That's a great question! I used to worry once miners are no longer enticed with newly minted coin their activity would trail off - particularly when transactio

That's a great question! I used to worry once miners are no longer enticed with newly minted coin their activity would trail off - particularly when transaction fees were close to $0. But fees have gone up since then without curtailing use, meanwhile a succession of halvings has significantly reduced the rate of coin issuance. And mining is still going strong. Presently fees make up 13.5% of total block rewards. Here's a graph of how that's varied over time: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-fee_to_reward.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-fee_to_reward.h... It will shift toward 100% as we approach the 21M mark. As long as people still want to transact in bitcoin, I think mining will continue to be viable. Of course there will always be competition from newer, more efficient protocols with lower fees.