after all BTC has been mined, what then?

[techstorm2]

you are really concerned about something that won't happen until 2140??   It will be an entirely different world by then in most every possible way.

Plus everyone who is alive on the planet now will be dead by then so why even bother worrying about it. hopefully before we all check out we can enjoy the fruits of the bitcoin global adoption.

[Foxpup]

right now i beleive the block rewads are more then enough for miners. and that it is greed at the expense of helping the community that these miners demand payment. only when block rewards disapear, then and ONLY then will paying fee's be part of helping the community, and only then would it appear greedy for individuals to not want to pay a nominal small fee. again over 100 years time.

I'm sorry, but the reality is that including transactions in a block has a real cost in terms of network bandwidth, data storage, and increased risk of orphaned blocks. It costs miners money to include transactions which don't pay sufficient fees. The block reward is not enough.

there needs to be a shift away from the concept that mining is the only way to make money in bitcoin, and get people into retailing. EG selling coffee, tea, food, clothing for profit. much like how the gold miners hung up their pickaxes and opened saloons and distilleries and asked for gold as payment.

Mining is the only way to make money in Bitcoin. Retailing only transfers money that already exists. Gold miners hung up their pickaxes because there was a demand for other services that can't be provided if everybody is mining. But some people had to keep mining, otherwise where does the gold come from that people are paying with? The number of people who continue mining is, ideally, a function of the relative demand for gold versus other goods and services, and that's the way it should be (and indeed is) with Bitcoin.

lets say 2012 based on minimum wage.. the reward was enough for 300 miners to be given $6 an hour
today with todays price (based on minimum wage) the reward is enough for 15,000 miners to be given $6 an hour. promoting more then 15,000 to work is slave labour, causing miners to then spend more money to get a bigger slice of the pie ( pay rise) which is backfiring by causing the difficulty to jump higher and higher. basically shooting themselves in the foot and demanding extra money from other means (EG merge mining and demanding fee's)

pool mining owners need to realise that if there are (random number dont knitpick) 15 main pools around they need to set a limit of 1000 miners

You do realise that miners are machines, not humans, right? And that it's the humans' choice whether to run the machines and how many machines to run? Evidently not.

[franky1]

right now i beleive the block rewads are more then enough for miners. and that it is greed at the expense of helping the community that these miners demand payment. only when block rewards disapear, then and ONLY then will paying fee's be part of helping the community, and only then would it appear greedy for individuals to not want to pay a nominal small fee. again over 100 years time.

I'm sorry, but the reality is that including transactions in a block has a real cost in terms of network bandwidth, data storage, and increased risk of orphaned blocks. It costs miners money to include transactions which don't pay sufficient fees. The block reward is not enough.
$300 per 10 minutes in 2012 - £15,000 per 10 minutes in 2013.. thats how much JUST the reward is. i think the protocols DO NOT need changing to make miners richer EG limiting what type of transactions are included or not. but instead get the mining pool owners to manage miners better. EG only allow x amount of miners per pool so that when that block is solved. the amount shared out IS enough to cover real life costs

there needs to be a shift away from the concept that mining is the only way to make money in bitcoin, and get people into retailing. EG selling coffee, tea, food, clothing for profit. much like how the gold miners hung up their pickaxes and opened saloons and distilleries and asked for gold as payment.

Mining is the only way to make money in Bitcoin. Retailing only transfers money that already exists.
your statement has mis-understood my meaning. your taking the literal meaning of making EG about the physical creation. im talking about receiving an income. so lets keep to to receiving an income, as that is what is implyed/color]

Gold miners hung up their pickaxes because there was a demand for other services that can't be provided if everybody is mining. But some people had to keep mining, otherwise where does the gold come from that people are paying with? The number of people who continue mining is, ideally, a function of the relative demand for gold versus other goods and services, and that's the way it should be (and indeed is) with Bitcoin.
whether there are 3 miners or 30000000000000000000000 miners in bitcoin, the difficulty adjusts to stay at a constant 3600 coins per day.. so adding more miners into pools wont exceed this hard limit!!! it just means each miner gets a smaller slice of the pie.

lets say 2012 based on minimum wage.. the reward was enough for 300 miners to be given $6 an hour
today with todays price (based on minimum wage) the reward is enough for 15,000 miners to be given $6 an hour. promoting more then 15,000 to work is slave labour, causing miners to then spend more money to get a bigger slice of the pie ( pay rise) which is backfiring by causing the difficulty to jump higher and higher. basically shooting themselves in the foot and demanding extra money from other means (EG merge mining and demanding fee's)

pool mining owners need to realise that if there are (random number dont knitpick) 15 main pools around they need to set a limit of 1000 miners

You do realise that miners are machines, not humans, right? And that it's the humans' choice whether to run the machines and how many machines to run? Evidently not.

miners are humans.. mining equipment are tools/machines.. EG a pickaxe is a tool a pickaxe is not a miner.

im talking about the humans choice and its the humans that should manage pools to ensure fair living costs for miners (

[Snail2]

I guess by 2140 bitcoin will be a topic for museums and history books as "first step to..." or as "experiment".

[BigJohn]

How do you guys know that transaction fees will be enough? Right now it's less than 1% per block. I don't see how the income from fees could increase at least 100-fold. If we increase the base fee per transaction, then Bitcoin becomes even less suitable for microtransactions, and just becomes too expensive in general. If we don't then as block rewards drop with time, you'll see less and less miners, which means the difficulty will drop, which endangers the security of the network.

[DeathAndTaxes]

How do you guys know that transaction fees will be enough? Right now it's less than 1% per block. I don't see how the income from fees could increase at least 100-fold. If we increase the base fee per transaction, then Bitcoin becomes even less suitable for microtransactions, and just becomes too expensive in general. If we don't then as block rewards drop with time, you'll see less and less miners, which means the difficulty will drop, which endangers the security of the network.

If Bitcoin goes up in value (USD:BTC) by 10x and the BTC subsidy gets cut in half you would expect less miners?

Hint:
In 2009 the block subsidy was 50 BTC and the network difficulty was ~1.
In 2014 the block subsidy was 25 BTC and the network difficulty was ~700,000,000.

By your logic shouldn't difficulty be <1 right now?

If you are thinking tx fees need to rise to 50 BTC per block well no, that is never going to happen.  It also doesn't need to happen.

[pening]

dont worry about 2140.  worry about 2017, when the reward halves.  consider the current calculations for ROI on mining tools, i don't see the increases in efficiency of mining making it that far.  the reductions in die size of ASIC's are not going to keep step reducing power, manufacturing and support costs of running miners.  the value of Bitcoin has to rise substantially to cover this shortfall.  maybe it will, but that an increasingly risky proposition without a fundemental upsurge in use of bitcoin for trade, rather than speculation or paying for mining equipment.

[DeathAndTaxes]

dont worry about 2140.  worry about 2017, when the reward halves.  consider the current calculations for ROI on mining tools, i don't see the increases in efficiency of mining making it that far.  the reductions in die size of ASIC's are not going to keep step reducing power, manufacturing and support costs of running miners.  the value of Bitcoin has to rise substantially to cover this shortfall.  maybe it will, but that an increasingly risky proposition without a fundemental upsurge in use of bitcoin for trade, rather than speculation or paying for mining equipment.

Well the good news is that difficulty adjusts.  We saw it lots of times in the GPU era.  If the value of block in USD falls (either because exchange rate radically collapses or due to the subsidy being cut) then the margins for miners will be squeezed.  The most marginal miners (least efficient rigs and higher electrical cost) will be forced into a negative operating margin ($1 in electricity to produce <$1 in BTC) and idle their rigs.  When they do difficulty will fall and the margins will improve for the remaining miners.

[BitDreams]

Look back on a job well done.

[beckspace]

Then the prophecy has been fulfilled:

[BigJohn]

How do you guys know that transaction fees will be enough? Right now it's less than 1% per block. I don't see how the income from fees could increase at least 100-fold. If we increase the base fee per transaction, then Bitcoin becomes even less suitable for microtransactions, and just becomes too expensive in general. If we don't then as block rewards drop with time, you'll see less and less miners, which means the difficulty will drop, which endangers the security of the network.

If Bitcoin goes up in value (USD:BTC) by 10x and the BTC subsidy gets cut in half you would expect less miners?

Hint:
In 2009 the block subsidy was 50 BTC and the network difficulty was ~1.
In 2014 the block subsidy was 25 BTC and the network difficulty was ~700,000,000.

By your logic shouldn't difficulty be <1 right now?

If you are thinking tx fees need to rise to 50 BTC per block well no, that is never going to happen.  It also doesn't need to happen.

Not sure I follow you there. I'm just looking at total transaction fees per block as denominated in BTC. Right now the block reward is significantly higher than that block's total transaction fees. At some point the block reward will be less than its total fees.

But the miners don't pay for their mining costs in BTC. They pay in fiat. So when that day comes, the BTC:Fiat ratio better be high enough to justify mining at all. That's my overall point.

Right now it works because you're seeing tremendous upswings in the BTC:Fiat ratio all over the place. But what the BTC community always says is that at some point there will be stability when more merchants accept BTC. If they're right, and I hope they are, then increasing BTC price would no longer be a reason to mine. So we're back to transaction fees supporting mining on their own. Which I just don't quite understand how that's going to happen. Mining fees will need to total at a level where it's worthwhile to mine. But what is that level? If current activity is any indication, we're not even remotely close to that.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Then less miners will mine, difficulty will drop and the remaining miners will make higher profit or more likely the exchange rate will rise and the network will be larger despite the value per block being lower.  The point I was trying to make is exactly what you described a miner's costs are in USD so the nominal BTC value of a block is partially offset by a rising exchange rate.   The nominal value of BTC block is likely to perpetually decline for decades to come.  Fees will go up but not as much as the subsidy declines so the average BTC per block is probably going to be lower 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now.  However if the exchange rate rises then a smaller block reward can still support a larger network.

As an example today annually miners collect ~$1B in mining revenue  (25.5 BTC * 6 * 24 * 365 * $700)

That is based on 25 BTC subsidy and 0.5 BTC in fees or 25.5 BTC total.  In three years the block subsidy will decline to 12.5 BTC and lets assume that quadruples between now and then.  So we are looking at 12.5 BTC in subsidy + 2.0 BTC in fees or 14.5 BTC total.  So a decline from 25.5 BTC to 14.5 BTC.

Does that mean the network will get smaller?  Probably not if Bitcoin is more popular.   The exchange rate would only need to rise 25.5/14.5 = 75% to $1,230 USD per BTC for miners (collectively) to make the exact same ~$1B in annual revenue they do now.   That is just with a 75% rise in 3 years.   If it is more than 75% then the network will probably be bigger than it is now despite the block reward being lower (much like the network is 700 million times larger now then when the block reward was 50 BTC).

[BigJohn]

Does that mean the network will get smaller?  Probably not if Bitcoin is more popular.   The exchange rate would only need to rise 25.5/14.5 = 75% to $1,230 USD per BTC for miners (collectively) to make the exact same ~$1B in annual revenue they do now.   That is just with a 75% rise in 3 years.   If it is more than 75% then the network will probably be bigger than it is now despite the block reward being lower (much like the network is 700 million times larger now then when the block reward was 50 BTC).

This is a problem in my mind. It means mining stays the same, but the network and its activity grows, which means less security relative to the size of the network. But if the network grows, won't we need all that extra security?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Does that mean the network will get smaller?  Probably not if Bitcoin is more popular.   The exchange rate would only need to rise 25.5/14.5 = 75% to $1,230 USD per BTC for miners (collectively) to make the exact same ~$1B in annual revenue they do now.   That is just with a 75% rise in 3 years.   If it is more than 75% then the network will probably be bigger than it is now despite the block reward being lower (much like the network is 700 million times larger now then when the block reward was 50 BTC).

This is a problem in my mind. It means mining stays the same, but the network and its activity grows, which means less security relative to the size of the network. But if the network grows, won't we need all that extra security?

The reality is the network today is likely more secure than it needs to be.  It pays miners roughly $1B in revenue for a network which has far less than that in current day real economic activity.  This isn't really a problem because the secondary goal for mining is to provide the initial distribution.  I am not saying Bitcoin is hurt by "too much security" but it also wouldn't hurt if that ratio declined some. 

Bitcoin today is kinda like using a $50,000 safe to protect a single 1 oz gold coin.   Now imagine you didn't upgrade the security and added an additional gold coin each year for the next couple years.  Not really problem although the ratio of security to gold has declined. 

Still the 75% was just to highlight how small of a rise in the exchange rate would be needed to keep the hashrate roughly the same in the face of block value declining.   75% over 3 years is 20% annualized.  I am fairly certain if Bitcoin continues to be adopted it is going to grow faster than a 20% annualized rate.  If it doesn't then well having the network hashrate fall by half is probably the least of our worries.  Satoshi was a clever guy, the incentive to "do the right thing" grows with the value of the network.

[Dabs]

TL;DR = buy bitcoins now. mine bitcoins now.

[Transisto]

Does that mean the network will get smaller?  Probably not if Bitcoin is more popular.   The exchange rate would only need to rise 25.5/14.5 = 75% to $1,230 USD per BTC for miners (collectively) to make the exact same ~$1B in annual revenue they do now.   That is just with a 75% rise in 3 years.   If it is more than 75% then the network will probably be bigger than it is now despite the block reward being lower (much like the network is 700 million times larger now then when the block reward was 50 BTC).

This is a problem in my mind. It means mining stays the same, but the network and its activity grows, which means less security relative to the size of the network. But if the network grows, won't we need all that extra security?

The reality is the network today is likely more secure than it needs to be. It pays miners roughly $1B in revenue for a network which has far less than that in current day real economic activity.  This isn't really a problem because the secondary goal for mining is to provide the initial distribution.  I am not saying Bitcoin is hurt by "too much security" but it also wouldn't hurt if that ratio declined some.  

Bitcoin today is kinda like using a $50,000 safe to protect a single 1 oz gold coin.   Now imagine you didn't upgrade the security and added an additional gold coin each year for the next couple years.  Not really problem although the ratio of security to gold has declined.  

Still the 75% was just to highlight how small of a rise in the exchange rate would be needed to keep the hashrate roughly the same in the face of block value declining.   75% over 3 years is 20% annualized.  I am fairly certain if Bitcoin continues to be adopted it is going to grow faster than a 20% annualized rate.  If it doesn't then well having the network hashrate fall by half is probably the least of our worries.  Satoshi was a clever guy, the incentive to "do the right thing" grows with the value of the network.

I don't see the bitcoin network as being secure enough, currently an attack wouldn't target single transactions (double spend). Why are you comparing daily transactions to what miners get paid yearly ?

IMO, An attack right now would target the whole trust in the network and thus usability.

When judging of the security I would compare the cost of an attack to the perceived probable lost incurred by Bitcoin to the traditional banking system.  Something that is hard to number but that is more closely related to market cap.

[Dabs]

Actual attacks on bitcoin is going to be very difficult. The most feasible way is to do a 51% or do some large scale mining.

Theoretical attacks, or attacks on major exchanges or institutions, or merchant payment processors, or any other online service is easier.

You can't really attack bitcoin. You attack what people perceive to be bitcoin, the smarter ones will simply wait it out and continue business as usual.