What if we run out of Bitcoin?

[tiggytomb]

What will happen if we run out of Bitcoin? I think the supply is 20,000,000 BTC and that we already have more than half of that. What will we do when BTC stops being mined?

After the 21 million have been mined there will not be any 'new' bitcoins created but we will never run out of bitcoin as we will have people buying and selling it and purchasing goods with it.  The miners will no longer have the large block reward but miners will collect the fees that are associated to the generated block.

[Doms]

I don' t think we'll run out of btc as long as there's a portion of it going into circulation, be it in transactions, trades, in gambling. Miners might run out of work but it doesn't mean that they won't find something else worthy to make of btc.

[saiha]

If that happens then we are all wasted. Let's go back to reality and deposit our fiat money into banks that put interest to our money and let it lend it to people. But ofcourse, this isn't going to happen. As long as there is halving and we are using it. There is sufficient bitcoin supply for us.

[InsideBjorn]

How do you mean run out of bitcoins is there any limit of bitcoins? I never heard about it before from where
do you get that information? If there would be a limit 20 mil is not much we already reached that

[DannyHamilton]

What will happen if we run out of Bitcoin? I think the supply is 20,000,000 BTC and that we already have more than half of that.

There will be almost 2,099,999,997,690,000 spendable units created.

We already have nearly 75% of that.

The remaining 25% will take more than 100 years to finish mining.

What will we do when BTC stops being mined?

Bitcoin won't exist anymore if the mining process stops.  Fortunately it is designed to continue for as long as there are users that want to use it and enough miners to secure it.

Perhaps you are asking what we will do when the block subsidy goes away and there are no new bitcoins being created?

In that case, we will be dead.  We won't "do" anything.

Perhaps you are asking what our great-grandchildren will do when the block subsidy goes away and there are no new bitcoins being created?

I'm not sure why you're worried about that. Future generations may have entirely new technologies.  That's a bit like someone in 1900 trying to figure out how you are going to handle technology today.

But at a minimum, the mining process will continue and the miners will be rewarded with transaction fees instead of the block subsidy.

[~Bitcoin~]

Even if mining reward get to 0 or any dust amount miner will keep on mining because they will get good amount of transaction fee as mine reward. There will be no much effect if few miners left from the whole poll of miners after there we have 0 bitcoins as block reward.

[fenican]

75% of all the coins have already been mined so it is fair to say we are already in a situation where the vast majority of Bitcoins that will ever be have been minted.

Mining of the remaining 25% will continue for another century so it is not really worth discussing what will happen in 2116 - we'll all be long dead by then. Most likely, Bitcoin will either have faded into irrelevance or it will have taken off at which point the fees from transactions will be more than enough to compensate miners.

We will never "run out of Bitcoin" since old coins can be recirculated and are infinitely divisible. Even if 90% of all the coins in circulation were lost to misplaced wallets, the other 10% would be more than enough.