What will happen when all bitcoins are mined?
James Song
CEO and co-founder of Exsulcoin
Price collapse
When all 21 million bitcoins are mined, there will be a pricing collapse. People might still use bitcoins solely as a store of value, and pay miners directly to validate transactions (which is not far-fetched considering current transaction fees for bitcoin).
Grant Blaisdell
Co-founder and chief marketing officer of Coinfirm
It's too early to worry about it
When all bitcoins are mined nothing will happen. Scarcity will kick in, logically value will rise. Its over 100 years from now. Bitcoin has a long way to go before we worry about that.
Moshe Joshua
CPO of Blackmoon Crypto
Time will tell
No mining equals no bitcoin. The underlying costs of mining is simply unsustainable in the long run, and we can only kick the can down the road and ignore it for so long; or at least hope that coin-related valuations continue its breakneck inflation to keep pace. Thinking too far ahead is a trap. The future somehow always magically provides a solution on the horizon. Just ask George Jetson. Ultimately, the current level of blockchain technology is still in its nascent stage, waiting for a few more levels of abstraction before it can live up to its original promise. In the meantime, we work toward that goal.
Mihail LALA
Founder of **WAWLLET
Nothing
Nothing. When all bitcoins will be mined, they will have a close to zero value and maybe after 50 years a numismatic value.
Alexander Kitchenko
Cryptocurrency investor, member of Bitcoin Foundation
The Bitcoin’s value will increase
What will happen when all bitcoins will be mined? First of all, we have to clearly define what will happen when all 21 million of bitcoins will be on hands. If today miners earn bitcoins first by generating of coins and second by charging users transaction fees, then in the future they will only charge users transaction fees and most likely will have to choose for mining between bitcoin and another cryptocurrency which total limit will be developed with time.
As for bitcoin itself, its value will increase and few factors will be responsible for it. The factor number one – the fall of the value of fiat money will continue as fiat money by its nature is unlimited and not backed by anything apart from the state guarantees. As a result in a competition of currencies on the market the currency with the limited issue such as bitcoin will have an advantage. The factor number two – provided that all features and qualities of bitcoin such as safety storage system, anonymity, decentralization, no need for money transfer mediators such as banks, transaction speed will be maintained and improved, the coin value will grow, taking into the account the high demand for such qualities even when there will be only 21 million coins at the market.
In which year the last bitcoin will be mined, read here.
To imagine this theory even better, we can remember the history of the dollar. There was a time when it was possible to buy a bar of chocolate just for one cent, today for one cent it is not possible to buy anything. Such decrease of the currency value was taking place during the last century due to the unlimited issue of the currency not backed by anything. The state pursues such policy to make the goods more expensive and by this to encourage people to spend more. In case with bitcoin we can imagine the abovementioned dollar situation the other way around – today for 1 satoshi (0,0000001 BTC, minimal unit of bitcoin) you can buy almost nothing even in the world of cryptocurrency where as in 100 years 1 satoshi will allow you to enjoy a reasonably good shopping.
What will be when all bitcoins will be mined? Mining pools will not disappear in spite of the lack of new coins and miners will continue to earn on transaction fees thanks to the growth of the bitcoin purchasing power. And the competition between cryptocurrency prices will define the ability of cryptocurrencies to stay on the market – miners will decide whether to support bitcoin and earn on transactions fees or to switch to another cryptocurrency. What is going to win and which of the currencies will be more popular after all, it is up to the market to decide.
How much bitcoins the world has in total - you can find out here.