The offer of the first cryptocurrency is limited to 21 million coins. Why, after mining them, the miners will not turn off the equipment and when to expect a super cycle of growth of the main digital asset
At the beginning of October 2021, miners mined almost 90% of the entire Bitcoin emission (18.8 million out of 21 million BTC). The first cryptocurrency has been mined since its inception in 2009. Topplabs.org experts explained when the last bitcoin will be mined and how it could affect the entire industry.
The future of mining
The completion of bitcoin mining will not happen soon, says Michael Jerlis, CEO and founder of EMCD. According to him, the last coins on the bitcoin network will be mined in 2140. The expert explained that mining the first cryptocurrency will not die for many years after all bitcoins are mined, since the complexity of the network will grow in proportion to the number of miners. To do this, the bitcoin blockchain provides a mechanism for recalculating the difficulty, which is activated every two weeks, the expert noted. He also recalled halving, of which there were already three in the history of the first cryptocurrency.
As the network grows and the number of transactions increases, fees for these transactions grow, Jerlis recalled. He explained that the commission for one mined block already ranges from 0.25 to 3 bitcoins (depending on the load on the blockchain).
“After the mining of the last block, miners will receive exactly these commissions as a reward for their work, so mining will not be able to stop being profitable for miners,” the expert explained.
In the future, the size of commissions on the Bitcoin network will grow, Jerlis predicted, if the cryptocurrency is used everywhere for transnational payments, and the block reward gradually disappears.
“The creator of the first cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed exactly such a model for the development of bitcoin,” the expert recalled.
Mikhail Karkhalev, financial analyst at Currency.com crypto exchange, agreed that mining cannot become unprofitable. He suggested that in the future, miners will begin to charge additional fees to speed up transactions, or there will be some way to re-mine already lost bitcoins.
The economic model of bitcoin takes into account the situation when all coins will be mined, explained Roman Nekrasov, co-founder of the ENCRY Foundation. He argues that miners will not work at a loss, since without them the network and transactions are impossible. Nekrasov believes that after all bitcoins are mined, there will be an increase in transaction fees.
“The calculation will be performed by market mechanisms – how much the sender is willing to pay and for how much the miner is ready to include this transaction in the block, between these two indicators,” concluded the co-founder of the ENCRY Foundation.
Supercycle of growth
When the reward to miners for the mined block becomes less than one bitcoin, a super cycle of growth of its price may occur, says Nikita Soshnikov, director of the Alfacash cryptocurrency exchange service. In his opinion, such a decrease in the block reward will provoke a rise in the price of bitcoin to $ 1 million. This may happen as early as the next decade, Soshnikov noted.
“It is unlikely that more than 10 years are left until the coveted $ 1 million mark, so it would be reasonable to invest in the asset now,” the expert added.
According to Nekrasov's forecast, by 2050 the cost of the first cryptocurrency will exceed $ 1 million, since countries will see all the benefits from the introduction of bitcoin into their economies.