When 21 million coins have been mined.

[Miracal]

When 21 million coins have been mined, I will have been long dead, so I don't care

A good advise to be to spread more happy knowledge about bitcoin so more people adopt bitcoin and more bitcoin gets in, because if all these coins are ever mined, the price will just deflate and the market will crash.

When 21 million coins have been mined, I will have been long dead, so I don't care

A good advise to be to spread more happy knowledge about bitcoin so more people adopt bitcoin and more bitcoin gets in, because if all these coins are ever mined, the price will just deflate and the market will crash.

When 21 million coins have been mined, I will have been long dead, so I don't care

A good advise to be to spread more happy knowledge about bitcoin so more people adopt bitcoin and more bitcoin gets in, because if all these coins are ever mined, the price will just deflate and the market will crash.

We should encourage more people to explore what bitcoin is rather than just tell them why it is cool and how is it good. Let them research that shit, they will definitely come back interested.
If all coins are mined, a huge market crash will happen but it is always something which can be stopped. Not inevitable.

[winspiral]

if all coins are mined than nothing will happen...why should something change?

[Amph]

if all coins are mined than nothing will happen...why should something change?

they will continue to mine for the fee, that hopefully will have a good value, otherwise miners will not keep mining, and the network will die

so the point isn't to have more coins, but to have a better value on those few that we already have

[photon_coin]

i suggest you check iX coin out - all 21 million have been mined

[winspiral]

if all coins are mined than nothing will happen...why should something change?

they will continue to mine for the fee, that hopefully will have a good value, otherwise miners will not keep mining, and the network will die

so the point isn't to have more coin, but to have a better value on those few that we already have

Miners will never stop to mine...because the fees are divided among the miners...and if less miners mine...then the interest grows.
It is exactly the principle of my faucet...it can never collapse or die because it is regulated by the market.
Of course my faucet can die for other reasons,but bitcoin system cannot so long few users fixe fees.
They are not the miners who fix the fees,but the senders...

[tmmapp]

Transaction fees Will be the mining reward. High use of the bitcoin network Will be required to adequately pay the miners. On the other hand, You Will probably not live by that Time anymore, so You dont need to worry too much.

So the mining power thrown at bitcoin will be radically reduced at that point but it won't matter as 51% attacks would be useless since no new coins will be produced.

no,
never radically because coin mining deacrease slowly...and the market will regulate all the existing coins...

Thanks for the answers so far. what do you mean by regulate all the existing coins... , will there be certain transaction fees incurred for just holding bitcoin that miners will get to keep things moving along or will it purely be on transaction fees on when you transfer coins for whatever purpose?

I plan to pass some coins to my kids, so I know this will be something they will have to deal with in there lifetime.

You 'might' be jumping the gun a bit, Bitcoin won't be mined out for another 125 years!  I don't know what life expectancy is now, but 125 seems optimistic!

A long long time before we get to that point, Bitcoin will either be globally used, or not be used at all.  If it is the internet currency, then people will mine for transaction fees, and they cann be pretty big and worth mining for.  If not, then people will turn off and the difficulty will fall greatly.

We will see at the next halving what happens, a more extreme version can be expected when the jump is from 1 to 0 per mined block.

I wish people will turn off and the difficulty will fall greatly right now that way i could make some btc to pay off my rigs and power. Right now btc ain't worth mining.

[Amph]

if all coins are mined than nothing will happen...why should something change?

they will continue to mine for the fee, that hopefully will have a good value, otherwise miners will not keep mining, and the network will die

so the point isn't to have more coin, but to have a better value on those few that we already have

Miners will never stop to mine...because the fees are divided among the miners...and if less miners mine...then the interest grows.
It is exactly the principle of my faucet...it can never collapse or die because it is regulated by the market.
Of course my faucet can die for other reasons,but bitcoin system cannot so long few users fixe fees.
They are not the miners who fix the fees,but the senders...

if the miners activity drop too much, there is a non return point, that can be matched and maybe even if bitcoin will survive, it will be so damaged that can only serve a tiny market

remember that the network hash cannot drop too much, otherwise various attack could be performed much more easily

[winspiral]

if all coins are mined than nothing will happen...why should something change?

they will continue to mine for the fee, that hopefully will have a good value, otherwise miners will not keep mining, and the network will die

so the point isn't to have more coin, but to have a better value on those few that we already have

Miners will never stop to mine...because the fees are divided among the miners...and if less miners mine...then the interest grows.
It is exactly the principle of my faucet...it can never collapse or die because it is regulated by the market.
Of course my faucet can die for other reasons,but bitcoin system cannot so long few users fixe fees.
They are not the miners who fix the fees,but the senders...

if the miners activity drop too much, there is a non return point, that can be matched and maybe even if bitcoin will survive, it will be so damaged that can only serve a tiny market

remember that the network hash cannot drop too much, otherwise various attack could be performed much more easily

all is only supposition.
Let's work the market and basta.

[pooya87]

~~
I wish people will turn off and the difficulty will fall greatly right now that way i could make some btc to pay off my rigs and power. Right now btc ain't worth mining.

The only possible scenario for difficulty to come down is if BTC price drops to <$10 again and as the reult most miners walk away and get real jobs.

and right now, since that price range is impossible and most probably it is going to go higher, miners are going to continue mining.

[Lorenzo]

Mining will always exist. Even after Bitcoin is fully mined, new blocks will continue to be added to the blockchain roughly every 10 minutes or so by miners. However, their income would come from transaction fees instead of new coins. Just like today though, miners who have more hashpower will solve more blocks than miners with less hashpower.

Currently, the block reward is 25 BTC plus a few extra BTC from transaction fees. Not too long ago it was 50 BTC plus fees. Sometime in 2016, this will be reduced to 12.5 BTC plus fees. Then it will be 6.25 BTC plus fees, then 3.125 BTC plus fees, and so on.

Transaction fees Will be the mining reward. High use of the bitcoin network Will be required to adequately pay the miners. On the other hand, You Will probably not live by that Time anymore, so You dont need to worry too much.

You 'might' be jumping the gun a bit, Bitcoin won't be mined out for another 125 years!  I don't know what life expectancy is now, but 125 seems optimistic!

A long long time before we get to that point, Bitcoin will either be globally used, or not be used at all.  If it is the internet currency, then people will mine for transaction fees, and they cann be pretty big and worth mining for.  If not, then people will turn off and the difficulty will fall greatly.

We will see at the next halving what happens, a more extreme version can be expected when the jump is from 1 to 0 per mined block.

When 21 million coins have been mined, I will have been long dead, so I don't care

By then besides us being dead, 1 BTC will be something ridiculous like 100 million current USD dollars, which means the small BTC made from mining will still be profitable, well it will not be really mining, it will just be transaction processing.

Long before Bitcoin is fully mined out, the rewards from newly generated coins will become irrelevant due to the effect of successive block halvings. By 2040, the block reward will be less than 0.2 BTC plus fees. By 2070, it will be less than 0.001 BTC plus fees:

http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply

i suggest you check iX coin out - all 21 million have been mined

Or Premine (PMC). Premine was an experiment to see what the Bitcoin economy might look like in the future after successive block halvings result in no more new coins being mined and to see whether or not the model of mining for transaction fees instead is sustainable:

Premine, also known as PMC, is an alternate cryptocurrency that is defying normal convention in its method of mining and distribution. While some coins are mined, or earn you interest, Premine is exclusively redistributed by its users, and block rewards are generated only by network transaction fees.

Premine is setting out to prove that cryptographic currency can continue long after the minting process has ended, making it not only a fascinating glimpse into the future of Bitcoin, but also a viable and stable alternative that thanks to its low total supply of less than 500,000 coins, allows each coin to store a great amount of wealth. This makes PMC an excellent alternative store of money. To say Premine is the future of Bitcoin isn’t far from the truth.

Will Bitcoin be able to survive once the minting of new coins has ended? Nobody knows. PMC started with a market cap of zero. Bitcoin currently has a market cap in excess of $8 Billion USD. Already suffering from volatile pricing, we may discover that Bitcoin might not survive this transition, and that no coin with such a high market cap ever could. In this sense Premine is also future-proof, having avoided this hazardous transition phase altogether.

Unfortunately, the results of that experiment were pretty disappointing.

~~
I wish people will turn off and the difficulty will fall greatly right now that way i could make some btc to pay off my rigs and power. Right now btc ain't worth mining.

The only possible scenario for difficulty to come down is if BTC price drops to <$10 again and as the reult most miners walk away and get real jobs.

and right now, since that price range is impossible and most probably it is going to go higher, miners are going to continue mining.

Actually the difficulty has dropped several times in the past and especially from December 2014 onwards - although usually not by a lot. Looking at the chart below, it seems to have been going nearly sideways for the past four months:

http://blockchain.info/charts/difficulty

[BitcoinNewbie15]

After all 21 million coins are mined then the miners will be getting transaction fees instead of block rewards... Interesting, does that mean currently the transaction fees are also being sent to the miners, even though they are also receiving block rewards?

[satnof]

After all 21 million coins are mined then the miners will be getting transaction fees instead of block rewards... Interesting, does that mean currently the transaction fees are also being sent to the miners, even though they are also receiving block rewards?

that's very confusing yes. Apparently the fee is to give incentive to the miners to include your transaction within the next block that is solved.

However when 21 million coins have been mined the price of btc would be quite big. That won't happen until a hundred years or so from now though.

[Lorenzo]

After all 21 million coins are mined then the miners will be getting transaction fees instead of block rewards... Interesting, does that mean currently the transaction fees are also being sent to the miners, even though they are also receiving block rewards?

Yup. For instance, here is an example:

http://blockchain.info/tx/6d2a6bb38baeed1772b3d9b46fa6f3144c9a4d1a2f63f823904d9eeae4b5d407

Notice that the miner recieved 25.10083013 BTC rather than a nice round 25 BTC. That extra 0.10083013 BTC is the sum of all the transaction fees included in that block.

[The Young Turk]

Technically This's not gonna happen.

20,999,839.77085749 is the upper limit.

[BitcoinNewbie15]

After all 21 million coins are mined then the miners will be getting transaction fees instead of block rewards... Interesting, does that mean currently the transaction fees are also being sent to the miners, even though they are also receiving block rewards?

that's very confusing yes. Apparently the fee is to give incentive to the miners to include your transaction within the next block that is solved.

However when 21 million coins have been mined the price of btc would be quite big. That won't happen until a hundred years or so from now though.

Wow, yeah, it will take a long time before the 21 million coins are mined. I believe that will happen somewhere around or even in the year 2140? The last reward will be 1 satoshi as well. I did not know that before, hopefully by the year 2140, there will be many transactions taking place to make it worth while for the miners to keep mining.

[BitcoinNewbie15]

After all 21 million coins are mined then the miners will be getting transaction fees instead of block rewards... Interesting, does that mean currently the transaction fees are also being sent to the miners, even though they are also receiving block rewards?

Yup. For instance, here is an example:

http://blockchain.info/tx/6d2a6bb38baeed1772b3d9b46fa6f3144c9a4d1a2f63f823904d9eeae4b5d407

Notice that the miner recieved 25.10083013 BTC rather than a nice round 25 BTC. That extra 0.10083013 BTC is the sum of all the transaction fees included in that block.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the clarification. Previously, I was under the impression that transaction fees were basically destroyed, as a way of deflation. It appears as if that is not the case, thanks again.

[Lorenzo]

After all 21 million coins are mined then the miners will be getting transaction fees instead of block rewards... Interesting, does that mean currently the transaction fees are also being sent to the miners, even though they are also receiving block rewards?

Yup. For instance, here is an example:

http://blockchain.info/tx/6d2a6bb38baeed1772b3d9b46fa6f3144c9a4d1a2f63f823904d9eeae4b5d407

Notice that the miner recieved 25.10083013 BTC rather than a nice round 25 BTC. That extra 0.10083013 BTC is the sum of all the transaction fees included in that block.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the clarification. Previously, I was under the impression that transaction fees were basically destroyed, as a way of deflation. It appears as if that is not the case, thanks again.

Although Bitcoin has its transaction fees go to miners, what you're describing is true for some altcoins like Peercoin (PPC) where transaction fees aren't earned by miners but are instead destroyed. For PPC, this is done to offset the inflation caused by proof-of-stake minting:

Peercoin is designed so that variable and optional transaction fees are removed in favor of a protocol defined transaction fee (currently 0.01 PPC). The transaction fee is fixed at the protocol level and does not go to miners but is destroyed instead. This is intended to offset inflation by deflating the money supply and serves to self-regulate transaction volume, and stop network spam. One issue with a protocol defined transaction fee is that it does not evolve with the value of currency units, and requires a hardfork of the protocol to adjust transaction fees.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peercoin#Transaction_fees

[pooya87]

~~
I wish people will turn off and the difficulty will fall greatly right now that way i could make some btc to pay off my rigs and power. Right now btc ain't worth mining.

The only possible scenario for difficulty to come down is if BTC price drops to <$10 again and as the reult most miners walk away and get real jobs.

and right now, since that price range is impossible and most probably it is going to go higher, miners are going to continue mining.

Actually the difficulty has dropped several times in the past and especially from December 2014 onwards - although usually not by a lot. Looking at the chart below, it seems to have been going nearly sideways for the past four months:

http://blockchain.info/charts/difficulty

yeah, i know.
i meant that in order for the difficulty to drop a considerable amount that can let individuals with their mining rigs start mining bitcoin and the process becomes profitable, is the price to fall that low and a great number of miners turn their equipment off.

[afriezalie]

We don't know what will be happened. It's still a long time until 21 million coins will be mined. In my speculation, there are no new coins, transaction fees will be the mining reward.

[Amph]

actually  i don't think it will change much after 20M coins will be mined which isn't too far away, so better to wait for that phase, instead of wasting time about clueless speculation

the market after 2024 need to absorbs a very few amount of coin, so the price will be already settled, i'm not expecting a major rise only because 1M are still to be mined...