What happens when mining is no longer profitable or all coins are mined?

[bdog1234]

Not going to happen any time soon but eventually the difficulty will be so hard that it is no longer profitable. Even if technology advances to where it is what about when all 21 million are mined?

We have seen the slow down in transaction times recently when people pulled off to mine BCC.

I know there are transaction fees but they are not that lucrative. When the big boys pull out of mining and there lots more coins in circulation how will the network function? Will it be super slow or transaction fees ultra high to keep it going?

Again I don't see this as any immediate concern but what about in ten years?

[n4poleon]

It might be to early to think about now, we still have about 5 million bitcoins to mine, that's quite a long way ahead. Maybe in about 10 years, community may start discussing this intensively. Maybe creating an incentive structure for running full nodes and verifying transactions might be an option, in my opinion lightning network might have a significant role here.

[AGD]

Not going to happen any time soon but eventually the difficulty will be so hard that it is no longer profitable. Even if technology advances to where it is what about when all 21 million are mined?

We have seen the slow down in transaction times recently when people pulled off to mine BCC.

I know there are transaction fees but they are not that lucrative. When the big boys pull out of mining and there lots more coins in circulation how will the network function? Will it be super slow or transaction fees ultra high to keep it going?

Again I don't see this as any immediate concern but what about in ten years?

1.

difficulty will be so hard that it is no longer profitable

Miners will switch off their unprofitable miners and difficulty will adjust or price will rise.

2.

what about when all 21 million are mined?

Fees will be the only reward for miners. Satoshi assumed, that when Bitcoin comes to that point, adaption shoud be high enough to generate a sufficient fee to keep it profitable.

[HabBear]

The appreciation of Bitcoin is fiat terms could continue to make mining profitable (again, in fiat terms) even has the size of the award for each block mind diminishes to fractions of a Bitcoin.

And, yeah, transaction fees will play a more prominent driver in compensation for the miners.

Great question!

[ebliever]

Not going to happen any time soon but eventually the difficulty will be so hard that it is no longer profitable. Even if technology advances to where it is what about when all 21 million are mined?

We have seen the slow down in transaction times recently when people pulled off to mine BCC.

I know there are transaction fees but they are not that lucrative. When the big boys pull out of mining and there lots more coins in circulation how will the network function? Will it be super slow or transaction fees ultra high to keep it going?

Again I don't see this as any immediate concern but what about in ten years?

There is no relation between mining fees and transaction capacity. The relation is between the amount of fees and the network security that they provide.

Bitcoin fees have actually become quite significant. As we move low-value TX (such as microtransactions, faucet payouts and so forth) to the Lightning Network, and if the blocksize can be held low for high-value TX, fees will remain significant and provide the needed network security. At current rates we are only about 2 halvings (7 years) from having TX fees exceed the base mining reward.

[Kakmakr]

Miners make decisions based on difficulty and profitability. If the difficulty increase to a level where it becomes less profitable for them to continue mining, they will simply shut down or move their hashing power to a Alt coin that are still profitable to mine. When this happens, the difficulty will go down and other miners will move in again to capitalize on the lower difficulty.

The money is too good for them to leave permanently, so they will float between the profitable crypto currencies. ^smile^

[Rye yan]

I think the value of bitcoin will soar high because of the law of supply and demand. If the demand is high by that time since all bitcoins were already mined, its become more and more valuable.

[NorrisK]

Difficulty will adjust after a certain period (longer than usual as difficulty is too high) and after that mining is profitable again.

The system keeps itself in balance. The moment all coins are mined is long out and different solutions will be available by then.

[audaciousbeing]

Not going to happen any time soon but eventually the difficulty will be so hard that it is no longer profitable. Even if technology advances to where it is what about when all 21 million are mined?

We have seen the slow down in transaction times recently when people pulled off to mine BCC.

I know there are transaction fees but they are not that lucrative. When the big boys pull out of mining and there lots more coins in circulation how will the network function? Will it be super slow or transaction fees ultra high to keep it going?

Again I don't see this as any immediate concern but what about in ten years?

Its ok to be skeptical about the future and it will really  shape our line of think. I believe the individual who has developed something so magnificent as this and equally put a cap on the maximum that would be mined, increasing difficulty with the amount to be mined over time among others. I am sure he would have made provision for what happens afterwards because the years ahead is still very  much more than the ones spent and when we get there, we pass. Transactions fees will be paid and that would keep the system running.

[mk4]

Difficulty rises, at the same time if the recent price charts stays somewhat bullish, bitcoin's price will also rise. So these things will most likely just balance out.

Prices were high and transactions were slow enough even when Bitcoin Cash was still non-existent, it even looks like Segwit CURRENTLY only has a small effect on the tx fees and times. Whatever people say, I think competition is healthy, whether or not you're for bitcoin(BTC) or Bitcoin Cash(BCC/BCH).

Time will only tell who the crypto-king will be in a few years. Who knows? It might be dogecoin? /s  

[mondobitcoin]

Not going to happen any time soon but eventually the difficulty will be so hard that it is no longer profitable. Even if technology advances to where it is what about when all 21 million are mined?

We have seen the slow down in transaction times recently when people pulled off to mine BCC.

I know there are transaction fees but they are not that lucrative. When the big boys pull out of mining and there lots more coins in circulation how will the network function? Will it be super slow or transaction fees ultra high to keep it going?

Again I don't see this as any immediate concern but what about in ten years?

I think nothing will happen, the bitcoin price can grow up and maybe people and miners will go to concentrate in others cripto money
But i think it can happen minimum in 10 years

[Filmmmakerr]

Once all coins are mined I would imagine that prices will skyrocket in to the galaxy.

[piloder]

If we look at current upward trend, bitcoin might be priced over $100k when all 21 million coin will be mined so all fee included in transactions that will be included/mined by the miner in a block will be enough for him to run a profitable mining operation.

Also cost of mining hardware is decreasing and in near future cheaper power solution might be used for mining like solar energy and wind energy, this can significantly lower operating cost for miners and mining bitcoin will be still profitable for them.

[bitcoinVPSD]

.I think if bitcoin mining encountered any difficulties or disadvantages. I just stop bitcoin mining to wait for fixing the system after some time. Continue to exploit it. If all coins are mined I think its value will increase higher not decrease because according to the rules provided, there are buyers, there are sellers.

[doujuan612]

It won't happen, but I agree it'll be more harder to mine, you can see all the coils are expensive than before.

[nexus99]

I think that the transaction fees will be really huge at that point. But probably still not enough to keep the big guys in mining satisfied. There will probably be an influx of new miners that are ready to work only for the transaction fees

[SvenBomvolen]

Well, obviously all miners will loose their jobs as miners and will have to move on something else. Add to that all equipment around mining is going to be not in trend and demand anymore. But I think Bitcoin will not loose it's popularity in the case when all coins will be mined. It stays buy-sell system which is moving the economy, so I think all this relationships between buyers, sellers and bitcoin keepers is going to move bitcoins use for new price's records and development.

[stompix]

Think of mining coins as in mining oil.

There are 1 million miners who battle for 1mil$ of fees and rewards but with cost averaging 1.2 millions.
The miners with more expensive energy will drop. So we will have still 1 million in rewards, 0.8 million costs and only 800 000 miners working.

Just because at some time bitcoin won;t be profitable for all to mine it doesn't mean everyone will stop mining.
And anyhow, we only need a an USB stick to keep the chain alive.

[Janation]

It won't happen, but I agree it'll be more harder to mine, you can see all the coils are expensive than before.

It will happen, the thing is the coin will be mined but it will take a lot of years more as the mining become more harder that it is used to be. Also, with this the miners will be having a way to have a good profit out of the fees. I think something good will happen if the coins are all mined in the next few years.

[Jet Cash]

If transaction fees increase and squeeze out the smaller transactions, then confirmation times will become more important. If block generation times are not reduced, then users will switch to more efficient transfer systems. This will cause a drop in the value of Bitcoin, and make mining even less profitable.