Will the final number of bitcoins become a serious limitation?

[digaran]

Simple calculation - Now population is 7 billion people, in ~2100 world population may be 12 billions. So, then by average, one person may have 0.00175 btc. In reality, it may be smaller amountdue to lost bitcoins. But we don't have forget that not everyone will use bitcoins - we have to exclude kids, poors and etc. So, I think it will be enough bitcoins for everyone. Another question, how people will have to send small amounts of bitcoins, when fee will be much higher than transacted amount.

Use a bit of common sense.
People pay right now 80 000 satoshi for a tx or 2$.

If bitcoin will reach that usage and will evolve (scale) normally people will still pay 2$ but that probably would only be  2 or 4 satoshi.

Even now people are migrating to alts, Bitcoin has a huge difficulty level in mining and requires tons of resources just to set up a mining farm, I can't see any future where even 100 satoshis worth $1 buck, simply because by then running a full node would cost you as if you wanted to build the Eiffel tower, yup that is around millions of dollars, if Bitcoin wants to survive in the long run we should come up with a solution to avoid making the mining operation too much expensive, right now people having doubts and can't decide whether it's worth it if they were to invest on mining rigs, up to where current miners are willing to invest just to stay in the competition?

[hardtime]

I don't think this is ever going to be an issue due to the fact that bitcoin is a fractional currency so this sort of issue isn't going to play a factor in the least, as the thing is that supply and demand will play a big role over this entire thing. So the final number of Bitcoins in my opinion isn't going to do anything in the least nor is it going to affect anything, it may play a factor in the exact # of bitcoins being transacted but the overall value is probably going to be the same. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks that, but that's me.

The last 0.00000001 BTC won't be mined until 2140.

At that point, a total of 2,100,000,000,000,000 spendable units will have been created.  That's 2.1 QUADRILLION!

I don't think the limit will be a problem.

I'd think about it in these terms, so we'll have a LOT OF TIME and a LOT OF BITCOINS to go around. People may lose wallets, stolen shit and so on but that's not going to play a huge factor IMO.

[erikalui]

It may be an issue if people lose access to their private keys or if more exchanges keep getting hacked. If this situation arises and since bitcoin is limited supply, it causes deflation which is different in terms of bitcoins. Since there is a cap of 21 million coins, the coins would be more precious for those who have been holding it for years but the market size/volume may reduce if there are less coins available for trading. It would then just be some "foreign currency" or a "treasure". That's the reason we see price fluctuations unlike fiat that's stable as they have no cap.

[hatshepsut93]

There is one problem with Bitcoins supply - it's transaction fees, or a minimum transaction fee amount to be more specific. Today you the minimum rate you have to pay for your transaction is 1000 satoshi. Obviously today fees are much higher, but if in the future Bitcoin will keep growing and will try to become universal currency, than this limitation will become a serious issue. Here's a short example:
1 BTC = 50 000 USD, than the minimum fee of any transaction (0.00001 BTC) is worth $0.5, which makes BTC a very expensive currency to use, because even if people pay this minimum fee, it will still add up to a big amount, if you do 200 transactions per month it will be $100 in fees.

[Kriptex]

I don't believe all of 21 million bitcoins will be available in the future. As you stated above, lots of them has been stolen. And some has forgot their keys and they don't reach their bitcoins as well. So I foresee a shortage in long term.

[Soros Shorts]

1 BTC = 50 000 USD, than the minimum fee of any transaction (0.00001 BTC) is worth $0.5, which makes BTC a very expensive currency to use, because even if people pay this minimum fee, it will still add up to a big amount, if you do 200 transactions per month it will be $100 in fees.

If 1 BTC becomes worth $50,000 then the minimum fee would likely drop below 0.00001 BTC. I still remember the early days when we were paying 0.01 BTC transaction fees and not thinking twice about it. The market will adjust.

[avikz]

Interestion your point

I don't see it as a limitation rather I see it as an opportunity for the future. Bitcoin supply is limited and that's what will make it special after 2023. Very limited people will have access to a good amount of bitcoin and they will become elite rich after that time. We all are trying to fit into that bill.

If bitcoin increases the supply, as per the normal demand-supply rule, the price of bitcoin will come down. Similar to the bonus-share issue of the real world stock market. But if the supply remains limited and the demand stays robust, the price will appreciate to an unknown level. I believe all investors like me, are waiting for their goal price. Limitation in supply can make it happen.

[Yakamoto]

Interestion your point

I do not believe that there will ever be an issue with the Bitcoin cap since there will be one of two things that will happen:

Mining sees more and more decreased block rewards and compensates with their fiat dollar value bottom-line to maintain their businesses, resulting in the overall value going up and less BTC required per purchase in fiat, or the cap results in a bunch of sitting value while the market shoots upwards due to a decreasing supply overall.

Or it all collapses but that's relatively unlikely.

[freedomno1]

Interestion your point

No transaction fees will offset the amount of Bitcoins, this current state is just icing on a cake.
To be fair we don't really need super super hash rates since past a certain point as long as a 50% can't be done fundamentally the system is already damn  secure.

[coynedterm]

Interestion your point

I don't think it will happen in the future because the reason behind this is that the final digit is 21 millions .
And as you can see how did we reached early to the 40-50% , I mean in the starting we reached at a better grow but after that our speed of the mining goes down and in 3-4 years we only reach about less then of 75% then think about this logical what will happen if we will reach at the percentage of 90%+ , ofcourse after this amount of mine Bitcoin the mining will become more down and so on .
And in this way it is impossible for us to mine 100% of Bitcoin in the 10-20years easily .
And also in a documentary about the Bitcoin at a local news channel , they said that it is about impossible to mine 100% of Bitcoin because after each mining of 1 btc , mining of second Bitcoin is more difficult for the miners .

[xypos]

Interestion your point

No. There is no "final number of bitcoins". Bitcoin will come real close to 21 million but there will be always no coins being mined no matter how small.

One of the major attractions of bitcoin is that the way it cannot be "printed" by a government, like the way fiat can be printed by a government and manipulated. With bitcoin, this 21 million cap is extremely important. If this was ever broken then people's trust in bitcoin will definitely fade alongside the restriction as well. The real limitations are scaling, definitely not the amount of bitcoins in circulation.

The thing is that bitcoin can be divided into infinitely small units, which means that we don't need to create more bitcoins. If there was ever a shortage of bitcoins, then price would go up. When price becomes too high then people sell, driving the price down. When bitcoin does reach the stage where less than say, 0.01 of it is produced a day, then price would be extremely high.

[SingAlong]

The last 0.00000001 BTC won't be mined until 2140.

At that point, a total of 2,100,000,000,000,000 spendable units will have been created.  That's 2.1 QUADRILLION!

I don't think the limit will be a problem.

Everyone is focusing too much about the 21M limit neglecting the fact that Bitcoin has its 8 decimal places that are spendable. 2.1 Quadrillion spendable units will suffice what you're thinking about the "serious limitation" your saying. There are much serious limitations that Bitcoin should overcome in the future.

[L00n3y]

Even when all the coins will be mined many years distance from now it will not be a serious limitation. People will continue to trade and exchange this number of bitcoins and transaction will go on normally. I don't believe that all people then will hold bitcoins and not do transactions. At that far away time it is supposed that bitcoin to have become mainstream currency.

You're right. Even if we mined all of the BTC only the prices will grow because of its scarcity and when we are thinking about when all of us hold BTC and the number of transaction of it will fall because everyone used it as an investment then I think the price will go down forcing some of us to go on panic selling. In a few more years I think government will try to buy a large value of BTC and use it as a reserved.

[DRaGoN RaNTaRo]

Here's a short example:
1 BTC = 50 000 USD, than the minimum fee of any transaction (0.00001 BTC) is worth $0.5, which makes BTC a very expensive currency to use, because even if people pay this minimum fee, it will still add up to a big amount, if you do 200 transactions per month it will be $100 in fees.

The problem with the transaction fees is that i do not expect that to go down that much even though we have a network upgrade,how much will be a good amount in the future is the big problem,with the increase in price you expect to shell out more money for transaction fees and you really cannot do anything about it.

[buwaytress]

You gotta luv this guy, even if he hate sig members.  Yes, Danny... once again you have it spot on with your answer. Have you calculated what

will happen if we decide to divide it even further? 0.0000000001 {Because this is also a viable option, if it comes down to it} I just doubt

that we will ever get consensus to do it, because we cannot even reach consensus to scale the bloody thing. 

Actually, if this SegWit thing happens (or when, as it seems now), I understand that we can already do sub-satoshi payments with Lightning Network... I'm not sure exactly how divisible the satoshi will be, but I would assume, virtually infinite, if it ever needs to be. When 1 BTC is $1 million, 1 satoshi will be 1 cent, so maybe in that universe we'll find out:)

[Termin4tor]

There wont be any serious limitation but there will be a problem of the currency being a deflationary currency. Currently a lot of coins are being mined but when the limit hits, the inflation status will be gone.

[audaciousbeing]

Interestion your point

I dont see any limitation whatsoever to the units of bitcoin because there are to be 21,000,000 coin in which each coin consist of about 100,000,000 satoshis which means that the total units we will be having will then be 21,000,000*100,000,000 which excel itself cannot even provide an answer to. It therefore interpret that there wont be any limitation. The only thing we will have is one satoshi worth more than say $10 depending on the price at any point in time.

[FasTroy]

Interestion your point

I dont see any limitation whatsoever to the units of bitcoin because there are to be 21,000,000 coin in which each coin consist of about 100,000,000 satoshis which means that the total units we will be having will then be 21,000,000*100,000,000 which excel itself cannot even provide an answer to. It therefore interpret that there wont be any limitation. The only thing we will have is one satoshi worth more than say $10 depending on the price at any point in time.

You are right, I don't think that there is any limitation at least in 10-15 years later. As you said excel itself cannot even provide an answer to this high number. So, Personally i expect that the price will increase too much in the future. So i don't be suprised if 1 satoshi one day will be 0.01$ or more.

[Krimster]

Look, the math is easy here:

For the number of bitcoins to be any kind of serious limitation, the value of the smallest division (satoshi) should be at least 0,02$/?, or, arguably, even 0,05. If that happens, a single bitcoin is 2/5 million, and, at that point, it has essentially taken over the world.

That said, even if that case arrives, satoshi  can simply be further dividied. Thus, the answer  is "no, never".

[stompix]

Simple calculation - Now population is 7 billion people, in ~2100 world population may be 12 billions. So, then by average, one person may have 0.00175 btc. In reality, it may be smaller amountdue to lost bitcoins. But we don't have forget that not everyone will use bitcoins - we have to exclude kids, poors and etc. So, I think it will be enough bitcoins for everyone. Another question, how people will have to send small amounts of bitcoins, when fee will be much higher than transacted amount.

Use a bit of common sense.
People pay right now 80 000 satoshi for a tx or 2$.

If bitcoin will reach that usage and will evolve (scale) normally people will still pay 2$ but that probably would only be  2 or 4 satoshi.

Even now people are migrating to alts, Bitcoin has a huge difficulty level in mining and requires tons of resources just to set up a mining farm, I can't see any future where even 100 satoshis worth $1 buck, simply because by then running a full node would cost you as if you wanted to build the Eiffel tower, yup that is around millions of dollars, if Bitcoin wants to survive in the long run we should come up with a solution to avoid making the mining operation too much expensive, right now people having doubts and can't decide whether it's worth it if they were to invest on mining rigs, up to where current miners are willing to invest just to stay in the competition?

Proof of those people migrating to alts?
Migrating and doing what?

You have bitcoin because in most cases you can only buy bitcoins then change to alts and then the transfer... and then you have to go back to bitcoins because only 1% of shops and services are dealing with other coins.

Again, it has nothing to do with the difficulty and mining.
Bitcoin can run with a single person running a cpu miner, the number of transactions will be the same.
Please educate yourself before posting stupid things like that.

I don't believe all of 21 million bitcoins will be available in the future. As you stated above, lots of them has been stolen. And some has forgot their keys and they don't reach their bitcoins as well. So I foresee a shortage in long term.

Throw your crystal ball in the garbage and read again what DannyHamilton wrote.
If you still can understand that, then this is no place for you , sorry.