9 ms·

It's predicted to happen mid-2016, 70% of all coins to ever be mined have been so. This has been a really interesting tech to watch over the years.

austinjp 11y ago
What happens when we reach 100%?
- gnaritas 11y ago
  Then no new bitcoins will be created and all mining profits will come from fees. That won't happen until 2140.
  - poizan42 11y ago
    There's some very big ifs in that. We really have no idea what sort of breakthroughs might happen the next 125 years
    - gnaritas 11y ago
      That's always true of the future, but the difficulty is continually self adjusting and pluggable and quantum proof algos exist so that'll be about the timeline no matter the power of future CPU's.
- jonknee 11y ago
  We re-learn why a deflationary currency is an awful idea.
  - andys627 11y ago
    ELI5 por favor
    - jonknee 11y ago
      http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/money http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/money Essentially, if you think that a currency will be worth more tomorrow than it is today there is little reason for investment (or even spending!). It quickly becomes a spiral where no one wants to spend. Inflation provides a nice kick in the pants for people to put their money to good use. This isn't a concern yet for Bitcoin because in the scheme of world economies BTC simply doesn't matter (it could go away tomorrow without any noticeable effects), but if in the future it becomes a critical thing it would be a major concern.
      - kristianp 11y ago
        Aren't we learning in today's environment where prices of many things are going down (or with recent Japan as an example), that deflation isn't necessarily bad? In the past it is associated with recessions, but it may be a side effect of the recession or depression, or an over-adjustment by governments trying to reign in inflation. Economists agree: deflation is either good, or bad, or irrelevant: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/03/23/2122452/economists-agree-deflation-is-either-good-or-bad-or-irrelevant/ http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/03/23/2122452/economists-agr...
      - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Deflationary spirals are a hypothetical concern and mostly a fringe neo-Fisherian idea that has recently gained some mainstream nodding, but is otherwise difficult to verify in any way. For one thing it assumes a massive collective irrationality where people's expectations are all rendered berserk and plunged into a negative time preference. It's a very tough gambit to make that people can withdraw their propensity to consume to such a high extent. It's tough to presume that the heterogeneous stock of capital and the time structure of production will just stand still to a deflationary pressure and not readjust to add more stages or adjust the price spreads in between. [1] Of course, BTC being a global currency means it exists in competition and per Gresham's law can always be driven out. Not a catastrophe. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2547921 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2547921
  - baddox 11y ago
    It's not so bad an idea as long as you get to choose which currencies you use.
  - Mandatum 11y ago
    Gold seemed to work for a long time.
    - jonknee 11y ago
      They keep digging more of it up too, it's not like Bitcoin. It's also not a good thing to run an economy on, but that's another concern.
      - csseinpoont 11y ago
        Every fiat currency ever has collapsed, yet gold is still being hoarded in vaults. You have a limited perspective of history.
        lukifer 11y ago
        I'm no fan of fiat, but your statement is tautological at best: the fiat currencies that have collapsed, collapsed. Communications tech and electronic fiat make the future anyone's bet.
        csseinpoont 11y ago
        Tomorrow always different right? You're some saying it'll be different this time, and the only explanation you give is, 'communications' and 'electronic', and yet plenty of fiat currencies have collapses under such systems. Again, every fiat currency that has ever existed has collapsed, sure there are some new ones that haven't yet but to believe they won't is magical thinking. Again gold, after thousands of years, is still being hoarded in vaults by every major and minor world power, you really need to review some history.
        umanwizard 11y ago
        The USD and Euro haven't collapsed, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      Define "work". Gold denominated WW1 debts caused WW2.
  - yc1010 11y ago
    Bitcoin inflation was around 10% recently Hashrate!= inflation btw
    - jonknee 11y ago
      The question was about when new coins stop being mined...
      - yc1010 11y ago
        That's a long way away, by then either bitcoin becomes popular, bitcoin evolves into something else or bitcoin dies. Right now all comments about "inflation" etc are downright silly, usually form people regurgitating sill cons against bitcoin that are not a concern at this time. But lets not have fact get in the way, downvote away.
  - dnautics 11y ago
    So let's see... We have an inflationary currency which is behind an increasing divide between the rich and the poor[0], and keeps people hooked on unsustainable growth to just survive, leading to intensifying environmental destruction and wanton consumption of limited resources... It's not like an inflationary currency is necessarily a good idea, either. [0] before you say that inflation hurts the rich, among other reasons the if inflation didn't hurt the poor, we would never feel the political pressure to increase the minimum wage.
  - CyberDildonics 11y ago
    Like precious metals? Deflationary currencies have been used successfully for over 1000 years. The only people it is bad for are governments. Throughout history there is a patter of promising, spending, and becoming insolvent. The idea that an individual wouldn't choose a deflationary currency is ludicrous. Inflationary currencies are what you want everyone else to use. And by the way, the cat is out of the bag. Cryptocurrencies are here, bitcoin or not. When people can choose to use any currency they want, will they choose one that inflates? I doubt it.
    - sfackler 11y ago
      I am pretty confident that the amount of precious metals in circulation has gone up over the last 1000 years.
    - Jtsummers 11y ago
      AS sfackler points out, mining of precious metals has continued (though, like bitcoin, with diminishing returns over time). They will choose an inflationary currency if they have any debt. Debt with deflation is very bad, and it's incredibly stupid to offer credit with deflation.
    - maaku 11y ago
      Yes, like precious metals. The history of precious metal economies is pretty bad -- decades-long recessions and wars triggered by fluctuations in the commodity markets. Deflationary currency is not a good thing, and bitcoiners will eventually realize this. (Note I work on Bitcoin Core and co-founded Blockstream, a prominant bitcoin company. The value of Bitcoin is not the currency, but rather what censorship-resistant, distributed global consensus gives us.)
      - lmm 11y ago
        > (Note I work on Bitcoin Core and co-founded Blockstream, a prominant bitcoin company. The value of Bitcoin is not the currency, but rather what censorship-resistant, distributed global consensus gives us.) You can get that while being less deflationary though, e.g. Dogecoin.
- srdev 11y ago
  No more bitcoins, miners get funded by fees instead of the newly-minted coins.
- everfree 11y ago
  Then blocks continue to be created, but no more coins are mined (in practice, we will be mining tiny little fractions of a coin for a very long time until it drops off to true zero).
  - rinze 11y ago
    If no more coins are mined (or the mining rate drops to almost negligible levels), is there still any incentive for people to keep the blockchain alive by computing power? Aside from keeping the whole system alive, I mean.
    - presty 11y ago
      yes, transaction fees
    - rlpb 11y ago
      When you request a transaction you also offer a fee. You get to set the fee. If miners don't like it they don't have to include your transaction, and if that happens your transaction will not get confirmed. After no more coins are mined, miners will be relying entirely on transaction fees. At that point, competition will show us the real cost (and electricity used) for transactions. Right now transaction fees are low(er) because miners can offset their costs against the coins that they mine as well.
- ori_b 11y ago
  Transaction fees.

austinjp 11y ago

What happens when we reach 100%?

gnaritas 11y ago
Then no new bitcoins will be created and all mining profits will come from fees. That won't happen until 2140.
- poizan42 11y ago
  There's some very big ifs in that. We really have no idea what sort of breakthroughs might happen the next 125 years
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    That's always true of the future, but the difficulty is continually self adjusting and pluggable and quantum proof algos exist so that'll be about the timeline no matter the power of future CPU's.
jonknee 11y ago
We re-learn why a deflationary currency is an awful idea.
- andys627 11y ago
  ELI5 por favor
  - jonknee 11y ago
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/money http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/money Essentially, if you think that a currency will be worth more tomorrow than it is today there is little reason for investment (or even spending!). It quickly becomes a spiral where no one wants to spend. Inflation provides a nice kick in the pants for people to put their money to good use. This isn't a concern yet for Bitcoin because in the scheme of world economies BTC simply doesn't matter (it could go away tomorrow without any noticeable effects), but if in the future it becomes a critical thing it would be a major concern.
    - kristianp 11y ago
      Aren't we learning in today's environment where prices of many things are going down (or with recent Japan as an example), that deflation isn't necessarily bad? In the past it is associated with recessions, but it may be a side effect of the recession or depression, or an over-adjustment by governments trying to reign in inflation. Economists agree: deflation is either good, or bad, or irrelevant: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/03/23/2122452/economists-agree-deflation-is-either-good-or-bad-or-irrelevant/ http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/03/23/2122452/economists-agr...
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Deflationary spirals are a hypothetical concern and mostly a fringe neo-Fisherian idea that has recently gained some mainstream nodding, but is otherwise difficult to verify in any way. For one thing it assumes a massive collective irrationality where people's expectations are all rendered berserk and plunged into a negative time preference. It's a very tough gambit to make that people can withdraw their propensity to consume to such a high extent. It's tough to presume that the heterogeneous stock of capital and the time structure of production will just stand still to a deflationary pressure and not readjust to add more stages or adjust the price spreads in between. [1] Of course, BTC being a global currency means it exists in competition and per Gresham's law can always be driven out. Not a catastrophe. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2547921 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2547921
- baddox 11y ago
  It's not so bad an idea as long as you get to choose which currencies you use.
- Mandatum 11y ago
  Gold seemed to work for a long time.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    They keep digging more of it up too, it's not like Bitcoin. It's also not a good thing to run an economy on, but that's another concern.
    - csseinpoont 11y ago
      Every fiat currency ever has collapsed, yet gold is still being hoarded in vaults. You have a limited perspective of history.
      - lukifer 11y ago
        I'm no fan of fiat, but your statement is tautological at best: the fiat currencies that have collapsed, collapsed. Communications tech and electronic fiat make the future anyone's bet.
        csseinpoont 11y ago
        Tomorrow always different right? You're some saying it'll be different this time, and the only explanation you give is, 'communications' and 'electronic', and yet plenty of fiat currencies have collapses under such systems. Again, every fiat currency that has ever existed has collapsed, sure there are some new ones that haven't yet but to believe they won't is magical thinking. Again gold, after thousands of years, is still being hoarded in vaults by every major and minor world power, you really need to review some history.
      - umanwizard 11y ago
        The USD and Euro haven't collapsed, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    Define "work". Gold denominated WW1 debts caused WW2.
- yc1010 11y ago
  Bitcoin inflation was around 10% recently Hashrate!= inflation btw
  - jonknee 11y ago
    The question was about when new coins stop being mined...
    - yc1010 11y ago
      That's a long way away, by then either bitcoin becomes popular, bitcoin evolves into something else or bitcoin dies. Right now all comments about "inflation" etc are downright silly, usually form people regurgitating sill cons against bitcoin that are not a concern at this time. But lets not have fact get in the way, downvote away.
- dnautics 11y ago
  So let's see... We have an inflationary currency which is behind an increasing divide between the rich and the poor[0], and keeps people hooked on unsustainable growth to just survive, leading to intensifying environmental destruction and wanton consumption of limited resources... It's not like an inflationary currency is necessarily a good idea, either. [0] before you say that inflation hurts the rich, among other reasons the if inflation didn't hurt the poor, we would never feel the political pressure to increase the minimum wage.
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  Like precious metals? Deflationary currencies have been used successfully for over 1000 years. The only people it is bad for are governments. Throughout history there is a patter of promising, spending, and becoming insolvent. The idea that an individual wouldn't choose a deflationary currency is ludicrous. Inflationary currencies are what you want everyone else to use. And by the way, the cat is out of the bag. Cryptocurrencies are here, bitcoin or not. When people can choose to use any currency they want, will they choose one that inflates? I doubt it.
  - sfackler 11y ago
    I am pretty confident that the amount of precious metals in circulation has gone up over the last 1000 years.
  - Jtsummers 11y ago
    AS sfackler points out, mining of precious metals has continued (though, like bitcoin, with diminishing returns over time). They will choose an inflationary currency if they have any debt. Debt with deflation is very bad, and it's incredibly stupid to offer credit with deflation.
  - maaku 11y ago
    Yes, like precious metals. The history of precious metal economies is pretty bad -- decades-long recessions and wars triggered by fluctuations in the commodity markets. Deflationary currency is not a good thing, and bitcoiners will eventually realize this. (Note I work on Bitcoin Core and co-founded Blockstream, a prominant bitcoin company. The value of Bitcoin is not the currency, but rather what censorship-resistant, distributed global consensus gives us.)
    - lmm 11y ago
      > (Note I work on Bitcoin Core and co-founded Blockstream, a prominant bitcoin company. The value of Bitcoin is not the currency, but rather what censorship-resistant, distributed global consensus gives us.) You can get that while being less deflationary though, e.g. Dogecoin.
srdev 11y ago
No more bitcoins, miners get funded by fees instead of the newly-minted coins.
everfree 11y ago
Then blocks continue to be created, but no more coins are mined (in practice, we will be mining tiny little fractions of a coin for a very long time until it drops off to true zero).
- rinze 11y ago
  If no more coins are mined (or the mining rate drops to almost negligible levels), is there still any incentive for people to keep the blockchain alive by computing power? Aside from keeping the whole system alive, I mean.
  - presty 11y ago
    yes, transaction fees
  - rlpb 11y ago
    When you request a transaction you also offer a fee. You get to set the fee. If miners don't like it they don't have to include your transaction, and if that happens your transaction will not get confirmed. After no more coins are mined, miners will be relying entirely on transaction fees. At that point, competition will show us the real cost (and electricity used) for transactions. Right now transaction fees are low(er) because miners can offset their costs against the coins that they mine as well.
ori_b 11y ago
Transaction fees.