What might happen when Bitcoin reaches its 21million coins limit?

[Cryptomultiplier]

I have thought of scenarios bothering on the kind of policy or how its operation would begin to function once it reaches the said limit.

An interesting bitcoin fact is that the protocol for the bitcoin network was designed with a limit of 21 million coins in mind. As a result, cryptocurrency miners will eventually be unable to generate any new bitcoins.

Currently, there are 19.15 million bitcoins in circulation. This leaves a few million bitcoin to be mined, which is one of the reasons mining is still a popular activity.

Read more at:
https://editor.guardian.ng/technology/10-facts-about-cryptocurrency-you-should-know/

 With this one known fact about Bitcoin, my question is what happens after the limit has been reached?

[mendace]

After the 21 million Bitcoin limit is reached, Bitcoin miners will no longer be able to receive Bitcoin rewards for mining new transaction blocks.
The value of Bitcoin could increase, as the demand for Bitcoin could increase due to a scarcity of new Bitcoins available.  There may also be an increase in transaction fees, as miners will need to be incentivized to continue confirming transactions on the network.

[bitzizzix]

When bitcoin hits the 21 coin limit, maybe the motivation to mine depends solely on transaction fees. And transaction fees are still there, but at that time they will become very important because they are the only source of income for miners and this fact was predetermined in Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper.
and once all the bitcoins are available in the market and people start using them to buy or pay, the number of transactions will be very high and mining will be required to do that. And miners will earn transaction fees for making that happen.
and if I'm not mistaken the last bitcoin is slated to be mined in 2140, and maybe all of us dead who won't know what happens next and for now only know the information that already exists which doesn't necessarily get there, and surely the price of bitcoin will increase substantially and transaction fees will be high enough to offset the fact that there are no more block rewards.

[Smartvirus]

It's a hard thing to imagine for sure, almost like the bitcoin charts but I think, we would have more or less of a stable market, reduced mining services with no block reward to motivate them but, the fees would be all there is and by the dynamics we already have with the volume and fee, it just might be enough to stimulate the miners out there to keep up the job of fixing our transaction in blocks.

I would have expected the fees to be dropped to a minimum to ensure quick transacting and confirmations while, the bulk of the fees is gotten by the number or volume of transactions that could be confirmed in a period but, the future isn't here yet and it just might be better when it comes.

[The Cryptovator]

You might find more ideas for this thread if you spend a little more time on the forum. Simply click the search button and visit Google. However it's possible that we won't be alive when Bitcoin reaches 21 million and is fully mined. Who would have known it would exist before then? We are unable to make accurate predictions, not even knowing if we will survive. But if Bitcoin is still around by then, I have no doubt that its value will skyrocket. Miners will always support Bitcoin since they will continue to profit from transaction fees. When the number of Bitcoins reaches 21 million, the price will be very high.

[Mate2237]

I don't know how you think about it, I don't think the 21 million bitcoins will be reach because the Mining, buying and selling are all circulating around the the nods (blockchain) in the ecosystem, so when you buy Miners do their job, when you sell the same thing happened therefore bitcoin does not stable in one direction to reach the end, it always circulating around.
In other words, it is not possible to reach or mine the 21 million bitcoins.

[CoinEraser]

I don't know how you think about it, I don't think the 21 million bitcoins will be reach because the Mining, buying and selling are all circulating around the the nods (blockchain) in the ecosystem, so when you buy Miners do their job, when you sell the same thing happened therefore bitcoin does not stable in one direction to reach the end, it always circulating around.
In other words, it is not possible to reach or mine the 21 million bitcoins.

I don't know if I understand you correctly, but the 21 million bitcoins can be reached. There is nothing to be said against it and it is only a matter of time. Current projections say it will be in 2140 and all bitcoins have been mined. Sure, by then more bitcoins will be lost and there will probably never be 21 million bitcoins in circulation, but they were mined nonetheless.

But what happens next is difficult to predict. Perhaps the bitcoin price will then become more stable, if it still exists at all. I don't think any of us here will experience that anyway.  

[White pawn]

What happens when bitcoin mining reaches the full 21 million. Well, I think it’s pretty obvious. Bitcoin would get insanely valuable and the price would reach the high heavens. It may very well be a long time from today but when that time comes, and it will, the world would have most likely adopted bitcoin.
The price of bitcoin then would either become stable or go upwards. I thing I know; when that time comes, it would be a highly sought after commodity, and the increase in demand would only result in the increase in prices.

[lassdas]

Why do you guys think that, once all Bitcoins are mined, the price will become more stable?

It's supply and demand that set the price.
On the supply-side it doesn't really matter much, if there's around 19mill, or 21mill in circulation, 'cuz there's only a few mill actually available on the markets,
the demand doesn't care at all if it's fulfilled by old, or newly generated coins.

So, what is it that makes the price more stable?

[BitcoinPanther]

 With this one known fact about Bitcoin, my question is what happens after the limit has been reached?

When all coins are mine, the block reward become zero but the tax included on that block will be the reward of the miner.  It means, the mining activity will continue since there are still transaction fee to be mined.  Satoshi created this kind of system to limit the inflation of Bitcoin and at the same time encourage the use of Bitcoin in order for the network to continue.

So I think if the Bitcoin adoption (Bitcoin usage) is very successful, miners will have the motivation to keep on mining because of the huge transaction fees to be mine.

[CoinEraser]

So, what is it that makes the price more stable?

From that point of view you are right. Of course, the price is determined by supply and demand. But by 2140, many coins will surely have been lost and large amounts of bitcoins will be held by few whales. These can reduce the supply, since no new bitcoins can come onto the market through miners. As a result, the price could be pushed up and also quite stable. But maybe that's just a wrong mind game on my part. Unfortunately, I won't live to see that point in time anyway. 

[thecodebear]

It's more of a symbolic moment when the last satoshi is mined rather than some big question as to what will happen. Because the mining reward will have been barely anything for decades leading up to the last Satoshi that for a long long time before that moment the vast majority of the mining rewards will be through transaction fees.


Now as to what will happen after that moment...nothing. Bitcoin will just keep working as it always has been for already around 130 years at that point.

[Silberman]

I have thought of scenarios bothering on the kind of policy or how its operation would begin to function once it reaches the said limit.

An interesting bitcoin fact is that the protocol for the bitcoin network was designed with a limit of 21 million coins in mind. As a result, cryptocurrency miners will eventually be unable to generate any new bitcoins.

Currently, there are 19.15 million bitcoins in circulation. This leaves a few million bitcoin to be mined, which is one of the reasons mining is still a popular activity.

Read more at:
https://editor.guardian.ng/technology/10-facts-about-cryptocurrency-you-should-know/

 With this one known fact about Bitcoin, my question is what happens after the limit has been reached?

Nothing of note will happen, the halving guarantees that way before all the coins are mined the block reward will become too small for miners to rely solely on it, so at that time they will depend on the fees paid for each transaction included on the blocks they mine, the miners that fail to adapt will go out of business while those that remain will become more efficient, so nothing will really change if you think about this.

[Nwada001]

But if Bitcoin is still around by then, I have no doubt that its value will skyrocket. Miners will always support Bitcoin since they will continue to profit from transaction fees. When the number of Bitcoins reaches 21 million, the price will be very high.

After the 21,000,000 BTC has been reached, where will the miners' charge be deducted from? And how will that actually be of advantage to miners? Pardon my silly questions. I know little to nothing about how mining and its charges work.

[famososMuertos]

If I'm not mistaken, I hadn't seen the season of threads with this question, on this board, that is, there are consistent questions that are repeated year after year, in short, one should ask an introspective question with reference to basic bitcoin situations, on the question of "no one will have asked this before".

 In my case, after going to Read about the subject, I can only say, since there is past intervention from users who answered your concern, it is better to go for shorter periods if you are only interested in "what could happen", then each 4 years is fine.  

[Ndabagi01]

With this one known fact about Bitcoin, my question is what happens after the limit has been reached?

This is an intriguing question that will cause one to assume or imagine it by then. However, the fact remains that no more bitcoin will be mined. The miners' reward for successfully mining a block into the blockchain will end. Bitcoin's price will almost certainly be much higher than it is now, and it will almost certainly be stable by then, with widespread adoption. Although these are all fictitious facts about it, few or none of us will be alive to witness it, but one of these events is very likely to occur.

But if Bitcoin is still around by then, I have no doubt that its value will skyrocket. Miners will always support Bitcoin since they will continue to profit from transaction fees. When the number of Bitcoins reaches 21 million, the price will be very high.

After the 21,000,000 BTC has been reached, where will the miners' charge be deducted from? And how will that actually be of advantage to miners? Pardon my silly questions. I know little to nothing about how mining and its charges work.

After a block is mined into the blockchain for every successful transaction; for a normal wallet the miner earns the reward for it. However, if it is an exchange or custodian wallet service, the higher portion of the fees goes to the exchange and the lower portion to the miner’s as it’s shown on the blockchain explorer.

[franky1]

first of all.. lets just math out WHEN this will happen
6.25btc curretly and halving every ~4 years results in a reward stoppage in the year 2140

thats <120 years from now,.

but now lets pretend its 140 years in the future
knowing that just 20 years ago people thought 4gb hard drives were the limit. and now thing 20TB is the limit

data storage of 140 will be an far greater number by many 1000x factors
where by at that time its not going to still be only 2000 transactors pay huge fee's per tx it will be a magnitude high amount of payments per block paying a small fee. which all total up per block to be an amount healthy enough to cover good security level of hash difficulty for a block

yes there are some people that oppose having more transactions per block. but they are stuck in caveman mindsets that data is limited and will continue to be limited in future years.
much like how kodak said that digital photos wont work due to limitations of flash memeory/floppy disk spae in the 1990's
you know the 1mb limit of portable data back then means that photos of 1mb wont be useful if you can only transfer one at a time
that myth got busted as soon as 1gb portable memory was available and then several gigabyte then terrabyte. all within 2 decades

so imagine in 2140 there would be several magnitudes more transactions per block thus not needing each user to "pay more" but allowing more people to "pay the same" which totals combined gives more to mining pools

and no it does not require transaction counts to leap to 1000x today. but also we should not be delaying transaction count increases on-chain to be held back for decades either
it can SCALE (progressive) increase as time passes.

the strangeness of the debate about transactions per block scaling. the opposers of increased tx count are weirdly adoring and promoting that the current 4mb space should be used for stupid meme images and not transactions.
so its obvious they dont care about bitcoin being a payment network with natural growth scaling of transactions. they just want bitcoin to fail so they can promote whatever other scheme/network they prefer people to use as a payment network. they simply dont want to see bitcoin as a payment network of most users

[dansus021]

All people above me already said what will happen when bitcoin reaches its limit but i want to add more when its reach limit bitcoin circulating supply will top and maybe the price will crazy although its not gonna 21 million since there is address or forget private key maybe around top 20 million that in circulating. the miner depends on transaction fee meaning the big mining farm maybe close their rig and run small farm and the block difficulty will fall down although

The year 2140 most of us will probably be dead already unless you have a potion to keep your life immortal and see bitcoin on top.

[MusaMohamed]

How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?

After 21M total supply is reached, miners will earn their income from transaction fees.

In technical, 21M total supply can be changed but who will support that proposal. Increasing total supply of Bitcoin is harmful and it won't bring benefit to anyone. It's harmful because people have solid reasons to think that if total supply can be changed one time from 21M to assumed 42M, it will possibly be changed again in future to like 84M or 128M.

Side effect is people will lose their belief in Bitcoin and its protocol and price will not have reasons to grow more.

[yhiaali3]

In that distant time there will be many great changes that have taken place, some of which we can imagine and others we know nothing about.

For example, one scenario is that the price of bitcoin will reach a million dollars at that distant time in the future, and therefore the small fees that miners receive in satoshi will have an attractive value to continue their work.

Another scenario is that whales that own thousands of bitcoins will play an important role in maintaining the stability and continuity of the network by covering miners' fees, because if the bitcoin network collapses, whales will lose billions of dollars.