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What happens when all Bitcoins are mined?
Bitcoin is designed so that there are only 21 million bitcoins to be mined. What happens when they are all mined? In particular (1) what will happen to the price of a bitcoin (my naive mind says the price will grow and grow) and (2) what will happen to bitcoin usage? (will people still use them now that the mining rewards are over (since mining is over))?
- lmm 12y agoIt will take a very long time, because the rate slows down exponentially. Basically, each year we mine half the ones that are left. Allegedly, transaction fees will fill the gap; decreasing mining rewards will be balanced by increasing transaction fees in each mined block. You would expect the price to rise. But everyone has that information, so any future expected rise in price is already built into the current price (just like with oil or stocks). Personally I suspect people will stop using Bitcoin as an ever-increasing proportion of the value goes to early-adopter rentiers, and move to systems like Dogecoin with a fairer reward curve. But it's anyone's guess really.