What will happen after 21 million bitcoin have been mined?

[Issa56]

I've been thinking about something that I believe some people will also be thinking about, which is what will happen after 21 million bitcoins have been mined. Currently, I believe around 18 million bitcoins have already been mined within 10 years, leaving only 3 million bitcoins to be mined. According to projections, the last bitcoin will be mined by 2140, which means we still have 100 years before the last bitcoin is mined.

According to what I think, after the maximum bitcoin of 21 million bitcoins has been mined, miners will continue to be active, but they will no longer be able to mine more bitcoins. Instead, they will make money from transaction fees collected from each transaction.
This is just my opinion; please let me know what you think.

My question is;
- what happens after 21 million bitcoins have been mined?
- What will miners do after the total of 21 million bitcoins have been mined?
- Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?
Pls your suggestion will be highly appropriate and I believe will also help other members.

[DannyHamilton]

My question is;
- what happens after 21 million bitcoins have been mined?

There will never be 21 million bitcoins.  The total will never exceed 20,999,999.9769

And, because some miners have failed to pay themselves the full reward that they were allowed, the total will actually be less than that.

What will happen is that the inflationary subsidy will be cut in half (truncating to the next 0.00000001 BTC) every 210,000 blocks (approximately every 4 years) until it shrinks to zero.  Then there will no longer be a subsidy on the blocks.

- What will miners do after the total of 21 million bitcoins have been mined?

The exact same thing they do today. Solo miners and mining pools will continue to build blocks from transactions. Solo miners and mining pools participants will continue to perform proof of work on those blocks.  Income will continue to be earned from the block reward. (Note that the block reward currently consists of the inflationary subsidy PLUS the sum of all transaction fees of all transactions in the block. Once the subsidy is gone, the reward will just be the fees).

- Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?

No.  The available supply in the market will be REDUCED because some bitcoin holders have lost their private keys (due to death or otherwise).

[hosseinimr93]

- Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?

Why should the total supply increase? Are you saying that we should increase the total supply, because the accessible coins are less than 21 million?

Increasing the 21 million limit is against the consensus rules and it will never happen in bitcoin.
For changing the 21 million limit, we need a hard fork.

[lelahenderson]

Once all the bitcoins have been mined, it’s supply would be tapped out. Then as you said, the miners will get incentivized for processing transactions with fees.

[CryptoGamblingSites]

50 years from now, I would guess someone smarter than us starts figuring out a solution

One thought I had would be to use the current BTC protocol to start a new "sidechain" from 0. So the same security and features that have been built since Satoshi started the project, with a way to swap current bitcoin for the new blockchains bitcoin

Would everyone switch right away or 20-50 years down the road? Who knows

Im guessing someone smarter than us will have a lot better idea than that 20-30 years from now, so don't really worry about it

[mardaed]

This is an interesting topic and it didn't come to my mind what will happened if the 21 million Bitcoin have been mind since I read before that before the last Bitcoin will be mined we are all dead probably but it's nice to know what possibly could happen. I thought there will be a Bitcoin fork and the Bitcoin will extend its supply but seems there's already a fork Bitcoin Cash and other forks already.

[Pmalek]

- what happens after 21 million bitcoins have been mined?

The mining process continues, but miners won't be rewarded with the usual block rewards. They will have to manage with the transaction fees only. 

- What will miners do after the total of 21 million bitcoins have been mined?

Same answer as above.

- Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?

Bitcoin is only Bitcoin if it sticks to the original rules or modified rules that don't negatively affect the 3 pillars of Bitcoin (transparency, decentralization, and immutability). The original rules state a total cap of around 21 million units. If you change this to 25, 50, or an unlimited cap, that's no longer the cryptocurrency people agreed to use.

[Lucius]

I've been thinking about something that I believe some people will also be thinking about, which is what will happen after 21 million bitcoins have been mined.

Tip to you and everyone else, use the forum search option and/or any other search engine, this question has been asked for sure a few hundred times on this forum.

Can miners still mine Bitcoin after the 21 million Bitcoins have been mined?
How will Bitcoin survive after all 21M coins have been mined?
What Happens to Bitcoin After All 21 Million are Mined?
What will be the date of last bitcoin mined?

Currently, I believe around 18 million bitcoins have already been mined within 10 years...

There is no need to guess numbers since we have accurate real-time data 18 834 256.

[Zedpastin]

- what happens after 21 million bitcoins have been mined?

The amount of Bitcoins will be under 21 million coins people round up to 21 million coins in the real world we have much less Bitcoin in circulation because a unknown amount of coins have been lost but we have probably lost millions of coins from negligence.

- What will miners do after the total of 21 million bitcoins have been mined?

There will be less miners mining blocks because the incentive will be smaller atm miners get rewarded from block rewards and transaction fees when the block rewards stop because Bitcoin is not being generated anymore miners will only receive transaction fee. The difficulty will probably drop as the miners drop. We will always have miners though because there will always be a incentive to mine for transaction rewards.

- Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?
Pls your suggestion will be highly appropriate and I believe will also help other members.

Bitcoin total will never be increased I think it is possible with a hard fork but you would have no support for it. Satoshi when he created Bitcoin knew that people would lose the coins and die. He probably worked out that 21 million coins is the best amount for inflation and value but he would have known that a lot of coins will be lost.

50 years from now, I would guess someone smarter than us starts figuring out a solution

One thought I had would be to use the current BTC protocol to start a new "sidechain" from 0. So the same security and features that have been built since Satoshi started the project, with a way to swap current bitcoin for the new blockchains bitcoin

Would everyone switch right away or 20-50 years down the road? Who knows

Im guessing someone smarter than us will have a lot better idea than that 20-30 years from now, so don't really worry about it

Why do you need a solution? What is the problem? Bitcoin was created like this everyone knows that this is going to happen eventually but by the time it happens it will be a new generation of people in Bitcoin because every one of us will be dead. A side chain would not work it would make Bitcoin worthless because you are creating more coins and putting them into circulation it would be no different then fiat then because governments always bringing in more fiat money in circulation. The only time a sidechain or a hard fork should happen is when most Bitcoin has been lost through generations because of negligence and death but that would not happen for a couple of generations I think probably around 2-5 generations after the total supply has been mined.

[Wind_FURY]

I have said this before, I believe when it comes to “life or death” of Bitcoin, the community will come to consensus to a hard fork to save the protocol, and agree to some measures to continue the sustainability of the system.

[btc_angela]

Or just wait around till the next 3-4 block halvings, maybe by that time and bitcoin is around 20 million being mined already and the rest of the 1 million might take the years to be mined.

Also take note of how many bitcoins we have lost in circulation already.

And as per @DannyHamilton have said, it's not a exact 21 million:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply#Projected_Bitcoins_Long_Term

What happens when all the bitcoins are mined?

The bitcoin inflation rate steadily trends downwards. At the time of writing, more than 3 out of every 4 bitcoins that will ever exist have already been mined, and the annual inflation rate is just 4%. The block reward given to miners is made up of newly-created bitcoins plus transaction fees. As inflation goes to zero miners will obtain an income only from transaction fees which will provide an incentive to keep mining to make transactions irreversible.

Due to deep technical reasons, block space is a scarce commodity, getting a transaction mined can be seen as purchasing a portion of it. By analogy, on average every 10 minutes a fixed amount of land is created and no more, people wanting to make transactions bid for parcels of this land. The sale of this land is what supports the miners even in a zero-inflation regime. The price of this land is set by demand for transactions (because the supply is fixed and known) and the mining difficulty readjusts around this to keep the average interval at 10 minutes.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?

You can't know that bitcoins are gone for good unless you've made an OP_RETURN transaction that essentially proves the burning. Even if you could, the system is designed to be deflationary and as long as the community thinks it should be 21M, it will. No one will ever come into an agreement for this, though, because no user is benefited from inflating their currency.

I have said this before, I believe when it comes to “life or death” of Bitcoin, the community will come to consensus to a hard fork to save the protocol, and agree to some measures to continue the sustainability of the system.

What kind of hard fork will that be? You mean if the security drops in the long term, right?

[Wexnident]

- Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?

Not really no, even if the coins were permanently lost, it just means that the available supply would be reduced. It can even reach the point where we would use smaller units of Bitcoin such as satoshi to count the amounts (or maybe even smaller) if need be. There's nothing really wrong with the intended 21 million I must say, even if we lost hundreds of BTC, the network would still run faithfully since the price would naturally adjust depending on the total amount of available supply together with the demand.

[Wind_FURY]

I have said this before, I believe when it comes to “life or death” of Bitcoin, the community will come to consensus to a hard fork to save the protocol, and agree to some measures to continue the sustainability of the system.

What kind of hard fork will that be? You mean if the security drops in the long term, right?

A hard fork that would increase the coin supply. I can’t find the interview, but it was with Peter Todd who said that he believes it to be “OK” if it took Bitcoin to that path. Personally, I don’t know if I’m currently OK, or not OK with it.

[Lucius]

Or just wait around till the next 3-4 block halvings, maybe by that time and bitcoin is around 20 million being mined already and the rest of the 1 million might take the years to be mined.

It is amazing how many members of this forum speculate about things that are exact and easily accessible to everyone. Sometime around 2030, a total of 99.00% of all Bitcoin will be mined, and 1% or 210 000 BTC will remain for the next 100 years. We will reach 20 million BTC around the year 2027, ie just before the end of the reward era 5.


Source

[BlackHatCoiner]

A hard fork that would increase the coin supply.

There's no reason to ever increase the coin supply. Not-even-one. The system works currently with this circulating supply and any change in it would be consensus-ly irrational.

As I said before, there'll never be a user who'll support this because it'll instantly reduce their wealth power. One may fork the code and increase the supply; no one will follow other than those who aren't using Bitcoin and want to have profit.

[qwertyup23]

Once all the bitcoins have been mined, it’s supply would be tapped out. Then as you said, the miners will get incentivized for processing transactions with fees.

This will be the case. Miners will be compensated for confirming transactions in the block. But I do think that the closer we get in reaching the 21 million supply, the lower the denominations would be in mining. Obviously, price of BTC would skyrocket when that happens (Law of demand and supply) but a fork might be needed in order the 21 million supply to somehow be affected.

A hard fork that would increase the coin supply.

There's no reason to ever increase the coin supply. Not-even-one. The system works currently with this circulating supply and any change in it would be consensus-ly irrational.

As I said before, there'll never be a user who'll support this because it'll instantly reduce their wealth power. One may fork the code and increase the supply; no one will follow other than those who aren't using Bitcoin and want to have profit.

While a hard fork might be the answer, I do agree that it is not needed as the system works as it is. The volatility might also change thus disrupting the market price.

[YOSHIE]

My question is;
- what happens after 21 million bitcoins have been mined?
- What will miners do after the total of 21 million bitcoins have been mined?
- Will the total supply be increased because some bitcoin holders have died and others have lost their private keys?

What, maybe that question is very important for you, if yes, you can see below.

What Happens to Bitcoin After All 21 Million Are Mined?

These four sources, surely you will find for answers to your questions.

@YOSHIE, I would expect some shitposter to do what you did, but as a Legendary member aren't you able to read a few posts in this thread but you've literally posted the same links as me a few posts above

No, i didn't check your post, it doesn't matter i'll edit it if it was first by you, only one i left.

Ok, no problem, hopefully what I left there, the OP can find the answer.

[Zedpastin]

A hard fork that would increase the coin supply.

There's no reason to ever increase the coin supply. Not-even-one. The system works currently with this circulating supply and any change in it would be consensus-ly irrational.

The only reason will be when Bitcoin has been completely mined and has been lost through the centuries. We do not have to worry about that but in 5 centuries when people have lost Bitcoin because of death Bitcoin could become instinct. That is the only reason why Bitcoin should be increased but that is assuming if Bitcoin is still here in centuries.

While a hard fork might be the answer, I do agree that it is not needed as the system works as it is. The volatility might also change thus disrupting the market price.

Volatility will go down look at the charts above it will tell you that inflation will go down which will reduce the volatility.

[sheenshane]

I thought there will be a Bitcoin fork and the Bitcoin will extend its supply but seems there's already a fork Bitcoin Cash and other forks already.

If there's a Bitcoin fork, that isn't a Bitcoin protocol at all or even how hard a fork it is.  Bitcoin remained on its protocol and no one can revive the code, it's complicated if we force to implement a hard fork.  Look at the BCH, it seems they had similarities on Bitcoin but it's totally different.  In short, it's very crucial to apply a hard fork on Bitcoin just for the sake to extend the supply, you'll never break the code.

We don't need to worry if the total supply of 21 million has been mined, miners can still earn through the transaction fee that every spend happens and there will be a new block will be discovered.

Anyway, don't think that too much, that's far far away in the future.