I guess this question pertains to Bitcoin as well as the newly created Bitcoin Cash. Are there future plans for when all 21 million coins have been mined? I have never mined, but I'm assuming the main goal of mining is to get the mining rewards of solving blocks. Once all the coins are mined, what will be the incentive for people to continue running the expensive hardware and/or high utility bills if coins are no longer given as a reward?
I know that transaction fees will still be gained, but logically speaking, I don't think that would be enough to keep people mining, would it?
On a separate note, does bitcoin cash have a hard 21mill cap as well?
A widely accepted theory is that the Bitcoin price and the increased amount of transactions per block (meaning more total fees per block) will counter the fact that there will be no block reward. Though by then
everything will be different.
And yes, BCH is a clone of BTC so it has the same maximum circulating supply as BTC does.
Thanks...I've been around for a while, but never got into the mining game. I considered it, and then considered cloud mining when that came around, but ended up just purchasing bitcoin on my own over the years. Yeah it is tough to imagine what things will be like in 5-10 years, as things change here so quickly in a matter of weeks, days, or even hours sometimes.