transactions are inside of every block, so without blocks, no transactions. Block reward might go to zero, but the creation of new Blocks will never stop as long as people are mining. when people stop mining, there will be no new blocks and making transactions will not be possible anymore. So its very important that people are mining. without a block reward, who will try to find a block (and so process the transactions)? this answer is still unsure and time is running up very fast.
the possibility of an 51% attack has nothing to do with the block reward, after block reward goes to zero, 51% attacks are still possible (and even more likely). because the network hashrate is going to drop when there is no reward, the power it would need for such an attack is less than now.
who will mine ixc when there is no reward? sure, there is cex.io, but if they are the only one we are are just cex.io coin then. people will never trust a coin with an entity holding more than 51% of the network.
so how do we want to prevent this from happening? unfortunately there is no answer yet, so people try to cash out. somehow it seems people are hoping the miner will just continue to mine by fun ?
correct me if im wrong, i am still a btc noob, but thats reallity as i can see it.
and the transaction fees?
or change the code to pos?
(sry i´m a noob)