Bitcoin Forum

So I was reading an article about the future of Bitcoin, trying to understand what will happen when the last bitcoin has been mined (from a technical perspective).

https://coinlu.com/what-is-the-future-of-bitcoin/


So if we do the math, the last Bitcoin should be mined sometime in the year 2140 - all of us will be dead by then.
However, what do you think will happen and what can we compare the event too?

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There's a time limit as to how long bitcoin should be mined? I didn't know. And why would we be dead? I hope this is not true, because bitcoin has helped so many people, and if the currency dies, a lot of people will probably have a hard time adjusting to the old ways.

Yes, You won't be able to mine as the limit supply is 21 million bitcoins

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mastering-bitcoin/9781491902639/images/msbt_0801.png

If you're 20 years old now, by 2140, you will most probably be dead  :D

Well, if you count it in that way, that might be the end of bitcoin. But the idea of bitcoin is exemplary, it won't be diminished that easily. Many will come by the time you've predicted.

I don't think so. I hope this is not true. Because Bitcoin has helped so many people and if the currency dies,a lot of people will probably have a hard time adjusting to the old ways.

Why would it be the end of bitcoin? After the last bitcoin has been mined, miners can still earn bitcoin through transaction fees. I'm pretty sure Satoshi wouldn't design bitcoin to be scarce if it would die after the last coin has been mined. It was made scarce in purpose to be deflationary.

By that time there will be no bitcoin. Bitcoin will be less valued as some other crypto will emerge.

There are some people that question the idea that mining fees will be enough to keep the mining incentives system intact and argue that without the mining reward there will be problems. I don't really see how... as long as there's the opportunity to make money mining bitcoin, there will be people doing it. The "if you aren't doing it someone else will find profit" scheme still applies with or without mining reward as difficulty is adjusted according, and by 2140 BTC should be interplanetary currency anyway, it will be as desired as ever.

It's fun. Just care about bitcoin mining in the next years. i'm sure you can not live until 2140 to see the last bitcoin mined. I think it is really hard to mine all the bitcoin. Just my opinion.

If the last bitcoin is mined, the mining of Bitcoin still continues.  Remember everytime we make a transaction, we payed for a transaction fees, that will be the next reward for the miners.  They will be mining transaction fees as a reward.  It is speculated that by that time, bitcoin will be mass adopted that it is possible that a single block containing tx fees of transactions is worthy of mining.

My opinion that price will be "moon".
Also Year 2140 is approximately date.
Because power of miners rising every day and may be created powerful miner.

In theory by that time if the last Bitcoin is mined there will probably be a coin that was in line to come up at the top in that aspect as we'd see this new coin be the new Bitcoin in terms of minability and value. But by 2140 who knows if there's something that tops cryptocurrency? we never thought we'd see cryptocurrency as a possibility until 2009. The reason why speculating about the potential of what would be is something not really worth the trouble. There might be advancements that even make this obsolete, who knows?

Once, the last of the Bitcoin has been mined, the market will take a sharp turn. The supply of the Bitcoin will be limited while the demand will continue to rise. As a result, the price will go up.

Do you think that would really be happen? Perhaps, there is no people here in the forum who is a time traveler?  Because, none of us here in this field of business knows what will happen in the future. But it could be that Bitcoin can become a world currency someday due to its potentiality and capability.

Of course, nothing special will happen if the last bitcoin is extracted. What should or can happen? What will happen is that in a hundred and twenty years no one will need Bitcoin in this state. By that time, the cryptocurrency has completely changed. The question is whether Bitcoin will change by then and what it will be. Of course, we will not know.

it seems to me that the mining will not die after the last bitcoin has been mined because the miners will be paid for more transactions in the network

I think after 5 years it will be completely mined so demand is the only role of future market. All the cryptocurrencies are follow the Bitcoin way so most of the altcoins are move to critical stage in future because of legalisation of Bitcoin. Slowly each countries has decide the Bitcoin legalisation so positive result is possible in forever.

certainly no one can predict how long bitcoin will run out in the mine, because the level of difficulty in mining bitcoin is very high which I think is the price of bitcoin in the year 2140 might just touch the highest price.

Are you pointing to the 21 million supply of bitcoin? 5 years won't be enough and estimation of OP is correct. Its around 100+ years before all bitcoins will be mined. And when that time comes, miners will continue to mine if bitcoin is still there for confirming transactions.

Speculating something 100 years ahead is difficult but if bitcoin still has the floor by that time, people who are holding around 0.001BTC and above will become the new wealthy citizens of the world.

A hypothetical and rhetorical question. If the last of the 21 million bitcoin is mined by 2140, it's either the price of 1 bitcoin is too high for the miners to continue hashing or it the network wouldn't live to exhaust the supply due to petty geopolitical and economical issues (hi Trump, China and Russia!) We're going to incline on the safer side just to satisfy your question. If bitcoin lived up until 2140, it could be that it's due to the constant pouring of demand + price increases to motivate the miners to keep hashing. By then, bitcoin is regarded as the new gold and is an integral part of the world's economy. If not, then bitcoin might not even see the last coin to be mined since there's literally no incentive for the miners to do so + the cost of mining will surely outweigh their profit.

That's a little harsh. Bitcoin mining takes as much electricity as a small country, but the reason for mining being to hard it strong competition. And I don't think this problem is big enough for bitcoin to stop existing.
Outlawing bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies means not only making millions of people angry, but involves a high risk of underground economy that will have more negative effects on national economies than some regulations making usage of bitcoin 100% legit.

In general, I think this article is just  too negative about btc and its future.

After the last bitcoin get mined, once each new block gets confirmed miners will only get their income from the transaction fees and not from the block reward this will become zero.

With time will be less bitcoins moving, because the bad practices and ignorance will make bitcoins get lost.

And the blockchain will be enormous, if now days already have a weight of 200GB, when the last BTC get mined then the rolling snowball (Blockchain) will be bigger.

And that's my technical perspective.

I think the bosses of the bitcoin mining companies would be really rich at the time. Difficulties in bitcoin mining are high as the amount of bitcoin mined gradually decreases. So I think bitcoin will have a very great price at that time.

When Bitcoin is fully exploited, I believe the bitcoin price will rise sharply as there is no supply for it. Bitcoins cannot be made extra, the amount reaches the limit, and the demand for possession is so high it will make it grow fast.

Thank you for your insights, very helpful!

I don't know either, maybe bitcoin will be unable to be mined by miners. But if that happening, the price of bitcoin will increasing overtime because the circulation supply will not adding anymore and become limited. If the demands of bitcoin keep increasing, the price of bitcoin can sky rocketing.

I do not think it'll have an adverse effect on the bitcoin,yeah miners would not earn bitcoins for solving puzzles anymore,they will simply fall back on transaction fees..

And 2140 is a long period of time, so many features might be created by then,and the last bitcoin mined might not even matter to the system

As you said we might all be dead,i think posterity would have to wait to decide what will happen by then

I think there are more supply from it's hardfork like BCH or other bitcoin child.
So, people still keep mining but not mine bitcoin

How will bitcoin get confirm after last block mined? Same way as today? Miner will still mine at higher difficulty and take only miner fee? Or difficulty will go lower?

When more people do mining on Bitcoin then of course that will make bitcoin reach the target faster and bitcoin will run out. When Bitcoin has been mined, I am very confident that Bitcoin will experience a significant price increase. When Bitcoin is increasingly sought after by many people and supply has been fulfilled, more and more people will be interested and that will make the price of Bitcoin automatically increase.

Bitcoin is a financial system in the future, so therefore start investing in Bitcoin from now on and we will get many opportunities to make a profit.

There's two way this scenario could look like. The first scenario, if the last coin was mined than there will be a massive price surge. The second is another technological breakthrough which could either lead to mining of more coins or the erasion of BTC completely for the next BTC generation?

I agree with this, people will definitely create various modifications to keep Bitcoin running in the market. And given that Bitcoin is being use by the mass, we can say that the stability must always be observe so we can prevent future threat that may end up eradicating this community.

Mining charges should increment with the end goal to boost miners to continue with their essential work – without them the system would fall and Bitcoin would wind up useless and unusable without any transactions being checked. Newer mining hardware is likewise the appropriate answer to this potential issue.

It will not going to happen. The mined bitcoin has only a little bit of percentage to the actual numbers of bitcoin. Besides, the bitcoin supply is fix which is 21 Million bitcoins. The mined bitcoin will then be the reason to go bitcoin market price higher especially if they will not spend bitcoin and just hoarding it. Miners will able to see it as an advantage for them because they can really earn more profit in holding bitcoin they mined. But, as what I have stated earlier that mined bitcoin has only a little percentage compared to the actual supply of bitcoin.

I can't guess what will happen in 10 years and you are asking what will happen 120 years later :)

I don't know, maybe a fork? I won't be living at that time so don't care.

2140 my age will be more than 1 hundred, i think i wouldn't know what will happen if last mined in 2140, i will better focue what will happen with bitcoin in 1 or 2 years more because i hope it can get better soon.

if in my opinion then someday if bitcoin has no inventory of coins then the price of bitcoin can definitely reach exorbitant, because if the bitcoin inventory gets less and less the price of bitcoin has become very expensive especially if there is no availability

Bitcoin prices will increase and bitcoin will be increasingly scarce, but behind that all the big fees will definitely increase too. People will use bitcoin more as trading and making transactions

There really won't be a big deal.  After all is mined then we will have the exact circulation flowing and there will be great scarcity.  I believe by that time bitcoin would have been a real gem,  life term life changing asset. 

I think that this will happen much faster, as the technology does not stand still and develop with a roll forward, like a snowball. What is being done today in a few minutes, was previously considered in principle impossible from a technical point of view. So for the use of bitcoin can not be afraid. And what the hell makes you think we'll be dead by 2040?)

Presumably when all the coins have been mined and are in circulation then there will be no need for further mining so coins will be earned from fees for transactions-both buyer and seller could pay a fee for the work done and it would be paid in bitcoin from the transaction. for example person A sells an item to B for 1 bitcoin, A pays x% transaction fee in btc and gets the 1 btc minus that fee, B gets the item but has to pay 1btc plus x% fee. or have i got this completely wrong? 

Nothing will happen, as there's absolutely no chance btc will remain the same until those days. It may be displaced by other giant technological coin and go into oblivion. The other chance is that crypto won't be an outdated technology in even 10 years, let alone 100+. No practical use to think about that. What happened with dial telephones in 100 years after the invention? The same destiny awaits btc.

i think it is the end of bitcoin

I think bitcoin will continue for being use at that time, this is just a thoughts because no one knows in every of us what gonna happen after the very last bitcoin was mined in 2140, because we are probably dead.

Dont worry, BTC will be over much earlier.I give BTC 1...1,5 years maximum.

But if You like math and technical perspective, then You could also calculate, what would be blockchain size by 2140, if blockchain doubles in size every 1,5 years.

of course we will never know after that, only predictions.
but if bitcoin runs out of mine, of course, we can assume that bitcoin will rise higher in price or there is the latest digital discovery that beats bitcoin. this will be a debate

I think when last bitcoin mined, bitcoin price will be very expensive and transaction fee getting more higher than right now. It could be bitcoin holder will never wont sell their bitcoin because the supply reducing a lot. Miners maybe getting reward from the transaction fee

of course the price of bitcoin will soar very high because with the bitcoin supply getting little, the faster bitcoin will also experience a super high increase so the price of the value of bitcoin will be expensive

You are thinking too much. Just think about Bitcoin in near future because you will not live until 2140  ;D ;D

2140 year is far away from this 2018. It is almost impossible to think now for 2140 from now rather we have to work on leaving think. We know Bitcoin is limited to 21millions, its mined will be ended in 2140. Time will say what will happen.

Craig Wright (jnr) will creaate a fork.

As supply gets depleted, demand now rises and prices will go up! Miners will benefit mostly with of transactions fees.  The coin might stabilize as well as time goes by  ;D