A highlighting attribute of the BTC network is that it comes up with a limited supply of its native token. The inventor of this entire ecosystem is a Japanese engineer named Satoshi Nakamoto. Rumours are that Satoshi Nakamoto is not the actual name of a bitcoin inventor as he just used this name to hide his identity from the public. Satoshi Nakamoto added limited supply in the bitcoin network to make it similar to haven asset gold. Check more info here in crypto engine.
Yes, there are a few similarities between gold and bitcoin, so bitcoin maximalists refer to bitcoin as BTC gold. Like gold has a limited supply that miners can mine, bitcoin also has a similar concept in terms of supply. However, the supply of bitcoin is public, and everyone is familiar with the supply of BTC that can be issued by miners, which is 21 million.
Miners add freshly created BTC to the existing supply of bitcoin after 10 minutes. The bitcoin network does not define the period, but mining machines approximately take a time of 10 minutes to solve the guesswork. Here is what will happen to bitcoin after miners release the entire supply of bitcoin for issuance.
Key Takeaways!
The total issuance supply of BTC is 21 million.
The issuance number of BTC will not touch the milestone of 21 million, and according to the data code of this cryptocurrency network, one Satoshi will not be mined by the miners.
At the time, bitcoin will halt its limited supply. No other BTC unit will be able to enter the circulation. Block rewards in the form of transaction fees will be the only revenue source of cryptocurrency miners.
Will Bitcoin Entirely Reach Its Upper Limit?
The upper limit of this cryptocurrency network is not intended to reach the milestone of 21 million. As per the data code of this digital currency network, miners will not be able to mine the last Satoshi. Bitcoin is divisible into smaller fragments, and Satoshi is the smallest fragment of bitcoin.
Considering the demand for this cryptocurrency, even Satoshi will have a market value of thousands of dollars in the future. In other words, no bitcoin will not ultimately reach its upper limit. Miners have mined nearly 18.9 million BTCs so far, and miners have only to mine 2.1 million BTCs to reach the upper limit of bitcoin. However, mining 2.1 million BTC will consume a time of more than one century.
According to the time consumed by a cryptocurrency miner to issue new BTCs, the process of minting these 2.1 million BTC will be complete in 2140. Earlier miners were able to issue 50 BTCs in one go, subsequent the first halving, the BTC number that miners can issue reached 25 and currently it is 6.25.
What Will Happen After Bitcoin Reaches The Upper Limit?
After reaching the upper threshold limit, the dynamics of bitcoin mining will change completely. Today miners are enticed by the mining business due to its revenue-generating potential. Bitcoin miners earn the majority of the revenue from BTCs they receive in return for authorizing exchange information on the blockchain.
If bitcoin miners reach the upper limit of this network, then these miners’ primary source of revenue will diminish. Next, you might think about motivating miners to invest their computing power to strengthen the bitcoin network. Without miners authorizing transactions is very challenging. In short, miners are a necessity of this bitcoin network. The bitcoin network will incentivize those with transaction costs to motivate miners to accumulate and invest their mining machine power.
Undeniably, the bitcoin network incentives the miner with transaction cost right now, and it is not comparable with the actual block reward. However, in upcoming years, the transaction cost of transferring BTCs will skyrocket as the value of each bitcoin will skyrocket as well. As a result, mining plants have stated that transaction cost as a block reward cannot compete with the actual block reward, and miners might not be motivated to verify the transactions in return for transaction cost.
The above-listed portion describes everything you should know about the future of bitcoin after mining 21 million.