Mining in 20 years time

[ekissane]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

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[deisik]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Miners falling off would mean decreasing difficulty, so that shouldn't be a problem over a long enough time frame (i.e. difficulty matching up with the decreased hash rate). Besides, it is assumed that after almost all coins are mined, miners will earn by collecting transaction fees...

What actually happens then is hard to predict, though

[~Bitcoin~]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

After all bitcoin get mined miners will get transaction fees as reward. And i am sure if the demand of bitcoin keep growing like the current stage there will be lot of transaction in one block so fee of all those transaction will be enough to reward miners and also at that time if price don't get increase enough to be profitable than recommended fee per KB will be increased. So basically bitcoin will keep on working on those year also. Nothing to panic about...

[GamingOn]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

either bitcoin's price will increase if not then a lot of miners will stop mining and difficulty will decrease but there will always some miners to mine bitcoin , that will enough to verify transactions.

[1Referee]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

By that time revenue has to come nearly in full from collected transaction fees. Let's say that by that time the price is $10,000 per coin, and pools scoop up around 1BTC in fees per time, then everything will be just fine. More adoption means more transaction fees that pools can collect. Right now block values with fees included are far below $10,000 so do your calculations.

[Babayega31]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

either bitcoin's price will increase if not then a lot of miners will stop mining and difficulty will decrease but there will always some miners to mine bitcoin , that will enough to verify transactions.

Possibilities that theirs no bitcoin miner at that time or if their will be only few because mining blocks difficulty are been more higher at that time comes and surely some of the miners will sold their farms as ived seen their is already selling just posted today but i dont know if that is real or its just a troll.

[Herbert2020]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

as others said there is always bitcoin price increase that can save miners from going under. besides you don't have to worry about the far future, stick to the present!

also in the future when block reward is lower fees will be increased (assuming price hasn't gone up) to cover the costs of mining.

[Xester]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

20 years from now mining difficulty will be twenty times harder and more efficient hardwares will replace the old ones. Unlike today miners can harvest btc monthly but 20 years from now they can only mine satoshi. At that time also bitcoins price is twenty times bigger than the current price. Also bitcoin wallets can be carried or be placed on your pocket with the use of a device that looks like a small calculator.

[jaysabi]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

20 years from now mining difficulty will be twenty times harder and more efficient hardwares will replace the old ones. Unlike today miners can harvest btc monthly but 20 years from now they can only mine satoshi. At that time also bitcoins price is twenty times bigger than the current price. Also bitcoin wallets can be carried or be placed on your pocket with the use of a device that looks like a small calculator.

There is no reason to assume that bitcoin's price will be 20 times higher in 20 years just based on time passed alone. You cannot count on such an occurrence to save the system since price operates independently based on far more complex factors.

[jaysabi]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

I think you're hitting on an important risk. One of two things will have to happen: price will have to increase to the point where fees collected will cover mining costs, or fees will have to rise to that point. In either case, the least efficient miners will be forced out, and there is likely to be the risk of centralization as a result of the disappearance of the the individual miners. But it seems likely that fees have to increase either way, absent an enormous growth in transactional volume and the infrastructure changes to the blockchain to accompany that.

[LoyceV]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Why is this hard to imagine? People were mining back at the start of Bitcoin, when it had no value at all. Don't forget you don't need a lot of miners, 1 computer can be enough to confirm all transactions!
The big benefit of having a lot of miners is of course that it's harder to attack the blockchain.

Transaction fees are already a few percent of the block reward. In 20 years, especially if blocks get bigger and allow more transactions, the fees could add up to Bitcoins per block.

[deisik]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Why is this hard to imagine? People were mining back at the start of Bitcoin, when it had no value at all. Don't forget you don't need a lot of miners, 1 computer can be enough to confirm all transactions!
The big benefit of having a lot of miners is of course that it's harder to attack the blockchain.

Transaction fees are already a few percent of the block reward. In 20 years, especially if blocks get bigger and allow more transactions, the fees could add up to Bitcoins per block.

Actually, the transaction fees revenue is below 2% of the block reward (1.84% according to the blockchain.info stats). Not very far from a statistical error

[n691309]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

At that time the block reward for miners is somewhere at 0.390625BTC which is pretty low comparing with today's reward. 20 years from now the price should much higher to see miner still mining.

[jaysabi]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

At that time the block reward for miners is somewhere at 0.390625BTC which is pretty low comparing with today's reward. 20 years from now the price should much higher to see miner still mining.

That's kind of the problem, the price has to be higher or else the system breaks down. If the price doesn't rise, there won't be enough miners to ensure enough decentralization to make it secure. To offset, fees have to rise to keep miners in, but fees can't rise to the point where Bitcoin is too expensive to use either. Cheap, efficient, and safe are the main draws to Bitcoin at the moment, and it doesn't seem like a viable alternative if any of those elements start to break down.

[Pesmand]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

At that time the block reward for miners is somewhere at 0.390625BTC which is pretty low comparing with today's reward. 20 years from now the price should much higher to see miner still mining.

At that time, the transaction fee will be more than 1 bitcoin. The transaction fees in some current blocks are already more than 1 bitcoin.

[bit1]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

as others said there is always bitcoin price increase that can save miners from going under. besides you don't have to worry about the far future, stick to the present!

also in the future when block reward is lower fees will be increased (assuming price hasn't gone up) to cover the costs of mining.

However if this happen, I mean fees will be increased, it would not be very attractive to users, so it does not sound like very good alternative.

[AioFox]

20years = 5times the Bitcoin block would go into halving.

1st Halving: 6.25BTC per block
2nd Halving: 3.125BTC per block
3rd Havling: 1.567BTC per block
4th Halving: 0.783BTC per block
5th Halving: 0.391BTC per block (seems really sad at this point)

I plan to finish my dealing with bitcoin within this four year period before the next halving happens. Unless Bitcoin would be really valuable by then.

[bitbunnny]

Would mining still exist in 20 years time? And what would price look like? It's so distant future that is hard to tell anything.

[coin_gambler]

20years = 5times the Bitcoin block would go into halving.

1st Halving: 6.25BTC per block
2nd Halving: 3.125BTC per block
3rd Havling: 1.567BTC per block
4th Halving: 0.783BTC per block
5th Halving: 0.391BTC per block (seems really sad at this point)

I plan to finish my dealing with bitcoin within this four year period before the next halving happens. Unless Bitcoin would be really valuable by then.

thats some great statistics, when not a lot of bitcoins will be mined then more people will be using it and more bitcoins will be collected via the transactions, i think the mining will still be ok

[pedrog]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

[deisik]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

[Lumada]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

[LoyceV]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Why is this hard to imagine? People were mining back at the start of Bitcoin, when it had no value at all. Don't forget you don't need a lot of miners, 1 computer can be enough to confirm all transactions!
The big benefit of having a lot of miners is of course that it's harder to attack the blockchain.

Transaction fees are already a few percent of the block reward. In 20 years, especially if blocks get bigger and allow more transactions, the fees could add up to Bitcoins per block.

Actually, the transaction fees revenue is below 2% of the block reward (1.84% according to the blockchain.info stats).

I just clicked the last 4 blocks (420278-420281). These are the fees: 1.01175876 + 0.49726408 + 0.3535004 + 0.4455881 = 2.30811134 BTC. That is 4.616% of the 50 BTC block rewards (for 4 blocks). Either way, it's a few percent, like I said. And it doesn't matter really, fees will only go up relative to block reward.

Not very far from a statistical error

Absolute data has nothing to do with statistical errors.

[pearnapple]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

well i guess there will be a bitcoin block size increase in the future so we dont have to worry about it as it will definitely be fixed in the future, at least i hope for that right now

[deisik]

Not very far from a statistical error

Absolute data has nothing to do with statistical errors.

And how long ago percentages have become "absolute data"? Further, I didn't claim them to be a statistical error (margin of error, to be precise). I just said that it was quite close (in %%) to what is considered a statistical error. By the way, right now (as I write this post) the percentage is at 2.49, i.e. almost half as much

I just clicked the last 4 blocks (420278-420281). These are the fees: 1.01175876 + 0.49726408 + 0.3535004 + 0.4455881 = 2.30811134 BTC. That is 4.616% of the 50 BTC block rewards (for 4 blocks). Either way, it's a few percent, like I said. And it doesn't matter really, fees will only go up relative to block reward

The moral is that the fees revenue is pretty inconsistent so far (e.g. 1.01175876 BTC vs 0.3535004 BTC, i.e. ~3x difference). Wanna challenge that point?

[CroSany]

I  think that always bitcoin will be alive because always will mining field gst some bdginner miner and if he see that earnings are amost nothing new miner will come and that in circle.

[panju1]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

That is related to block size.
If there is consensus to increase block size, there will be less competition and less transaction fees.

[deisik]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

That is related to block size.
If there is consensus to increase block size, there will be less competition and less transaction fees.

If I get it right, this means that miners are not particularly interested in increasing the block size? In other words, that's the reason (one of) why it hasn't been increased so far?

[deisik]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

I've heard that the fees are a "buyer's market", that is, their value depends on Bitcoin users willing to pay more for processing the transactions. Given that no one wants to pay more, it is safe to assume that people will transact less with higher amounts (aggregating their payments) in case fees start to rise, thereby essentially leveling off the miners' efforts to increase the fees...

What did I miss and did I miss anything at all?

[yayayo]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

You're ignoring at least three important factors:

1) The total amount of transaction fees: In 20 years - provided that Bitcoin is successful - a lot more transactions will be processed by the network. The average blocksize will most likely be bigger than today. That means, miners will obtain much more fees than today if they successfully solve a block. This gradual transition from a block reward to a fee reward operating mode is part of the original conception of Bitcoin.

2) The valuation of Bitcoin: If Bitcoin is successful, a single coin will most certainly have a much higher buying power than today. Hence it might be still very profitable to mine given electricity prices are not appreciating at the same rate.

3) The efficiency of mining: Bitcoin mining is under constant optimization to lower costs and improving profits by increasing its efficiency. 20 years from now, Bitcoin miners will not only mine faster and with less electricity than today, it is also thinkable that "by-products" of mining - especially heat - are utilized for other purposes and monetized to increase profitability further.

So I don't think that there is any reason to worry that mining might end in 20 years.

ya.ya.yo!

[hermanhs09]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Yeah i was also thinking about it.
How transaction will be verified,if there will be no one to mine btc? because the pool will be almost mined right?
Any idea guys? i want to know the answer too

[MaritiJames3]

At the moment it is useless to mine for coins right now because the halving is coming and it only gets harder to earn them.
In the past mining was very useful but times have changes and the best option right now is to just buy them.

[LoyceV]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

That is related to block size.
If there is consensus to increase block size, there will be less competition and less transaction fees.

If I get it right, this means that miners are not particularly interested in increasing the block size? In other words, that's the reason (one of) why it hasn't been increased so far?

This is my interpretation too. Miners don't benefit directly from larger blocks. But larger blocks are needed to allow more people to use Bitcoin, and more users will ultimately lead to a higher price, which benefits miners.

[deisik]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

That is related to block size.
If there is consensus to increase block size, there will be less competition and less transaction fees.

If I get it right, this means that miners are not particularly interested in increasing the block size? In other words, that's the reason (one of) why it hasn't been increased so far?

This is my interpretation too. Miners don't benefit directly from larger blocks. But larger blocks are needed to allow more people to use Bitcoin, and more users will ultimately lead to a higher price, which benefits miners.

I don't think that miners collectively really care so much for future income, especially if it means sacrificing current revenue. In other words, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

[socks435]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

Do you think it can be happen in bitcoin instead of staying at pow it will convert into POS.. i think if they do that the price of bitcoin will decrease instead..
Better to increase the fee for miner so that miners can be still make a profit with their miner..

[Yadstiker]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

Do you think it can be happen in bitcoin instead of staying at pow it will convert into POS.. i think if they do that the price of bitcoin will decrease instead..
Better to increase the fee for miner so that miners can be still make a profit with their miner..

I do not think it will convert into PoS. PoW is very secure and can underpin the value of the bitcoin securely.

[Zadicar]

Mining in 20 years would be difficult compared today's mining. As the time goes by Bitcoin lowers it supply so it means the harder it to mine. I think there would be Miners on that time coz they'll think that the price of the coin would be 20x higher as of today.

[outatime1]

Hopefully in 20 years, the value of bitcoin will be so high that it will be profitable to still mine with the right equipment. Also, fees may need to be higher to pay miners.

[Valzador]

In 20 years time, the advancements in technology would help lessen the cost of mining bitcoins. Maybe our everyday laptops will be as fast as the servers google have right now idk.

But 1 - Bitcoin should be adapted more so more transactions are sent = transaction fees go toward miners
and 2 - Advancements in technology should help in the ROI of bitcoin mining and other fees (e.g. electricity)

[Daisy14]

Me thinks miners would get most of their income from transaction fees...

The price of bitcoins would be so high that most people will trade in satoshis instead...

[piloder]

Me thinks miners would get most of their income from transaction fees...

The price of bitcoins would be so high that most people will trade in satoshis instead...

If the bitcoin block size rises to 16MB in the next 10 years, the transaction fee will be higher than the block reward.

[lexuz]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

To be honest i've think about it too, i want to know what happen with bitcoin if no miner active or all bitcoin has done mined. so we never get confirmation because no miner active?

[bit1]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

To be honest i've think about it too, i want to know what happen with bitcoin if no miner active or all bitcoin has done mined. so we never get confirmation because no miner active?

On 20 years many thing can happen, it is too technologically speaking  at the pace things are happening.

[Betwrong]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Miners falling off would mean decreasing difficulty, so that shouldn't be a problem over a long enough time frame (i.e. difficulty matching up with the decreased hash rate). Besides, it is assumed that after almost all coins are mined, miners will earn by collecting transaction fees...

What actually happens then is hard to predict, though

That's what I like in this game - the less people left the more they win, so it's impossible to stop it. And yes, if Bitcoin will be used by many (and it definitely will be) the amount of the transaction fees will be huge.

[LoyceV]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

They can always cancel halving in the interim (which is a must-do thing if they want Bitcoin to go on)

The transaction fee is quite high now. It is almost 1 bitcoin at some blocks. In the next few years, it will be even higher.

That is related to block size.
If there is consensus to increase block size, there will be less competition and less transaction fees.

If I get it right, this means that miners are not particularly interested in increasing the block size? In other words, that's the reason (one of) why it hasn't been increased so far?

This is my interpretation too. Miners don't benefit directly from larger blocks. But larger blocks are needed to allow more people to use Bitcoin, and more users will ultimately lead to a higher price, which benefits miners.

I don't think that miners collectively really care so much for future income, especially if it means sacrificing current revenue. In other words, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

I didn't realize this before, but indeed, it makes sense. So we're stuck with small blocks because miners are short sighted focussing on todays income only.
Mining hardware becomes obsolete very fast, caused by an increase in difficulty. This is an extra reason for miners not to think ahead much.
I used to think Satoshi covered all major parts of Bitcoin, but this may be something he didn't anticipate.

[deisik]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Miners falling off would mean decreasing difficulty, so that shouldn't be a problem over a long enough time frame (i.e. difficulty matching up with the decreased hash rate). Besides, it is assumed that after almost all coins are mined, miners will earn by collecting transaction fees...

What actually happens then is hard to predict, though

That's what I like in this game - the less people left the more they win, so it's impossible to stop it. And yes, if Bitcoin will be used by many (and it definitely will be) the amount of the transaction fees will be huge.

It all depends. For example, it depends on the block size. If it gets increased, the transaction fees may decline (as far as I understand it). Further, more people using Bitcoin doesn't necessarily mean the growth in fees revenue flow either, since the latter primarily depends on the number of transactions, not the number of people transacting...

Though I agree that there should be some positive correlation between the former (number of transactions) and the latter (number of people transacting)

[deisik]

I don't think that miners collectively really care so much for future income, especially if it means sacrificing current revenue. In other words, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

I didn't realize this before, but indeed, it makes sense. So we're stuck with small blocks because miners are short sighted focussing on todays income only.
Mining hardware becomes obsolete very fast, caused by an increase in difficulty. This is an extra reason for miners not to think ahead much.
I used to think Satoshi covered all major parts of Bitcoin, but this may be something he didn't anticipate.

The major issue with Bitcoin is that it is highly inflexible in respect to the process of decision making. On the one hand, it is good that changes are hard to make (that helps keep its value). On the other hand, when such changes are urgent and essential to Bitcoin long-term well-being, this turns into nuisance...

In this aspect, Bitcoin leaves much to be desired

[thejaytiesto]

In 20 years Bitcoin will be anywhere from around 100,000 dollars to 1,000,000 dollars per coin, which means the mining reward will be enough so it's not a problem. This looks unrealistic to a lot of people which is why few people will become really rich. Most people will sell along the way and less and less people will hold whole BTCs.

[Umotand]

In 20 years, there might be between 20 to 100 million people using the bitcoin regularly. It will become a reserve currency.

[chiajw1]

It is seriously hard to predict what will happen in 20 years later. Taking account of the tremendous variables, inflation, main currency at that time, how much transaction for every block, fees for every transaction, electricity cost, speed of hashes, competitors, to name a few, Anything is possible for this time span.

But in my opinion there will be much more transaction in every block and every block mined will get more transaction fees. The transaction fee will be much higher than the new bitcoin mined. Say that 1 bitcoin is equilvalent to 2500 USD not taking account of inflation, maybe some will still continue to mine, not for profitability but to contribute to the system.

[Doamader]

Im pretty sure into 20 years bitcoin will reach atleast 2000dollars, and the fees will be enought to keep the miners active, as already been said the mining will be over around 2100. Thats something the core should start worrying about, as this will be a problem on the short time.

[Umotand]

Im pretty sure into 20 years bitcoin will reach atleast 2000dollars, and the fees will be enought to keep the miners active, as already been said the mining will be over around 2100. Thats something the core should start worrying about, as this will be a problem on the short time.

In 20 years, the bitcoin price will be at least $200,000. the mining fee will be larger than the block reward.

[oceanriver]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

it is hard to predict future like this but i am pretty sure that there still will be people that will want to mine bitcoins not matter what, or their price will be large

[Digitalbitcoin]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

it is hard to predict future like this but i am pretty sure that there still will be people that will want to mine bitcoins not matter what, or their price will be large

True,

As time going difficulty level of mining blocks for bitcoins is increasing. And as per halving already price of bitcoin mining block reward is set to 12.5 BTC.

But as predefined price of bitcoin will rise more than whatever is current, so mining of bitcoin can be affordable for huge rig owner. Small units will not possible to get good ROI with mining.

And on more important things as maximum blocks will be solved transaction fee for bitcoin will be higher. So that will also advantage to miner for getting reward for verification.

[groll]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

It is not impossible to mine bitcoins even after 20 years. Technological advancement are a step ahead on what's to come. Though at present it is hard to imagine but the future holds the answer to the problems that we thought today to have no solutions.

Quantum computers of high calibers in my own opinion or a more powerful computer will replace old units in mining bitcoin which is more efficient in mining bitcoins even in the future.

[Doamader]

In 20 years another halving will occur making a lot pressure to bitcoin to grow, then those miners should take the fee as there rewards, or something must be made to avoid the lack of security that the hash will open if people stop the miners.

[Lumada]

In 20 years another halving will occur making a lot pressure to bitcoin to grow, then those miners should take the fee as there rewards, or something must be made to avoid the lack of security that the hash will open if people stop the miners.

In 20 years, the having will have no effect at all as the transaction fee will be higher than the block reward.

[CoinBreader]

i think in 20years we all go back to USB miners because it would be no profit for the power whores asic , and every btc owner will support the network with this little miners and here it comes the saying "That history repeats her self " 
Lower hashrate lower diff so USB miner will get to work

[deisik]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

It is not impossible to mine bitcoins even after 20 years. Technological advancement are a step ahead on what's to come. Though at present it is hard to imagine but the future holds the answer to the problems that we thought today to have no solutions.

Quantum computers of high calibers in my own opinion or a more powerful computer will replace old units in mining bitcoin which is more efficient in mining bitcoins even in the future.

As far as I understand the concept of Bitcoin mining, the speed with which bitcoins are mined doesn't depend on technology. In other words, it will be same on any equipment...

Until all 21M coins have been mined, of course

[Carlsen]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

That could really happen.
I somehow see as well a problem with the size of the blockchain coming.
Maybe it's getting too big to be shared by p2p. At least for the private miners.

[Babayega31]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Miners falling off would mean decreasing difficulty, so that shouldn't be a problem over a long enough time frame (i.e. difficulty matching up with the decreased hash rate). Besides, it is assumed that after almost all coins are mined, miners will earn by collecting transaction fees...

What actually happens then is hard to predict, though

Miners will be in disasterous state at that time happens really, and as we look at the mining industry for todays they are not really profitable how much more when year 2020 come? That year could be the year of massive dumpinh of their hardwares and many bitcoin mining company will be shutdown since we all know that blocks difficulty are even more harder and difficult to find.

thats why starting from now we should minimize finding some cloudmining or even mining company to invest with so we will cannot be joined by their collapsing time.

[CryptoBjorn]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Miners falling off would mean decreasing difficulty, so that shouldn't be a problem over a long enough time frame (i.e. difficulty matching up with the decreased hash rate). Besides, it is assumed that after almost all coins are mined, miners will earn by collecting transaction fees...

What actually happens then is hard to predict, though

Miners will be in disasterous state at that time happens really, and as we look at the mining industry for todays they are not really profitable how much more when year 2020 come? That year could be the year of massive dumpinh of their hardwares and many bitcoin mining company will be shutdown since we all know that blocks difficulty are even more harder and difficult to find.

thats why starting from now we should minimize finding some cloudmining or even mining company to invest with so we will cannot be joined by their collapsing time.

It will take a long time for all the bitcoins will be mined and I think by that time the transaction fee will be higher, so miners will be compensated for their work.
Because no matter how you turn it, bitcoin needs miners, and miners need bitcoin.

[coinzat]

i believe that when the block reward be very low after 20 years, miners will make good profit from fees which will rise of course. difficulty will not be the same as less people will be interested in mining will less revenue. so do not worry

[clickerz]

i believe that when the block reward be very low after 20 years, miners will make good profit from fees which will rise of course. difficulty will not be the same as less people will be interested in mining will less revenue. so do not worry

There are uncertainty in future but I hope and agree that it is the possible scenario. If charges will increased then mining will still be there as always as wee need miner to process to our transaction.

[piloder]

i believe that when the block reward be very low after 20 years, miners will make good profit from fees which will rise of course. difficulty will not be the same as less people will be interested in mining will less revenue. so do not worry

There are uncertainty in future but I hope and agree that it is the possible scenario. If charges will increased then mining will still be there as always as wee need miner to process to our transaction.

The mining of the bitcoin will last as long as the bitcoin exists as that is built in the protocol unless it is changed.

[GamingBro]

It will be very hard to mine last bitcoins at my opinion, cause contest will be very big and everybody will start adding more and more hardware to get it.

[carlfebz2]

in my own view, every halving bitcoin mining would  add its difficulty in mining level. Therefore the  more  the bitcoin halving the more its hard to mine. Since the supply is  gradually  decreases because of the halving event. For sure the bitcoins price would definitely rises due to  low of supply than  its demand.

[funbarrel]

It will be very hard to mine last bitcoins at my opinion, cause contest will be very big and everybody will start adding more and more hardware to get it.

well yeah, the amount of bitcoins given will be really small so i think a lot of people will be keen on mining their bitcoins to earn big profit, though they would need big hardware

[Doamader]

Bitcoin total coins are getting less and less year by years the transactions, loosing, fees, the miners has huge impact at bitcoin price, after the mine stop, we will need some other way to protect bitcoin, and hardware shouldnt be the way as its high cost process, and we must ask till when bitcoin can keep doubling and achieve more and more value, its designed to happen around the halving, less coins making huge pressure into the market.
Some people are expecting the fees to keep miners active, soo bitcoin would be worthing 5000 dollars and miners would charging 100k satoshis every transaction, and i dont know how long bitcoin can sustain such fee as well keep miners on the green result.

[fravia]

It will be very hard to mine last bitcoins at my opinion, cause contest will be very big and everybody will start adding more and more hardware to get it.

yeah, people will invest in hardware to mine bitcoins regularly in order to not drop out of the business because it will require some serious stuff in order to make profit

[Jimbola3]

It will be very hard to mine last bitcoins at my opinion, cause contest will be very big and everybody will start adding more and more hardware to get it.

yeah, people will invest in hardware to mine bitcoins regularly in order to not drop out of the business because it will require some serious stuff in order to make profit

Yeah that's for sure but only if the bitcoin price will be so high ! and mining will be worthy for them. as the complexity of mining will be the maximum at that time they need to add more hardware so more cost for them and more electricity off course so if the price of bitcoin wont be so high no onw will invest to mine more bitcoins !

[Pesmand]

It will be very hard to mine last bitcoins at my opinion, cause contest will be very big and everybody will start adding more and more hardware to get it.

In 20 years, the transaction fees will be higher than the block reward at the time. So people are mining for fees.

[elyas772]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

If it can not Bitcoin mining Bitcoin again a lot of sites that will be a loss, especially those who have purchased bitcoin mining equipment Sure he had lost a large amount and bitcoin users will be less.

[TheGodFather]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

Yhup. There will be no miners on that year because all the mining blocks has been mined and we all know that if that will happen, there will be no more miners. And if that time, mining blocks still can be mined, there is a possibility that they will literally stop mining because of the less satoshi given to them. Because of the halving event over and over again, there will be a possibility that bitcoin will be dumped and no more miners are mining on that year.

[deisik]

There will be no miners in 20 years because subsidy is to small to pay mining and bitcoin developers don't allow enough on chain transactions to maintain enough mining to keep the network safe, so bitcoin will be irrelevant or forked into POS.

Yhup. There will be no miners on that year because all the mining blocks has been mined and we all know that if that will happen, there will be no more miners. And if that time, mining blocks still can be mined, there is a possibility that they will literally stop mining because of the less satoshi given to them. Because of the halving event over and over again, there will be a possibility that bitcoin will be dumped and no more miners are mining on that year.

No one knows exactly what will happen then, but to say that there will be no more miners is a tremendous exaggeration bordering on ignorance. Decreasing reward with high-profile miners leaving would cause mining difficulty to adjust proportionately, thus making mining more available to regular Bitcoin users with their run-of-the-mill hardware. I guess they would be more than happy with the fees thereby collected...

In other words, the throne will never remain empty

[Script3d]

20years = 5times the Bitcoin block would go into halving.

1st Halving: 6.25BTC per block
2nd Halving: 3.125BTC per block
3rd Havling: 1.567BTC per block
4th Halving: 0.783BTC per block
5th Halving: 0.391BTC per block (seems really sad at this point)

I plan to finish my dealing with bitcoin within this four year period before the next halving happens. Unless Bitcoin would be really valuable by then.

that is must be really hard for miners rip to those who have alot of
bitcoins miners wait it is possible to gain money somehow?

[Umotand]

20years = 5times the Bitcoin block would go into halving.

1st Halving: 6.25BTC per block
2nd Halving: 3.125BTC per block
3rd Havling: 1.567BTC per block
4th Halving: 0.783BTC per block
5th Halving: 0.391BTC per block (seems really sad at this point)

I plan to finish my dealing with bitcoin within this four year period before the next halving happens. Unless Bitcoin would be really valuable by then.

that is must be really hard for miners rip to those who have alot of
bitcoins miners wait it is possible to gain money somehow?

In 12 to 16 years, most of the miner's income will be from the transaction fees. the block reward will be less relevant.

[data1]

no dought mining will be very popular and developed when miners will get the transaction fees but its hard to say that do they will mine the last coins in 20year or not because in middle of it moee inventions can happen too

[deisik]

no dought mining will be very popular and developed when miners will get the transaction fees but its hard to say that do they will mine the last coins in 20year or not because in middle of it moee inventions can happen too

If mining will be less profitable than it is now (read TX fees don't rise up to a block reward amount as of now), how can it become very popular?

Inventions affect hashrate but not the speed with which coins are mined

[Lumada]

no dought mining will be very popular and developed when miners will get the transaction fees but its hard to say that do they will mine the last coins in 20year or not because in middle of it moee inventions can happen too

If mining will be less profitable than it is now (read TX fees don't rise up to a block reward amount as of now), how can it become very popular?

Inventions affect hashrate but not the speed with which coins are mined

I believe the block size should be increased soon as that more transactions can be done in a faster manner.

[deisik]

no dought mining will be very popular and developed when miners will get the transaction fees but its hard to say that do they will mine the last coins in 20year or not because in middle of it moee inventions can happen too

If mining will be less profitable than it is now (read TX fees don't rise up to a block reward amount as of now), how can it become very popular?

Inventions affect hashrate but not the speed with which coins are mined

I believe the block size should be increased soon as that more transactions can be done in a faster manner.

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

[pedrog]

no dought mining will be very popular and developed when miners will get the transaction fees but its hard to say that do they will mine the last coins in 20year or not because in middle of it moee inventions can happen too

If mining will be less profitable than it is now (read TX fees don't rise up to a block reward amount as of now), how can it become very popular?

Inventions affect hashrate but not the speed with which coins are mined

I believe the block size should be increased soon as that more transactions can be done in a faster manner.

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

You're talking about peanuts.

With increased capacity comes increase in usage and types of usage making the system more valuable.

[deisik]

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

You're talking about peanuts.

With increased capacity comes increase in usage and types of usage making the system more valuable.

Do you really believe that increased capacity can somehow lead to an increase in usage? If it were so (simple logic), why had it not been done already (I mean the block size increase) given that miners are interested in "making the system more valuable" as no one else out there? This is not a rocket science or quantum mechanics to get a clue at what's going on...

In short, you are putting the cart before the horse

[Umotand]

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

You're talking about peanuts.

With increased capacity comes increase in usage and types of usage making the system more valuable.

Do you really believe that increased capacity can somehow lead to an increase in usage? If it were so (simple logic), why had it not been done already (I mean the block size increase) given that miners are interested in "making the system more valuable" as no one else out there? This is not a rocket science or quantum mechanics to get a clue at what's going on...

In short, you are putting the cart before the horse

If there is no increased capacity, there will be fewer people using the bitcoin. For example, the Ethereum is very fast, so there are more people using it.

[deisik]

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

You're talking about peanuts.

With increased capacity comes increase in usage and types of usage making the system more valuable.

Do you really believe that increased capacity can somehow lead to an increase in usage? If it were so (simple logic), why had it not been done already (I mean the block size increase) given that miners are interested in "making the system more valuable" as no one else out there? This is not a rocket science or quantum mechanics to get a clue at what's going on...

In short, you are putting the cart before the horse

If there is no increased capacity, there will be fewer people using the bitcoin. For example, the Ethereum is very fast, so there are more people using it.

Increased capacity doesn't affect the bitcoin confirmation times, as far as I know (otherwise it would necessarily affect the miners reward). Though I agree that if the times between confirmations decreased, it would be a significant improvement for the whole Bitcoin ecosystem. For example, with Dogecoin you usually get 2-3 confirmations within just a few minutes. But then again this has nothing to do with the block size. And I doubt that more people are using Ether than Bitcoin...

Where did you actually get that?

[lister storm]

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

You're talking about peanuts.

With increased capacity comes increase in usage and types of usage making the system more valuable.

Do you really believe that increased capacity can somehow lead to an increase in usage? If it were so (simple logic), why had it not been done already (I mean the block size increase) given that miners are interested in "making the system more valuable" as no one else out there? This is not a rocket science or quantum mechanics to get a clue at what's going on...

In short, you are putting the cart before the horse

If there is no increased capacity, there will be fewer people using the bitcoin. For example, the Ethereum is very fast, so there are more people using it.

well yeah though ethereum is not that popular any more to be honest, i think bitcoin will always remain the best currency and nothing will change it

[pedrog]

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

You're talking about peanuts.

With increased capacity comes increase in usage and types of usage making the system more valuable.

Do you really believe that increased capacity can somehow lead to an increase in usage? If it were so (simple logic), why had it not been done already (I mean the block size increase) given that miners are interested in "making the system more valuable" as no one else out there? This is not a rocket science or quantum mechanics to get a clue at what's going on...

In short, you are putting the cart before the horse

Well, one thing is sure, if there is no more room for growth usage cannot increase...

[Oralmat]

20 years, it is a long time period, most of the things has been changed, also changes would be happened in bitcoins, May be bitcoin will be top or may be it lost his place or may be a new crypto currency has been introduced and break the bitcoin.  But i am truly user of bitcoin, so i hope bitcoin has a bright future.   

[deisik]

Increasing the block size would evidently decrease fees since there will be less competition between the senders of funds for the inclusion of their transactions in the newly found block, which consists in increasing the fee size (the higher the fee, the faster the TX will be included in one of the new blocks). Miners surely won't like that...

Thereby, the block size is not to be expected to get increased any time soon

You're talking about peanuts.

With increased capacity comes increase in usage and types of usage making the system more valuable.

Do you really believe that increased capacity can somehow lead to an increase in usage? If it were so (simple logic), why had it not been done already (I mean the block size increase) given that miners are interested in "making the system more valuable" as no one else out there? This is not a rocket science or quantum mechanics to get a clue at what's going on...

In short, you are putting the cart before the horse

Well, one thing is sure, if there is no more room for growth usage cannot increase...

Not necessarily. People will just transact less with greater amounts of coins per transaction. Actually, there is a lot of room if we blow off dust from the blocks. In fact, I've seen many charts and graphs in respect to Bitcoin transaction statistics but never met such one. That is, a distribution of transacted amounts per block...

Does anyone know what such a distribution might look like, and how much dust is there?

[Capradina]

20 years, it is a long time period, most of the things has been changed, also changes would be happened in bitcoins, May be bitcoin will be top or may be it lost his place or may be a new crypto currency has been introduced and break the bitcoin.  But i am truly user of bitcoin, so i hope bitcoin has a bright future.   

Yeah, indeed the future is not predictable by us. Sometimes we guess something very good but the time has come when we just get something from a previous expectation of fighting. But I am sure that in the next 10 years bitcoin still has tremendous growth

[safari88]

transaction costs will be the only source of income for miners. to keep the miners alive throughout the world should use digital currencies as the main medium of exchange, so it is likely that transaction costs will rise due to increased demand for the transaction.

[Yadstiker]

transaction costs will be the only source of income for miners. to keep the miners alive throughout the world should use digital currencies as the main medium of exchange, so it is likely that transaction costs will rise due to increased demand for the transaction.

The problems is the block size is quite full at the moment. It cannot support more transactions, so people will not use bitcoin.

[Sontoloyo]

I think in 20 years again, there might be about 75 million people using the bitcoin regularly. It will become a reserve currency and price about $10,000

[leowonderful]

transaction costs will be the only source of income for miners. to keep the miners alive throughout the world should use digital currencies as the main medium of exchange, so it is likely that transaction costs will rise due to increased demand for the transaction.

The problems is the block size is quite full at the moment. It cannot support more transactions, so people will not use bitcoin.

It's not quite that full yet; a normal transaction will usually be processed within one or two blocks, and backups in transactions usually only happen after a hashrate drop or a big gap in blocktime, and those are usually fixed very quickly; it won't drive people away, but transactions are arguably more secure in Bitcoin than most other payment systems.

Of course, there will always be more BIPs that can increase block size or whatever we'll need in the future; either way, what needs fixing will eventually be fixed.

[piloder]

transaction costs will be the only source of income for miners. to keep the miners alive throughout the world should use digital currencies as the main medium of exchange, so it is likely that transaction costs will rise due to increased demand for the transaction.

The problems is the block size is quite full at the moment. It cannot support more transactions, so people will not use bitcoin.

It's not quite that full yet; a normal transaction will usually be processed within one or two blocks, and backups in transactions usually only happen after a hashrate drop or a big gap in blocktime, and those are usually fixed very quickly; it won't drive people away, but transactions are arguably more secure in Bitcoin than most other payment systems.

Of course, there will always be more BIPs that can increase block size or whatever we'll need in the future; either way, what needs fixing will eventually be fixed.

Sometimes if there is a big gap in the block time, there will be a big hold up in the mempool. If the block size is 2MB, the problem will be less severe.

[leowonderful]

transaction costs will be the only source of income for miners. to keep the miners alive throughout the world should use digital currencies as the main medium of exchange, so it is likely that transaction costs will rise due to increased demand for the transaction.

The problems is the block size is quite full at the moment. It cannot support more transactions, so people will not use bitcoin.

It's not quite that full yet; a normal transaction will usually be processed within one or two blocks, and backups in transactions usually only happen after a hashrate drop or a big gap in blocktime, and those are usually fixed very quickly; it won't drive people away, but transactions are arguably more secure in Bitcoin than most other payment systems.

Of course, there will always be more BIPs that can increase block size or whatever we'll need in the future; either way, what needs fixing will eventually be fixed.

Sometimes if there is a big gap in the block time, there will be a big hold up in the mempool. If the block size is 2MB, the problem will be less severe.

It doesn't last forever, and it's usually fixed by a quick succession of blocks after the blockgap. Things like this naturally happen, and blocksize is good where it is now- payments get confirmed relatively quickly. Like I said, improvements will be made when they are actually needed, which will be decided by mining hashpower or bips(AFAIK). The last time we tried to expand blocksize, it didn't work so well.

[Umotand]

transaction costs will be the only source of income for miners. to keep the miners alive throughout the world should use digital currencies as the main medium of exchange, so it is likely that transaction costs will rise due to increased demand for the transaction.

The problems is the block size is quite full at the moment. It cannot support more transactions, so people will not use bitcoin.

It's not quite that full yet; a normal transaction will usually be processed within one or two blocks, and backups in transactions usually only happen after a hashrate drop or a big gap in blocktime, and those are usually fixed very quickly; it won't drive people away, but transactions are arguably more secure in Bitcoin than most other payment systems.

Of course, there will always be more BIPs that can increase block size or whatever we'll need in the future; either way, what needs fixing will eventually be fixed.

Sometimes if there is a big gap in the block time, there will be a big hold up in the mempool. If the block size is 2MB, the problem will be less severe.

It doesn't last forever, and it's usually fixed by a quick succession of blocks after the blockgap. Things like this naturally happen, and blocksize is good where it is now- payments get confirmed relatively quickly. Like I said, improvements will be made when they are actually needed, which will be decided by mining hashpower or bips(AFAIK). The last time we tried to expand blocksize, it didn't work so well.

Most of the time, the mempool size is over 2MB. So you have to pay higher fee to compete to be processed earlier.

[Johnyloco]

I didn't realize this before, but indeed, it makes sense. So we're stuck with small blocks because miners are short sighted focussing on todays income only.
Mining hardware becomes obsolete very fast, caused by an increase in difficulty. This is an extra reason for miners not to think ahead much.
I used to think Satoshi covered all major parts of Bitcoin, but this may be something he didn't anticipate.

[morantis]

well, most people have come to realize over the past year that mining at home is a rare payoff.  it takes pretty decent hardware in the ASIC area to get much of anything at all and it is becoming clear to people more and more.  that should mean fewer and fewer miners over the next few years, ten people give up GPU mining and two people take up ASIC's per se.  eventually the 2016 blocks will shift this generation of mining to the next difficulty and it is very possible that it could be lower next time with the constant shifting of mining power. Plus, it is getting to the point where there enough active coins that many people are more focused on trading and spending those coins. so, fewer wallets mining, lower block reward and fewer new coin TX's, this could be seen as a stabilization trend and move into a bright future

[Johnyloco]

True,

As time going difficulty level of mining blocks for bitcoins is increasing. And as per halving already price of bitcoin mining block reward is set to 12.5 BTC.

But as predefined price of bitcoin will rise more than whatever is current, so mining of bitcoin can be affordable for huge rig owner. Small units will not possible to get good ROI with mining.

And on more important things as maximum blocks will be solved transaction fee for bitcoin will be higher. So that will also advantage to miner for getting reward for verification.

[deisik]

I didn't realize this before, but indeed, it makes sense. So we're stuck with small blocks because miners are short sighted focussing on todays income only.
Mining hardware becomes obsolete very fast, caused by an increase in difficulty. This is an extra reason for miners not to think ahead much.
I used to think Satoshi covered all major parts of Bitcoin, but this may be something he didn't anticipate.

Satoshi is not a god while humans are known to make mistakes including failure to account for something important. I think Satoshi's main omission was that he didn't provide a solution to the problem of having a final say despite the opinion of the majority. Most open-source projects have somebody called BDFL ("benevolent dictator for life") who retains the final say in possible disputes over the future of the project. Satoshi himself could be such a figure but he seems to have lost aspirations for Bitcoin (provided he is still alive in the first place)...

Democracy if applied for real doesn't work, but meritocracy is not without its drawbacks either

[Umotand]

I didn't realize this before, but indeed, it makes sense. So we're stuck with small blocks because miners are short sighted focussing on todays income only.
Mining hardware becomes obsolete very fast, caused by an increase in difficulty. This is an extra reason for miners not to think ahead much.
I used to think Satoshi covered all major parts of Bitcoin, but this may be something he didn't anticipate.

Satoshi is not a god while humans are known to make mistakes including failure to account for something important. I think Satoshi's main omission was that he didn't provide a solution to the problem of having a final say despite the opinion of the majority. Most open-source projects have somebody called BDFL ("benevolent dictator for life") who retains the final say in possible disputes over the future of the project. Satoshi himself could be such a figure but he seems to have lost aspirations for Bitcoin (provided he is still alive in the first place)...

Democracy if applied for real doesn't work, but meritocracy is not without its drawbacks either

I think the biggest misktake he made was to set a hard limit of the block size. He should set a adaptive limit.

[deisik]

I didn't realize this before, but indeed, it makes sense. So we're stuck with small blocks because miners are short sighted focussing on todays income only.
Mining hardware becomes obsolete very fast, caused by an increase in difficulty. This is an extra reason for miners not to think ahead much.
I used to think Satoshi covered all major parts of Bitcoin, but this may be something he didn't anticipate.

Satoshi is not a god while humans are known to make mistakes including failure to account for something important. I think Satoshi's main omission was that he didn't provide a solution to the problem of having a final say despite the opinion of the majority. Most open-source projects have somebody called BDFL ("benevolent dictator for life") who retains the final say in possible disputes over the future of the project. Satoshi himself could be such a figure but he seems to have lost aspirations for Bitcoin (provided he is still alive in the first place)...

Democracy if applied for real doesn't work, but meritocracy is not without its drawbacks either

I think the biggest misktake he made was to set a hard limit of the block size. He should set a adaptive limit.

"640K ought to be enough for anyone". But how can it be his biggest mistake? This limit would still be set in the code and changed through the code. Otherwise, it would wreak havoc on the Blockchain if, for example, it was a floating value depending, say, on the number of transactions. In the very least, there would be an overhead in determining the actual size of the block if its size were to change arbitrarily...

Most likely an adaptive limit would complicate a lot of other things

[Shiroslullaby]

I think one of the reasons Satoshi wanted to remain anonymous, was to NOT be the BDFL.
For him, Bitcoin was more of an experiment, a creation to make and let loose, and let the world decide what would happen.
If it fails, it fails. If it creates other coins, other forks, blockchains, new ideas, that is the most important thing.
If Satoshi was in control of everything, and had the final say, would we be here having these discussions?

[deisik]

I think one of the reasons Satoshi wanted to remain anonymous, was to NOT be the BDFL.
For him, Bitcoin was more of an experiment, a creation to make and let loose, and let the world decide what would happen.
If it fails, it fails. If it creates other coins, other forks, blockchains, new ideas, that is the most important thing.
If Satoshi was in control of everything, and had the final say, would we be here having these discussions?

It's a difference which makes the difference

Having the final say and being in control of everything are two completely different things. The first letter in the acronym stands for benevolent. Being benevolent means here that the "dictator" has to remain open to valid criticism at all times, otherwise risking forking of the project in case strong disagreements arise between him and the rest of the gang. As I have said earlier, democracy doesn't work in anything important if played for real

[AdolfinWolf]

I think one of the reasons Satoshi wanted to remain anonymous, was to NOT be the BDFL.
For him, Bitcoin was more of an experiment, a creation to make and let loose, and let the world decide what would happen.
If it fails, it fails. If it creates other coins, other forks, blockchains, new ideas, that is the most important thing.
If Satoshi was in control of everything, and had the final say, would we be here having these discussions?

It's a difference which makes the difference

Having the final say and being in control of everything are two completely different things. The first letter in the acronym stands for benevolent. Being benevolent means here that the "dictator" has to remain open to valid criticism at all times, otherwise risking forking of the project in case strong disagreements arise between him and the rest of the gang. As I have said earlier, democracy doesn't work in anything important if played for real

To be honest, i think one of the reasons he wants to be anonymous is because he is one of the richest people on earth right now. Imagine all the coins he can possible have etc, and he didnt paid a cent of taxes over all that money, he is able to completely control some markets with the bitcoin, do you know how gladly governments wanna know who he is?

[deisik]

I think one of the reasons Satoshi wanted to remain anonymous, was to NOT be the BDFL.
For him, Bitcoin was more of an experiment, a creation to make and let loose, and let the world decide what would happen.
If it fails, it fails. If it creates other coins, other forks, blockchains, new ideas, that is the most important thing.
If Satoshi was in control of everything, and had the final say, would we be here having these discussions?

It's a difference which makes the difference

Having the final say and being in control of everything are two completely different things. The first letter in the acronym stands for benevolent. Being benevolent means here that the "dictator" has to remain open to valid criticism at all times, otherwise risking forking of the project in case strong disagreements arise between him and the rest of the gang. As I have said earlier, democracy doesn't work in anything important if played for real

To be honest, i think one of the reasons he wants to be anonymous is because he is one of the richest people on earth right now. Imagine all the coins he can possible have etc, and he didnt paid a cent of taxes over all that money, he is able to completely control some markets with the bitcoin, do you know how gladly governments wanna know who he is?

1M bitcoins is only around 600 million dollars. He is not even a dollar billionaire, by any yardstick (let alone being one of the richest people in the world). If he decided to cash out that would instantaneously crash the price. So his seeming wealth is ephemeral, for some part at least. On the other hand, what taxes should he pay?

How should they be calculated?

[Lumada]

I think one of the reasons Satoshi wanted to remain anonymous, was to NOT be the BDFL.
For him, Bitcoin was more of an experiment, a creation to make and let loose, and let the world decide what would happen.
If it fails, it fails. If it creates other coins, other forks, blockchains, new ideas, that is the most important thing.
If Satoshi was in control of everything, and had the final say, would we be here having these discussions?

It's a difference which makes the difference

Having the final say and being in control of everything are two completely different things. The first letter in the acronym stands for benevolent. Being benevolent means here that the "dictator" has to remain open to valid criticism at all times, otherwise risking forking of the project in case strong disagreements arise between him and the rest of the gang. As I have said earlier, democracy doesn't work in anything important if played for real

To be honest, i think one of the reasons he wants to be anonymous is because he is one of the richest people on earth right now. Imagine all the coins he can possible have etc, and he didnt paid a cent of taxes over all that money, he is able to completely control some markets with the bitcoin, do you know how gladly governments wanna know who he is?

1M bitcoins is only around 600 million dollars. He is not even a dollar billionaire, by any yardstick (let alone being one of the richest people in the world). If he decided to cash out that would instantaneously crash the price. So his seeming wealth is ephemeral, for some part at least. On the other hand, what taxes should he pay?

How should they be calculated?

If you look beyond the next 10 years, the bitcoin price could be $100,000 each, that make him much richer.

[deisik]

1M bitcoins is only around 600 million dollars. He is not even a dollar billionaire, by any yardstick (let alone being one of the richest people in the world). If he decided to cash out that would instantaneously crash the price. So his seeming wealth is ephemeral, for some part at least. On the other hand, what taxes should he pay?

How should they be calculated?

If you look beyond the next 10 years, the bitcoin price could be $100,000 each, that make him much richer.

Wealth is only measured in money, but money itself can be considered as wealth only as long as real wealth can be bought with it. And not some abstract wealth (houses, yachts, girls, boys, whatever), but the wealth that you can make use of. If you had 1 trillion dollars in cash, what could you actually buy with it? You could try to buy Apple shares, for example, but would people who have a controlling stake in this company agree to sell it? When you come to think of it, you inevitably come to a conclusion that being money-rich is not the same as just being rich...

I mean, in the proper sense of the word, i.e. possessing wealth that you are able to swallow and digest, so to speak

[gkv9]

There were people who said that even if miners stop mining, Satoshi left Bitcoin with a setup in which it will still run the network without mining extra coins, thus confirming the transactions and fulfilling the requirements of the protocol... I hope we won't see a downfall in this, or this might be an end of Bitcoins???

[Yadstiker]

There were people who said that even if miners stop mining, Satoshi left Bitcoin with a setup in which it will still run the network without mining extra coins, thus confirming the transactions and fulfilling the requirements of the protocol... I hope we won't see a downfall in this, or this might be an end of Bitcoins???

I never heard about that. The mining is the only way to secure the network. It might be PoW or PoS.

[20kevin20]

In 20 years, a 1TH/s rig will be absolutely nothing. If Bitcoin will make it until then, the price will be at an insane amount and mining will be only for the rich. We will also be rich then, because of the huge price. I can't really predict much though, because you never know what the future is going to be for us.

[marcuslong]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

Let us see if bitcoin still alive in that year for me even the cheapest electricity can mine bitcoin we are always depending on the hard we are using if we are using much more powerful hard mining then we can mine more bitcoin in a day in that year and we know that every year there are upgrading.

[FeranD]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

I think there is always a solution. Does bitcoin community has developers with ability to change code and submit new feautres? If yes, that's a number one resolution. Otherwise i heard switching to POS(Proof-of-Stake) system will give node runners a reward for approving transactions.

[deisik]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

I think there is always a solution. Does bitcoin community has developers with ability to change code and submit new feautres? If yes, that's a number one resolution. Otherwise i heard switching to POS(Proof-of-Stake) system will give node runners a reward for approving transactions.

The solution has been there right from the start, and there is no need to change anything in the code just because the cap of 21M coins will be hit one day. Mining will not stop due to no more coins to be mined. Miners will profit from transaction fees, and they are already profiting from them right now (up to a few percentages of mining reward)...

In short, this problem is essentially nonexistent

[termion]

Bitcoin 1.0 may die 2017-2018... Bitcoin 2.0 go in September 2016 - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1616884.0   http://www.bitcointwo.xyz  ... Maybe in 2020 will be Bitcoin 3.0 ...

[jaysabi]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

I think there is always a solution. Does bitcoin community has developers with ability to change code and submit new feautres? If yes, that's a number one resolution. Otherwise i heard switching to POS(Proof-of-Stake) system will give node runners a reward for approving transactions.

The solution has been there right from the start, and there is no need to change anything in the code just because the cap of 21M coins will be hit one day. Mining will not stop due to no more coins to be mined. Miners will profit from transaction fees, and they are already profiting from them right now (up to a few percentages of mining reward)...

In short, this problem is essentially nonexistent

I still see a potential problem in that in order for miners to be kept interested, mining fees will have to rise significantly to offset the loss of new coin generation rewards they currently earn, and at the point where fees are significant enough to keep the network properly decentralized, will using bitcoin in any capacity be cost-competitive? Micro-transactions are something that bitcoin has a huge advantage over the traditional banking system, but it seems to me micro-transactions will become impossible in the future with the rise in mining fees that will accompany the loss of new coin generation rewards.

[Umotand]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

I think there is always a solution. Does bitcoin community has developers with ability to change code and submit new feautres? If yes, that's a number one resolution. Otherwise i heard switching to POS(Proof-of-Stake) system will give node runners a reward for approving transactions.

The solution has been there right from the start, and there is no need to change anything in the code just because the cap of 21M coins will be hit one day. Mining will not stop due to no more coins to be mined. Miners will profit from transaction fees, and they are already profiting from them right now (up to a few percentages of mining reward)...

In short, this problem is essentially nonexistent

I still see a potential problem in that in order for miners to be kept interested, mining fees will have to rise significantly to offset the loss of new coin generation rewards they currently earn, and at the point where fees are significant enough to keep the network properly decentralized, will using bitcoin in any capacity be cost-competitive? Micro-transactions are something that bitcoin has a huge advantage over the traditional banking system, but it seems to me micro-transactions will become impossible in the future with the rise in mining fees that will accompany the loss of new coin generation rewards.

The mining transaction fee has to increase, but the price of the bitcoin should also increase to attract more miners.

[leowonderful]

99.21875% will be mined in 20 years time. If electricity isn't very cheap by then and/or if bitcoin isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's hard to imagine anybody wanting to mine then. How will transactions then be verified?

I think there is always a solution. Does bitcoin community has developers with ability to change code and submit new feautres? If yes, that's a number one resolution. Otherwise i heard switching to POS(Proof-of-Stake) system will give node runners a reward for approving transactions.

The solution has been there right from the start, and there is no need to change anything in the code just because the cap of 21M coins will be hit one day. Mining will not stop due to no more coins to be mined. Miners will profit from transaction fees, and they are already profiting from them right now (up to a few percentages of mining reward)...

In short, this problem is essentially nonexistent

I still see a potential problem in that in order for miners to be kept interested, mining fees will have to rise significantly to offset the loss of new coin generation rewards they currently earn, and at the point where fees are significant enough to keep the network properly decentralized, will using bitcoin in any capacity be cost-competitive? Micro-transactions are something that bitcoin has a huge advantage over the traditional banking system, but it seems to me micro-transactions will become impossible in the future with the rise in mining fees that will accompany the loss of new coin generation rewards.

The mining transaction fee has to increase, but the price of the bitcoin should also increase to attract more miners.

It's inevitable that fees will increase; if we increase the blocksize right now, fees will indeed lower, but this will have a negative effect in the future when blocks are pretty much all mined. The price of bitcoin is uncontrollable, and although it's highly likely that will increase, it's not guaranteed. Most of us won't even be alive by the time blocks are all mined in terms of block reward without transaction fees; it's not a huge issue to us at the moment.

[deisik]

The mining transaction fee has to increase, but the price of the bitcoin should also increase to attract more miners.

It's inevitable that fees will increase; if we increase the blocksize right now, fees will indeed lower, but this will have a negative effect in the future when blocks are pretty much all mined. The price of bitcoin is uncontrollable, and although it's highly likely that will increase, it's not guaranteed. Most of us won't even be alive by the time blocks are all mined in terms of block reward without transaction fees; it's not a huge issue to us at the moment.

As I've been told, the transaction fees are market determined, i.e. by the "buyer". In this case, the buyer would be Bitcoin senders and not the miners. Right now, miners could simply drop the transactions if the latter didn't have enough fees (or no fees at all) and mine just for the sake of getting the reward. This is what seemed to have happened in July, 2015, when literally thousands of transactions got stuck unconfirmed (some ironically called it "testing Bitcoin limits")...

But when there is no more reward to mine for, would the miners reject transactions as easily?

[Clement Kaliyar]

Bitcoin 1.0 may die 2017-2018... Bitcoin 2.0 go in September 2016 - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1616884.0   http://www.bitcointwo.xyz  ... Maybe in 2020 will be Bitcoin 3.0 ...

what kind of projects are those!!!!! i am hearing about those for the first time looks like some copy cats wannabes ,what ever it is in 20 years time the kind of big miners which we see in china right now will be closing their doors as it wont be that profitable unless and until bitcoin prices triples from what it is now ,transaction fees might increase and i expect the core developers will find a solution regarding that too.

[veleten]

I haven't made up my mind yet if increasing the block size is a good idea or not
what I know for sure that mining in 20 years time will have seen us through at least 4 reward halving,
so the block reward is smaller and the miners main profit is from the transaction fees
how will this affect the speed of transactions?
are  bitcoin v2,v3 or any changes to blockchain  really necessary?

[Pesmand]

I haven't made up my mind yet if increasing the block size is a good idea or not
what I know for sure that mining in 20 years time will have seen us through at least 4 reward halving,
so the block reward is smaller and the miners main profit is from the transaction fees
how will this affect the speed of transactions?
are  bitcoin v2,v3 or any changes to blockchain  really necessary?

Increasing the block size is good if you want more transactions on the main chain so that there will be more users.