Newbie: Mining endgame?

[McGinS]

I've currently mined myself a nice 0.22 BTC. (I can get $2 of that from CAD virtex minus the banking fee! Gox doesn't seem to mention their fees before sign up) I'm looking into getting another GPU and hoping to recuperate (though I won't end up on the streets if I don'T) my expenditure.

If I mine for a few months this looks attainable, especially if BTC continues to trend upward (it won't, will it?).

But my question is, will mining ever stop paying out? I'm processing transactions and I'm getting (payed  for) randomly generated BTC with my pool.

What happens when we hit 21 million?
Is mining over? I've read in older articles this is the year we hit it.
What's going to keep the network going? 


Another question probably better for hardware forums - except here I won't get flooded with "Why would you want to do that?" questions.

I've got my 5870  (for 2 years I've had minings best piece of consumer hardware and haven't been using it?  tfw you only started mining because of moot)
churning away transactions at a clock that likes to crash windows but not my miner, while an old
HD 2400 is powering my desktop.
Trouble is, I can't seem to install the catalyst legacy drivers for it alongside my current catalyst drivers, preventing me from playing my less intensive games.

Anyone know a trick for this?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Dedicating mining processors are (slowly) hiting the market.  They are significantly more efficient at mining and will drive difficulty up by 20x (and probably more).  Expect your mining revenue per MH/s to decline by 95% or more.  Buying new GPUs today for mining is a good way of piling lots of cash up and lighting it on fire.

As for your general questions.  The 21M coins won't be mined until the year 2140.  As the amount of the block subsidy declines (block subsidy is halved every 210,000 block ~4 years) it is expected fees will increase to provide the revenue to secure the network.  Fee have already increased from ~0% to ~2% of total miner revenue.  

[McGinS]

" Buying new GPUs today for mining is a good way of piling lots of cash up and lighting it on fire."

"for mining" being the key there.

For gaming but mining justifying the expenditure partially.  Especially if it's a mere 95% decrease. ( I have a feeling it'll be larger)

[McGinS]

 The 21M coins won't be mined until the year 2140.

Source?
I'm wondering if it accounts for Moore's Law (common usage) on steroids.

[xrzer04]

The smart money says GPU mining is on its way Out.
I looked into it, and was frankly Horrified.
For now I'm planning on dipping my toes in by hunting giveaways and doing "earn-a-little" deals while I stack chips for an ASIC unit

[speeder]

 The 21M coins won't be mined until the year 2140.

Source?
I'm wondering if it accounts for Moore's Law (common usage) on steroids.

I think you don't understand at all how mining works and how the subsidy work.

Bitcoin mining system make mining harder (or easier) as needed to ensure only 6 blocks are mined in a hour.

If somehow, magically someone made a machine that can mine 5000 blocks in 3 minutes in current difficulty, it would take only some minutes to it take 10 minutes per block again, and the extra blocks mined before the change would make 21M coins to be handed out at most one or two days early.

[lduck]

I would not buy any mining HW right now. In short time hashing power of GPU and FPGA units will be quite low to comparation of new ASIC HW. AVALON doesn't takes even pre-orders right now and BFL don't looks good to me.  

[xrzer04]

BFL keeps dropping the ball...

[McGinS]

and I made $110 in a month of mining, average sale price was...complicated, but most from $265/BTC 0.33  $90.

It's profitable, and it's STILL profitable (thought declining). 
Not worth it as a business, really, but like I said, subsidizing GPU purchase.

[ReCat]

With litecoin, GPU mining is still quite profitable. Is it not?