What happens after all blocks are found?

[Frizz23]

What happens after all blocks are found? I mean, what's the motivation to keep the network running?

What I also don't understand: Where are transactions stored once all blocks are found?

[squall1066]

Well, in theory, Everyone still needs workers to process the transactions, So they will still get paid from the transaction fee.
Every block found now has a small bonus attached, This is that fee at the moment, So will be just the same apart from no block reward!

[lassdas]

What I also don't understand: Where are transactions stored once all blocks are found?

Actually you got something completly wrong.

There will never be such thing as "all blocks found",
what you mean is "all bitcoins found", which is different.

Even when all bitcoins are found, we will still need more blocks to be created, because without blocks, there will be no more transactions,
if there's no more transactions, Bitcoin is dead.

[Gabi]

What happens after all blocks are found? I mean, what's the motivation to keep the network running?

What I also don't understand: Where are transactions stored once all blocks are found?

There is no "limits" to blocks, dunno where you get the idea of "there is a number of block and no more". Blocks are infinite. What will decrease is the bitcoin reward for finding them.

What will be the motivation then? Transaction fees. When you find a block you get the bitcoin reward for that block AND the transaction fees for the transaction you store in that block.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Common questions because the explanation of mining is always done wrong, with the emphasis on "free coinz" and not on the purpose.  Why are miners given "free coinz"?

The purpose of mining is to validate transactions and create a permanent record of the network consensus.   This is done by organizing new valid transactions into blocks and adding new blocks to the blockchain.
As such obviously as long as there are transactions there will still be mining.

For this service, miners are compensated with a block reward. The block reward consists of a block subsidy and tx fees. Currently fees are very low and the block subsidy is high.  Satoshi implemented the block subsidy as it ensures the network is strong even while Bitcoin is in its infancy.

However over time the block subsidy will decline and fees will become more important.

Mining never ends if it ends then Bitcoin ends.  It would be useful if people stopped talking about mining as a way to get free coins.  The purpose of mining is to protect the network.  The purpose of mining is to validate transactions.   Mining gives all coins value because it protects their authenticity and scarcity.  Miners just happen to be compensated for this service by the subsidy and tx fees.

[Frizz23]

Thanks for clarification. That helped a lot!

Another question: At the moment my Bitcoin folder is 3.4GB (because of all the block files). Won't it be a problem in the future once this folder grows to 10, 20 or 100 GB? Will people be willing to sacrifice so much disk space?

[lassdas]

People sacrifice TeraBytes of disk space for their movies, series, pr0n, games, music-collections, but care about a few hundred GigaBytes of storage to secure their money?
I doubt that,
besides, there's ways to prune the blockchain to get rid of outdated, unneeded Tx-infos and also light-clients that don't need any blockchain at all (like Electrum, which gets its blockchain-infos from a server).

[DeathAndTaxes]

Thanks for clarification. That helped a lot!

Another question: At the moment my Bitcoin folder is 3.4GB (because of all the block files). Won't it be a problem in the future once this folder grows to 10, 20 or 100 GB? Will people be willing to sacrifice so much disk space?

20 years ago your HDD was only ~1 GB.  
In 20 years your HDD will probably be 1000 TBs.  

I wouldn't call it a "problem".  It is an area developers will have to continually work on.  Making the node more and more efficient so it can handle higher and higher volume.  It means the work will never be done.  In 10 years the client code will be far more optimized but (hopefully) network volume will also be far higher.  One example of an optimization is a pruned database (remove spent outputs from blocks).   Satoshi had enough of a long term vision to make that possible by putting all the transactions in a merkle tree structure.  Also Moore's law will continually helps.

Still storage although the most visible is IMHO the least critical of the resource bottlenecks.

In order from most to least critical I would say it is:
* Bandwidth
* Memory
* CPU power (and energy consumption)
* Storage

[dree12]

Thanks for clarification. That helped a lot!

Another question: At the moment my Bitcoin folder is 3.4GB (because of all the block files). Won't it be a problem in the future once this folder grows to 10, 20 or 100 GB? Will people be willing to sacrifice so much disk space?

Potentially however 20 years ago your HDD was only ~1 GB. 
In 20 years your HDD will probably be 1000 TBs. 

Moore's law helps in the "problem".  Pruned database helps in that problem also.   HDD is likely the least criticial bottleneck.  Bandwidth is more of an issue (although not fatal as the doomsdayers predict).

Of the 4 major resources IMHO from least critical to most critical I would say it is
* bandwidth
* memory
* CPU power (and energy consumption)
* Storage

This will never be an issue. Each planet has a limit to the number of humans, and therefore transactions, it can support. Bandwidth, as long as it passes a certain threshold, does not even need to increase to sustain Bitcoin used by all citizens of Earth.

Other planets will, due to latency issues, require their own cryptocurrency. Bandwidth will not be an issue on those planets either.

[DeathAndTaxes]

This will never be an issue. Each planet has a limit to the number of humans, and therefore transactions, it can support. Bandwidth, as long as it passes a certain threshold, does not even need to increase to sustain Bitcoin used by all citizens of Earth.

Well on a long enough timeline maybe but is Bitcoin tx volume grows faster than available bandwidth it is certainly a bottleneck.  Note I don't think any of these bottlenecks are fatal but depending on how fast Bitcoin grows it certainly can create issues which need to be solved.

For example at VISA scale tx volume (2,000 tps average, 4,000 daily peak, 10,000 annual peak) if we assume the average tx is 1KB and it is relayed to each node twice (once as an unconfirmed tx and once as part of a block) we are looking at a peak of 160 Mbps.  However each node should maintain at least 8 connections to other nodes to create a robust mesh so that would be 1.2 Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth.   Certainly not impossible but it is beyond the capabilities of most home internet connections.

Still to say it is will never be an issue is naive.

[dree12]

This will never be an issue. Each planet has a limit to the number of humans, and therefore transactions, it can support. Bandwidth, as long as it passes a certain threshold, does not even need to increase to sustain Bitcoin used by all citizens of Earth.

Well on a long enough timeline maybe but is Bitcoin tx volume grows faster than available bandwidth it is certainly a bottleneck.  Note I don't think any of these bottlenecks are fatal but depending on how fast Bitcoin grows it certainly can create issues which need to be solved.

For example at VISA scale tx volume (2,000 tps average, 4,000 daily peak, 10,000 annual peak) if we assume the average tx is 1KB and it is relayed to each node twice (once as an unconfirmed tx and once as part of a block) we are looking at a peak of 160 Mbps.  However each node should maintain at least 8 connections to other nodes to create a robust mesh so that would be 1.2 Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth.   Certainly not impossible but it is beyond the capabilities of most home internet connections.

Still to say it is will never be an issue is naive.

(OT: Did you post under TangibleCryptography, delete, and repost?)

I wouldn't put Bitcoin's growth that fast. I fully expect Bitcoin to be the only widely-used currency in 40 years or so, but only modest growth in the near term. VISA-scale is far ahead of Bitcoin in even 5 years.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Yes.  TC is the company account I didn't realize I was logged into it.

Also I agree.
I think the timeline is even longer.  Bitcoin reaching PayPal tx volumes in 5-10 years would be an amazing accomplishment.  That would put VISA scale volume probably decades (plural) out.