Bitcoin mining has become a very contentious issue, with plenty of different sides to the argument, which is why you might be wondering if it’s possible to stop it once and for all.
But can Bitcoin mining really be stopped?
And what would happen if it was?
Let’s take a closer look at whether or not bitcoin mining can be stopped and what would happen if it was. (article)
What will happen to bitcoin when 21 million bitcoins are mined?
Bitcoin is set at only 21 million coins, meaning that all Bitcoin is represented and urbanized, which can be created above the set limit at 21 million Bitcoin.
Once 21 million bitcoins are mined, all of the lumps will have been distributed to their respective owners in accordance with the original rules of the network.
The system will continue to run as before, but instead of generating new coins, individuals will now collect transaction fees for their work in keeping the network secure.
And since a bitcoin miner’s income will no longer come from newly generated bitcoins, they may choose to lower or cease their mining operation altogether.
For example, consider a miner who mines 1% of total blocks.
If the miner stops mining, then the remaining miners' chances of finding blocks will increase by 1%.
For this reason, some miners may stop mining when 21 million bitcoins are reached in order to not upset the balance between block discovery probability and potential reward.
Others might want to continue on past 21 million so that there is an incentive for others to enter into bitcoin mining.
Why Bitcoins Are Scarcer Than You Think
A lump of Bitcoin is the reward for maintaining the network.
It's not just about being an early adopter or investing in a currency.
The way Bitcoin is designed means that the more people use it to make transactions, the harder they are to produce.
The production of new Bitcoins has been steadily decreasing over time as more of them have been mined-a lump on average every 10 minutes-and will continue to decrease until all 21 million Bitcoins are mined in 2140.
When does Bitcoin mining stop?
Mining continues so long as there are rewards (e.g., Bitcoin) for doing so.
What happens when there are no rewards left to mine for?
That's right; the only thing stopping Bitcoin mining is when all the coins have been discovered or mined out.
One could also argue that bitcoin mining stops when other alternative forms of currencies become more popular than bitcoins.
The latter argument is like saying I'm going to stop collecting stamps because my kids want me to buy them baseball cards.
Bitcoin is still the leading form of cryptocurrency.
Many people who have made money off their bitcoin investments can't imagine ever abandoning it, even if there are other altcoins gaining momentum.
For example, Ethereum shares many features with Bitcoin but allows miners to process more complex contracts and programs through its own digital machine language, which has led some experts to predict that Ethereum may overtake Bitcoin
as the world's most valuable cryptocurrency in 2018 due to this increased complexity, which makes Ethereum more useful than Bitcoin in certain applications such as smart contracts.
Influencing the bitcoin price
If Bitcoin mining were to stop, the price of Bitcoin would plummet.
This is because the scarcity of Bitcoin is based on its inherent supply - at 21 million coins.
When the number of Bitcoin mined reaches this set limit, no more will ever be created.
If there are no miners to create new coins, then this means that demand for Bitcoins will outstrip supply.
In other words, you will want to purchase a Bitcoin but won't be able to do so because all coins have been mined. Therefore, the price of Bitcoin would rise dramatically as there's less supply than demand.
Without miners, users wouldn't be able to spend their Bitcoin or buy anything with them.
They would either have to exchange them back into fiat currency or hold onto them in hopes that they'll regain value when they can finally be exchanged again.
What Happens To Lost Bitcoins
Bitcoin miners have to compete with each other to find a block of transactions.
They take the set of outstanding transactions, put them into a transaction block, and then repeatedly try to hash the resulting block's header until they get a hash that is less than or equal to the target.
Once this happens, they broadcast their newly-created block out onto the Bitcoin network for other miners to work on.
As time goes on, the number of blocks in the chain will grow.
This means that there are more targets to find in order to claim new Bitcoins.
At some point in time, there will be no more Bitcoins left to mine (until such time as another hard fork like Bitcoin Cash makes previously unreachable Bitcoins accessible again).
Why Won’t the Supply Of Bitcoins Ever Increase?
It is a fixed number of bitcoins that can ever exist. The supply is also limited by the fact that it takes an increasingly longer time to mine bitcoins as more coins are mined.
These two factors combined ensure that Bitcoin will never experience inflation.
When the last coin has been mined (meaning no more new coins are being made), there will be 21 million Bitcoins in existence.
That's it. Once all the bitcoins have been mined and distributed, they're done. What happens next is anybody's guess.
At this point in history, nobody knows what will happen with this digital currency. Some people say it'll hit $1 trillion per bitcoin someday, while others say it'll fade away into nothingness.
What we do know for sure is that once all the coins have been created, miners' job of producing new ones becomes impossible.
What Happens If People Stop Mining Bitcoin
People who mine Bitcoin are known as miners. Mining involves using a computer to solve complex math problems while confirming Bitcoin transactions on the blockchain.
Miners are rewarded for their work with new bitcoins. As more miners join the network, the math problems become harder to solve and require more power to validate transactions on the blockchain.
If people stop mining Bitcoin, then transactions can not be validated.
Without validation of transactions, no one can be sure that they have received a payment or sent money successfully. Ultimately, this could lead to Bitcoin failing entirely.
Theoretically speaking, if all the computers running Bitcoin worldwide were shut off at the same time (and this is never going to happen), then there would not be any new blocks added to the blockchain because there would not be anyone mining anymore.
Bitcoin mining complex
Bitcoin mining is a process by which transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, known as the blockchain.
Miners are rewarded with Bitcoins for these services in order to incentivize them to maintain the network.
The more computing power you have, the greater your chance of solving one of these difficult equations.
Once a miner has solved an equation, they will broadcast their block out on the network so that all other miners know that this particular transaction is valid.
If there is another miner who solves an equation at roughly the same time, then both of those blocks get broadcasted onto the network and then subsequently validated or invalidated based off of which block first gets accepted by each node on the system.
If there are two different blocks and they conflict with one another (i.e., say half of nodes accepted one while the other half accepted the other), then whichever block had a longer proof-of-work chain attached to it will be considered valid.