think that we are still existing by that time.

If the circulating supply increases means the price will decrease but it take too long from now for all coins to b mined so before that bitcoin will be used by more people than now which menas the price will be huge when last coins were to be mined.But still miners will work and get rewards from transaction fees.

Why users should look for other cryptocurrencies if they trust bitcoin? A limited number of coins is a protective mechanism against inflation. But the price of bitcoin is influenced only by demand. Now there are whales who have concentrated in their hands a large number of coins. They too can manipulate the price but gradually bitcoins will disperse on hands of all users and whales it will be difficult to keep the domination.

If the supply of bitcoins goes that high, I think it will affect its price but depending also on the number of people mining or investing it. Every day, month and year the population here in crypto world is increasing so the demand for bitcoin is increasing. What will happen to bitcoin will not depend as to its number alone.

When all 21 million bitcoins are mined, I think that nothing significant will happen. Given that this should happen around 2140, probably, we do not know for sure. Even if the technology of mining bitcoins in the near future will significantly change for the better, then vseravno it is unlikely that we will wait. By this time, I think, there will be so many diverse crypto-currencies that hardly anyone will be particularly interested in this museum exhibit.

There is no limit on the price of cryptocurrency, if people will really like bitcoins then they will probably invest more coins so we can expect that the price in the future might grow even more when the shortage has come in the market.

I would argue if bitcoin is mined to the limit, then there will be an increase in value. because bitcoin is considered rare and increasingly needed by many people.

I think if that should ever happen, and all the BTCs are actually owned (which will not happen by the way) then we will see a coin that will increase it's value. Then again, it would depend on who will own the coin. If however a coin. Is owned by a whale then they might use it to control the market to lower or jack up prices.

Miners will just be paid in transaction fees and not by additional bitcoin anymore. The price will be really definitely go high because only few will be circulating online. But I believe that 21 million supply has not yet mined and not yet owned by everyone.

It would take decades for all the bitcoins to get into circulation and being that it isn't something that we should be concerned about. If the time reaches for that to happen, the people using it at that time should be asking questions like this, and most probably there won't be such problems in future as for sure there will be even better technologies by then.

In theory transaction fees will be what solely rewards the miners. In reality though, unless computers become smarter, faster and smaller this wont be profitable most likely. But I'm sure by then that another currency with a more Eco-friendly consensus, and more profitable rewards will surface. We should start looking to more sustainable Cryptos. There are many coins that are potentially "better" than bitcoin.

The value of Bitcoin will be high. Because it has been exploited and its value will increase dramatically.
A bit worse, Bitcoin will not be used in trading and it will only become a symbol. That's my cheerful thoughts. ;D

There is a new consensus protocol that is Eco-friendly called Proof of Ambassador introducted by Bitcoin Origin. Bitcoin Origin's Proof of Ambaasador consensus is based on pre-approved Authoritative validators with a Proof of Authority approach. Ambassadors are voted for monthly by the Bitcoin Origin coin holders. By staking Bitcoin Origin tokens the community is given the power to vote for the Ambassador who has represented Bitcoin Origin in the effective manner. Bitcoin Origin is a self- funded project it's not an ICO or an Altcoin yet it is an upcoming hard fork of the 5 biggest PoW Cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash. Bitcoin Origin has Eco- Friendly approach to mining using severs that Eco- friendly farms.

There is already a consensus (pun intended) around Crypto that BTC has am expiration date but has opened the door to the mainstream world for other Cryptos. When that point comes then you are right in saying that miners will be paid in transaction fees but that point is basically a point not even giving attention to because by that time we will all have moved away from a coin like BTC because the world will have adopted a coin that has moved to more sustainable form of Proof of Stake such as ETH, which seems to be the closer contender in the pool of Crypto. We are all aware of the amounts of energy consumption within Proof Of Work so there are greener projects such as Bitcoin Origin being discussed which would use Proof Of Ambassador which looks to be much more sustainable and scalable for real world application. Savvy investors out there seem to be leaning towards greener projects as potential investments so watch for that coming wave

this increase in value is initially due to the limited availability of available goods. if all has been successfully mined automatically it will make it a high value and will reach a very expensive price when traded. but, if you want to look normal, the new protocol rules on supply should be updated immediately.

The more bitcoins the less is the price, when there will be no more new bitcoins comming out, the price will be forced to grow continuously

Since bitcoin will always have the same issue, the price will have to rise. Since it is already known, the smaller the quantity, the higher the price (given the high demand of the cryptocurrency).

when bitcoin hit 21M the price of bitcoin may be a million dollars seeing at the present demand the supply will definitely lead to increase more  expectations on bitcoin price

I think there will be two very strong possibilities
if bitcoin can not meet the needs of the developers, then bitcoin will be worth 0, and the whales will move to Ethereum
and if whales persist to pump and dump on bitcoin, then the result is bitcoin will break 100k USD / BTC

Thats right, we know that bitcoin has a supply limit and when bitcoin already hits 21m supply circulation, that means total users are already very large at that time, and on the other hand the demand keeps growing bcoz of user growth, and in other words the price may have exploded that days..

As the current mining block increases the calculation becomes more difficult and more hash power is needed to mine the next block. I think until the last block is mined a leave amount of hash power will be needed and also the value of Bitcoin will increase very high until then. For sure some more convenient and faster currency would be in circulation until then in the crypto market.

Miners will earn and mine through transaction fees when the supply reach to 21 million and the price should be dramatically increase because of the demand and if bitcoin manage to become a mainstream currency use around the globe then it will be valuable like gold. But that time will took a hundred years to happen.

so i do not think mining will stop when the supply of 21 million is up, but it is an important momentum as prices will rise significantly as you explain. so it is not a disaster but a gift

There are many changes coming if this happen , yes the price i think will go up because is easy to control the price if its not mineable or already hit the circulating supply . This is worst to all miners that want a bitcoin because we get only in trading but before hit the supply many years are need.

you are actually right, and since it has only limited supply we could also expect that the price would skyrocket. although not all of the following 21m supply would be circulating, it is always expected that the price will be very expensive.

The major change will be in the way mining operations get done. The fees might just boom a lot because miners will have only one way of getting paid and that is mining fees. Because bitcoins will be mined fully and thus there will be no block that will be remained to add into the blockchain. However, whiner a transaction will be done then there will be need of miners who will just algorithmically solve the transaction and add the blocks.

On investors perspective, the demand will be very much high as whole bitcoins will be in circulation. The supply will be fulfilled already and only one thing will surge and that is demand thus rising the prices high.

For me if happens bitcoin will hit 21M supply and circulated the demand of the bitcoin in the market getting high and that's the time the value of the bitcoin will going up. We know that 21M supply of the bitcoin will not hit for now but hopefully it will be happen and I see the people here are still waiting for the best value of the bitcoin.

bitcoin is like gold in the real world, and like valuables, bitcoin cannot be created just like that. gold must be mined out of the ground, while bitcoin must be mined through digital means. associated with the process, this is a provision set by the founders of bitcoin and it has a fairly limited supply. of course, this will greatly impact on higher prices.

Bitcoin value are very important to us and the best value of the bitcoin are the most we care waiting for. We all know that Bitcoin supply are not totally circulated and I think it will never be happen because of the weak people who are dumping their bitcoin and selling it in a low price through lack of believe in a bitcoin will never be crash. If all people are keep holding their bitcoin and other will buy fully in Bitcoin that's the time the 21M bitcoin supply will hit and the price of the bitcoin will goes to the moon.

I think with what you said, it will also make the transaction fee much higher and it would affect those who use bitcoin as payment. The demand will also  get lower because of this and in the end it may  cause the bitcoin to fall behind to altcoins that are more faster and functional.

Actually bitcoin will not hit the total of 21million circulating supply. There will be a remaining 1bitcoin until the end or until bitcoin still exist. Because if bitcoin hits the 21m the there will no btc will be mined anymore. That means bitcoin mining will be dead.

You can check this link if you want though but then again that 21 m i think its more a hoax , many experts say it but despite the different conclusion still long live bitcoin.

Link: https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-happens-bitcoin-after-all-21-million-are-mined/

Even after all the 21 million bitcoins mined,as there would be still continuos demand for bitcoins but no more supply,bitcoin price would increase much higher.But it would take almost 140 more years to occur.

yes of course, in the future demand of bitcoin will continue to increase and when bitcoin are mined of course it will give a positif impact to bitcoin price, bitcoin price will increase because bitcoin has limited supply and it will not be able to meet the demand so the price will rising significantly

If truly speaking, I have never thought that bitcoin could end someday, I mean that I don’t think that day wil come when no more mining of bitcoin is possible . Bitcoin is very feasible crypto currency and I don’t think that it will ever end but if it this is possible then obviously there will be less supply of bitcoin into the circulation for the investors then automatically the demand will high and then results in increase in valuation of bitcoin and I think then it will cross more than 21 million.

If the bitcoin reached 21 M circulating supply, it will cause bitcoin to be a rare item and  contested by many investors, and the bitcoin price will be expensive due to the high demand while the supply of goods is limited. Perhaps the group of individuals most directly affected by the bitcoin supply limit is the miner of the currency itself. In this case, these miners may need to rely on transaction costs to maintain their operations after all bitcoins are depleted mined and transaction costs will be the only source of income for miners

4815162342
If you know what I mean ;)

It only means that the market price will keep on increasing even more because there will be a shortage in mining so the price will obviously increase even more due to a huge demand in the market.

Bitcoin may be able to bit 21 million coins by the end of 2 years and the reason for this is that there is a lot of demand for bitcoin in the market which is increasing with time the rule for bitcoin is that the demand and the supply must be proportional for it to function and so the demand indicates this

Obviously the price will keep on increasing because there will be a shortage and yearly the minimum value will keep on incrementing which makes the price to become even more expensive.

For sure price will increase and the value will go bigger quickly,but i doubt we are going to experience this in our time.because the more bitcoin mined the slower this can get so meaning when we reach the 20 million bitcoin then this mining will take much longer time to mined again

Most likely,that would be the scenario. Transaction fee would increase too, and miners would rely solely on this for payment for their services.Bitcoin would be expensive on that time and theres a chance for ther cryptocurrency to shine as an alternative too.

If all bitcoins have been mined then its price will be incredibly high because with its low number of maximum supply it is still in-demand due to its features.

I suppose hitting 21M will be followed by a surge in bitcoin's price as such a huge event will be on of the biggest newsmakers and therefore will attract more people to the sphere and conequently increase the demand.

The servers to mine cryptocurrency  are rapidly increasing over in China and in Asia which means that bitcoin supply is increasing at an alarming rate with time compared to the past so it is predicted that bitcoin will hit 21 million coins by the end on 3 to 5 years which is a relatively accurate estimate

To date, 17 174 637 BTC has been produced. This is a huge amount and every year to produce bitcoins at the mine will become more difficult and its price will increase. But the increase in price will not be relative to the speed of production of blocks. The increase is gradual with UPS and downs as all markets live.

Are you mad? It won't happen in 2 years! It's estimated that we'll rich 21 million in 2140. MAny people think that since we mined 17 million in 8 years it's going to be downhill from here. The truth is totally different as we are mining less and less every year and the closer to the end the less coins will be mined every year, mainly due to halvings.
What will happen? Most likely there will be other cryptos because I don't believe that BTC will be able to survive another 120 years with outdated sha 256. 

it will take around 100 years or more to complete the circulating supply so by that time bitcoin price will touch more than a million

Your statement is completely false. Please read this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply

After all the coins are mined, the miners will stop getting block reward and will only get transaction fee's. But the increase in demand  will also increased the price of Bitcoin that must be sufficient for the miners to to continue validating transactions and adding blocks, there can be few miners that will leave the network reason being the high demand of energy in mining.

The information is quite useful no matter how fluctuating it is, the more stable it is. In this market it is difficult to predict the market up or down. But one thing that does not change is that it will be sesame and stable forever. The future is stronger and more developed.

I believe that the price will increase because there will be a shortage in terms of volume of the market so the price will keep on increasing even more if majority of the people will prefer to invest.

but whatever happens, this supply never goes out of the number. Officially, bitcoin is just about twenty one lac in this world. No more bitcoin is ever developed. This number is revolving around the word and the prices are getting influence from this number. But now, as you are saying, I am really shocked but happy as well that number might be increasing with time, coping up needs of everyone.

If thats can happen whats the point of 21 million coins limit, halving and etc...?

Are we going to die? You are thinking too negatively. It is like gold, when the gold has been dug out what happens? While demand is still high, prices will inevitably be pushed up and whales take advantage of that to manipulate the market normally. Bitcoin still has value and of course we will survive, markets will continue to go up and nothing will end.

The real scary part is, if the miners do not sell their coins, technically speaking someone can have all the bitcoin in the world. Think about it, let's say you are a miner, you can pay the bills and the costs from your pocket, after the 21 million is over and there is no more new bitcoins, that means the only thing you are mining for is the fee's right?

Well, when you keep going for that fee, you are taking other people's money and not new bitcoins, if you do not sell them, eventually you can have ALL of them as well. Obviously it is not possible with the time table and how it would take longer than one life time to be able to do that, but I really dislike the fact that it is technically possible for something like that to happen, it should have been covered over with a protection for something like that.

This problem could be solved by creating an extremely small demurrage fee. The problem is that even if that demurrage fee is only 1 satochi per block (one satochi from each wallet go back to be mined each block), this become 0.0005256 bitcoins per year, a value that is not low enough.

The irony of owning all the bitcoins is that it makes them worthless.