What will be the state of Bitcoin after all coins are mined? Even before that what happens to miners as it gets close to the final mint? Is one 1 Satoshi, 00000001 the absolute smallest demonimation or can fractions thereof be created if needed?
The miners will start getting transaction fees instead, and assuming that the growth of bitcoin continues, there will be millions of transactions so it will be as profitable as it is right now.
*continue to getMiners already collect tx fees right now..and will continue to do so until the last block is mined. After the last block is created they will mine for the tx fees only and we hope that will still be profitable enough for the miners to continue to support the network.
1 satoshi or 100 millionth(.00000001) of a bitcoin is the smallest amount supported by the protocol as of now. With consensus this could be modified if needed in the future but there is no need atm it seems. .00000001
BTC=$0.0001722 today...when 1 sat=$.01 we might need to start thinking about this.