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Author Topic: What Happens When Bitcoin Is Fully Mined?  (Read 1666 times)
TheAccountant (OP)
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June 03, 2014, 05:04:12 PM
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Since the block chain is maintained through the mining activity, how will be block chain be maintained after the mining is done?  I know that is a long time off, but eventually we will see the end of mining.  Will the wallet, exchanges and other services be able to carry the full structure of it?
DannyHamilton
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June 03, 2014, 05:12:04 PM
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Since the block chain is maintained through the mining activity, how will be block chain be maintained after the mining is done?  I know that is a long time off, but eventually we will see the end of mining.  Will the wallet, exchanges and other services be able to carry the full structure of it?

In the year 2140?  After we are all dead?

Mining will continue, but instead of miners receiving the bulk of their income from the block subsidy (essentially paying them with inflation), they will receive their income from transaction fees.
Tron
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June 03, 2014, 05:13:06 PM
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Great question.

Every transaction has a small transaction fee.  Those fees add up and will be the incentive for miners to continue to secure the network.

Baitty
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June 03, 2014, 05:21:29 PM
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Who ever ownes Bitcoin at that time will be fucking MINTED.

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Dr. Pepper
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June 03, 2014, 05:25:14 PM
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As Danny said fees, but we'll all be dead anyway so it doesnt matter.

Jaaawsh
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June 03, 2014, 05:35:11 PM
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I wondered this too, a lot actually. Like how are transactions supposed to confirm? Will people mine just for the sake of confirming transactions, not with the chance of receiving any block reward?

Dr. Pepper
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June 03, 2014, 05:39:40 PM
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I wondered this too, a lot actually. Like how are transactions supposed to confirm? Will people mine just for the sake of confirming transactions, not with the chance of receiving any block reward?

Read above. Miners will just get transaction fees.

Baitty
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June 03, 2014, 05:41:57 PM
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I wondered this too, a lot actually. Like how are transactions supposed to confirm? Will people mine just for the sake of confirming transactions, not with the chance of receiving any block reward?

People will still mine just for the transaction fees. it would be the best time to mine but would require a awesome piece of hardware.

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xdigital
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June 03, 2014, 05:42:18 PM
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This is the most frequently asked question
MykelSilver
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June 03, 2014, 05:52:13 PM
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See what happened to 42coin: http://42coin.org/
42 coins max...
look what happened to price.... on cryptsy.com you can see its chart.
Dr. Pepper
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June 03, 2014, 05:53:37 PM
 #11

I do wonder if the transaction fees will be worth it to the miners or not too expensive for regular users though.

DannyHamilton
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June 03, 2014, 06:01:41 PM
 #12

I do wonder if the transaction fees will be worth it to the miners or not too expensive for regular users though.

That will depend on factors that are difficult to predict today.

How popular will bitcoin become by then (How many transactions per day will be sent)?
Will the protocol rules for maximum block size be modified?  If so, how large will the maximum allowable blocksize be?
What will the electricity to bitcoin exchange rate be?
How high (or low) will the difficulty be?
How efficient will mining equipment be 125 years from now (hashes per kilowatt-hour)?
Dr. Pepper
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June 03, 2014, 06:04:35 PM
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Thats a lot of varying factors to speculate on  Cheesy. Shame we wont be around to see how it all pans out.

DannyHamilton
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June 03, 2014, 06:13:50 PM
 #14

Thats a lot of varying factors to speculate on  Cheesy. Shame we wont be around to see how it all pans out.

Fortunately the process is self regulating.

If there isn't enough profit for miners, then they will stop mining (either due to intelligent financial decision making, or because they can't afford to pay their electric bill any longer).  As there are less miners in the system, there are less miners to have to split the block reward (transaction fees) with in the pool.  This increases the total bitcoins earned by the remaining miners (who have access to efficient enough equipment, or cheap enough electricity to maintain profitability).

Where it could potentially run into a problem if the transaction fees per kilobyte are too small and the maximum blocksize is too small, is that there may not be enough miners remaining in the system to offer adequate protection from a 51% attack.

On the other hand, if bitcoin has extremely wide acceptance and usage, then very large businesses may find that it makes financial sense to contribute a small percentage of their revenue to mining at a slight loss to protect the payment system that they've adopted.
Dr. Pepper
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June 03, 2014, 06:16:08 PM
 #15

Would a 51% attack be catastrophic? What could they do if the gained that power?

DannyHamilton
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June 03, 2014, 06:20:51 PM
 #16

Would a 51% attack be catastrophic? What could they do if the gained that power?

They could reverse any transactions that they make (even after hundreds of confirmations), and any subsequent transactions that used any of those bitcoins they had sent.

They could pick and choose which transactions get confirmed, and which don't.
Dr. Pepper
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June 03, 2014, 06:30:47 PM
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Wow i didnt know that. Is there much likelyhood this could actually happen?

acs267
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June 03, 2014, 06:33:50 PM
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Bitcoin would probably be fully mined a century and decades from now. I'm 100% the blocks halve. Really no use in worrying about it, since we all might be dead, and the miners share might be 1BTC.
DannyHamilton
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June 03, 2014, 06:42:21 PM
 #19

Wow i didnt know that. Is there much likelyhood this could actually happen?

The more miners, and the more pools, we have participating, the more expensive and difficult it is for an attacker to accumulate more hash power than the entire combined rest of the network.
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June 03, 2014, 06:49:22 PM
 #20

Ah ok thanks for your help and answers  Smiley.

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