All the Bitcoin has been mined already, miners only handle transactions now. The only way to invest in Bitcoin is by actually buying it.
Incorrect. It should all be mined out by 2042 or so. Thing about mining is that BTC is proof of work which means it requires an ever-increasing pool of computation and energy. Imagine what happens to the chip makers in 2036 or who when everyone figures out that their exponentially-growing customer is going to die. When the last blocks are mined though BTC will be a fixed number.
Imagine what happens to the chip makers in 2036 or who when everyone figures out that their exponentially-growing customer is going to die
Mining will continue since it's needed to hash the transactions, and they'll get paid on fees. Which will likely be big.
Question is if many will even be transacting on the first layer at that point anymore... Most will just be holding and leveraging it.
No.
Miners collect transaction fees. It's still profitable to mine and will remain so or Bitcoin is dead. You need to compete on tech and electricity prices though. Other coins are still profitable to mine on a CPU and at higher KWh prices, since where KWh is really cheap, ASICS will be mining Bitcoin. In the future I'd expect Bitcoin to have a normalizing effect on $/KWh and therefore tech will be deciding. If you want to mine on a home CPU, you can mine e.g. Monero and still be profitable.
That's what I was implying when I said they only handle transactions now. I guess if I have to explain that all the Bitcoin has been mined I'd have to specify miners don't handle transactions for free.
All Bitcoin hasn't been mined.
(post is archived)