It's 2040, the last bitcoin was just mined...

[Spendulus]

What might the miners do at this junction?

Sure, they still get transaction fees. Would those escalate?

Might there be a reason to move to non-ASIC hardware?

Or a reason to change the reward algorithm?

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[OmegaStarScream]

It should be around May 2140 and not 2040. Why there will be a need to do any of these things you mentioned though? I'm pretty sure the transactions fees will be more than sufficient because by no longer having block reward, the supply will be pretty limited and that should give the price a huge boost.

[Spendulus]

It should be around May 2140 and not 2040. Why there will be a need to do any of these things you mentioned though? I'm pretty sure the transactions fees will be more than sufficient because by no longer having block reward, the supply will be pretty limited and that should give the price a huge boost.

Oh, I'm off by 100 years! My bad...should have examined the elliptic curve and the exponential halving before posting.

[NeuroticFish]

Sure, they still get transaction fees. Would those escalate?

Yep, it's 2140 and it's expected that the rise of the price will make the fees cover the mining costs and also give some profit.
I don't expect a change in the algo in the future, it could weaken the coin. But we cannot know what will happen in so much time, the technology will advance a lot...

[Kopyleft]

There would be no way to change the reward algorithm as there would be no more minable bitcoin available to serve as incentive for miners. The bitcoin protocol is built on immutabilty, and this builds trust, any change in the system would not be a welcome development.

Transactions fees would have to be modified to serve as reward enough and still make it profitable to confirm transactions.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

...the supply will be pretty limited and that should give the price a huge boost.

I am wondering what will be the price value? Will there be any fiat left by that time? Interesting future.

[dothebeats]

It comes down to bitcoin having a high price resulting into the tx fees included in a block being a sufficient reward for the miners or a change in a less-aggressive, less power-hungry algorithm. PoW would still be the king for security, but then again you have the escalating problem for energy consumption especially since the difficulty increases over time, so some tweaks on the algorithm would do that could substantially reduce the amount of power needed to mine bitcoins without compromising the 'fairness' and security of the system.

But honestly, the options are too vague at this point, and it's quite hard to think of such problems when there are even bigger problems ahead of us, i.e. if we will still exist by that time.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

It's foolish to even think is today's terms.

I guess you killed all the fun of this topic here 

[coolcoinz]

If we continue along the uptrend line, in 100 years Bitcoin will be worth more than 1 million dollars. If not due to the fact that there's not enough coins for people of a middle size European country to own one, but also because inflation will have made USD worthless by then. Remember that 100 years ago people in the US were earning $10 a week, on the average. Nowadays $10 per hour is a low wage and this isn't going to stop. In 100 years, when Bitcoin mining will be coming to an end, people will have have to think of a way to make transactions confirm and nodes running. Maybe with crowdfunding? Maybe by increasing fees? Whatever happens, it will still be better than paying 1k USD for a pack of cigs.

[PsylockReborn]

What might the miners do at this junction?

Obviously there's nothing more to mine, most of them will put a stop to their mining rig.

Might there be a reason to move to non-ASIC hardware?

You just stated the reason, there's no more coins to be mined so no more profit.

Or a reason to change the reward algorithm?

I doubt that this will happen. During 2140, the transaction itself will be scarce. Fees will skyrocket.

I'm pretty sure by this moment in time there will be new technologies that will arise which will be better than bitcoin. We may not be present during those times but I'm positive that the future generation will come up with a better invention that could replace bitcoin as the number one crypto.

[Asian_Dynasty]

What might the miners do at this junction?

Sure, they still get transaction fees. Would those escalate?

Might there be a reason to move to non-ASIC hardware?

Or a reason to change the reward algorithm?

I think bitcoin will not live so long. It is just a pioneer. Now and in future will be cryptocurrencies which really need in real world and solve huge problems.

[RussaX]

By 2140 Bitcoin might not exist anymore. You can't even imagine how advanced technology will be. Bitcoin is great as it is of now but surely there will be even better technology in upcoming years.

[Peacemaker1994]

Is there a particular year when bitcoin would no longer be mined what if all the bitcoin would be mined all before that stated time. Would there be renewed bitcoin available for mining?

[o_e_l_e_o]

Don't forget the number of coins that will best lost forever in the next 120 years. Estimates are that we have lost 4 million coins so far, or 20% of the maximum supply, in under 10 years. Now obviously people were careless in the early days so the rate of loss will drastically reduce, but we still have to factor in 120 years of hardware failure, forgetting passwords, losing seeds, or simply dying without telling others how to access their coins. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect by 2140 that somewhere in the region of 40-50% of bitcoins may be lost forever, which will obviously have a huge impact on the price, if bitcoin still exists.

[Naficopa]

It is possible that there will be no such problem. Technology is moving forward so fast, that in a few years can be created something like "MegaBitcoin" and all miners will move to the mining a new coin. In time, only a small group of fanatics will deal with the mining of Bitcoin. Problem solved 

[Pab]

Don't forget that technology is booming
It will be technology for more efficient mining
So it will be faster
Will be also more pressure on energy saving
It will be more and more warm
It is problem what need to be solved
As for now i will be happy of btc sidechain launch

[Pab]

It is possible that there will be no such problem. Technology is moving forward so fast, that in a few years can be created something like "MegaBitcoin" and all miners will move to the mining a new coin. In time, only a small group of fanatics will deal with the mining of Bitcoin. Problem solved 

and we will have yet another btc shitcoin that time mega shitcoin

[squatter]

What might the miners do at this junction?

Sure, they still get transaction fees. Would those escalate?

Assuming the block size remains limited, fees should escalate over the same time that the subsidy drops. Hopefully, fees rise to an extent that miners continue to secure the chain without drastic drops in hash rate.

If the economic design looks to be failing, I'm sure we'll see it reflected in the hash rate long before the last coin is mined.

Or a reason to change the reward algorithm?

That's always a possibility, but I'm hoping the fee market created by limited block size will prevent the need for that.

[hatshepsut93]

What might the miners do at this junction?

Sure, they still get transaction fees. Would those escalate?

Might there be a reason to move to non-ASIC hardware?

Or a reason to change the reward algorithm?

Fees rise when there's a big transaction backlog. Since their price is dictated by a market, there's no reason to think that decreasing block rewards will affect them, because it won't change anything with blockspace supply/demand.

There's absolutely no difference what sort of hardware is required, mining is about converting electricity into hashpower.

There's no reason to think about changing the reward algorithm, we haven't yet seen what is going to happen when network rewards will become low. Maybe there's no reason to worry at all because the hashpower will remain sufficient to deter any potential attacks.

[NickkiJonathan]

i think bitcoin will jump at the new year