Future Outlook After Bitcoin Mining Ends

It is expected that by around the year 2140, all 21 million Bitcoins will have been issued, and no new Bitcoins will be generated in the market. This means that Bitcoin miners will only be able to earn rewards through transaction fees. Some have questioned whether relying solely on transaction fees is sufficient to maintain the security of the Bitcoin network.

Main Points

• After the year 2140, block subsidies will no longer exist. Bitcoin miners are essential for processing transactions and ensuring network security, and at that time, they will only be able to rely on transaction fees paid by users for income.

• The gradual reduction of mining rewards raises questions about the long-term security of Bitcoin, as mining rewards are essentially the "security budget" of the Bitcoin network.

• A reduction in the security budget may increase the risk of the Bitcoin network being subjected to a 51% attack, or lead to a more centralized network.

• Optimists believe that the increase in the value of Bitcoin and the future rise in block demand will make the transaction fee-only model economically viable for Bitcoin miners.

The scarcity of Bitcoin is one of its most famous characteristics, which is also why it is referred to as "digital gold." To ensure scarcity, the rewards paid to Bitcoin miners are gradually reduced every four years through the "Bitcoin halving" mechanism. However, this mechanism also presents a long-term severe challenge.

By around the year 2140, the main incentive for miners in the Bitcoin network—the reward for newly generated Bitcoins (i.e., block subsidy)—will completely disappear. The block subsidy is essentially Bitcoin's security budget, used to pay miners to ensure network security. This raises a critical question:

Is relying solely on the remaining transaction fees sufficient to ensure network security?

Bitcoin Incentive Model Analysis

To understand the challenges of the post-subsidy era, one must first understand the current incentive mechanism that secures the Bitcoin network. Every ten minutes, a miner verifies a new block of transactions and receives a block reward, which consists of two parts:

• Block subsidy: This is the predetermined amount of newly generated Bitcoin. When Bitcoin was first launched, the subsidy for each block was 50 Bitcoins. It halves every four years, an event known as "Bitcoin halving." This mechanism will distribute 21 million Bitcoins over several decades and is currently the main source of income for miners.

• Transaction Fees: This is the fee that users pay during a transaction, aimed at incentivizing miners to add their transactions to the block. It can be seen as an additional "tip" for Bitcoin miners, helping those who want to ensure their transactions are completed smoothly, thereby creating a competitive market environment. Currently, the average transaction fee for Bitcoin is approximately $1.30 per transaction.

Bitcoin Halving: The Decrease in Issuance Rate

Every Bitcoin halving is a periodic efficiency test for the mining industry, as each halving effectively reduces miners' income by half. This ensures that only the most efficient miners can profit, while less efficient miners may be eliminated. However, this can also lead to a temporary decrease in the network's hash power.

The hash rate of the Bitcoin network refers to the total computing power used to secure the network, and when miners stop working, the hash rate decreases. A reduction in network hash rate means that the Bitcoin network is more vulnerable to network attacks such as the 51% attack (where a single entity controls enough hash power to disrupt the blockchain).

Bitcoin block reward in 2025

To further illustrate the importance of block subsidies to miners, below is a breakdown of the rewards obtained for mining a Bitcoin block.

According to the transaction fee data of the blockchain, in July 2025, each new Bitcoin block contains approximately 0.025 coins in transaction fees. As of April 2024, the block subsidy is 3.125 Bitcoins.

In summary, the earnings for Bitcoin miners for mining a block:

• Fixed reward (newly generated Bitcoin): 3.125 Bitcoins
• Additional income (from trading fees): approximately 0.025 Bitcoins

Total earnings per block: approximately 3.15 Bitcoins.

Transaction fees account for only a small portion of the total income of miners, which means that in a market relying solely on transaction fees, miners are almost certainly unable to make a profit.

Discussion on the Feasibility of Bitcoin Economy in the Post-Subsidy Era

The current level of Bitcoin transaction fees is clearly insufficient to ensure network security. However, optimists believe that by 2140, demand will drive transaction fees far above current levels, while pessimists foresee a crisis. The main arguments of various viewpoints will be explored below.

Pessimistic Argument: Reduction of Security Budget

The basis for the pessimistic view is simple: the historical trend of transaction fees has not shown an increase sufficient to offset the decrease in subsidies. Critics worry that each halving will cut the security budget, gradually reducing the security of the network.

Optimistic Viewpoint: Strong Fee Market

Optimists believe that Bitcoin will be supported by its continuously rising asset value and the growing demand for blocks. Firstly, with the help of Bitcoin's deflationary design, the network will develop into an asset class worth trillions of dollars, so even a small percentage of Bitcoin transaction fees in the future will bring considerable income to miners.

Secondly, the demand for blockchain space itself will experience fundamental growth, which may manifest in the form of large institutional settlements, layer two scaling solutions, or some yet-to-be-discovered new innovations. Ultimately, these factors will drive up transaction fees, making them economically viable in the future.

Potential Risks of Reduced Security Budget

The decline in security budgets may lead to a large number of Bitcoin miners shutting down, which would reduce the total hash rate of the Bitcoin network, triggering a series of potential risks and putting pressure on the integrity of the network.

51% attack

The most concerning threat is a 51% attack, where entities controlling more than half of the network's computing power can reverse transactions (double spending) or censor the network. The security budget is a major line of defense; the higher the budget, the more computing power is supported, and the higher the cost of an attack. Nowadays, for rational economic entities, the cost of initiating such an attack is prohibitively high, as it could likely lead to a drastic drop in Bitcoin prices, thereby decreasing the value of the attackers' own hardware. However, for geopolitical reasons, nation-state actors may be willing to incur such losses to disrupt the network. As the security budget decreases, the cost of attacks lowers, increasing the likelihood of this threat in the long run.

Hashrate fluctuations

A more direct risk is the surrender of miners, that is, the decline in revenue due to the Bitcoin halving, forcing a large number of miners to shut down their mining machines, resulting in a sharp decrease in hash rate. Although difficulty adjustments will correct this, the rapid withdrawal of miners may create a fragile window period in the short term.

Bitcoin Innovation as a Solution

The Bitcoin community is actively developing solutions to promote network adoption and mitigate the risks brought about by the gradual reduction of the Bitcoin security budget. Here are some of those solutions.

Layer2 solution

One solution to the limited capacity of the Bitcoin chain is the L2 blockchain. L2 is a sub-blockchain built within the main blockchain, transferring transactions from the main blockchain to these L2s to increase transaction speed and reduce costs.

L2 solutions like the Lightning Network enable Bitcoin to be used for everyday transactions, which has seen a certain level of adoption in Vietnam. The Bitcoin community in Vietnam often collaborates with local merchants, cafes, and markets to promote and support the use of Bitcoin payments powered by the Lightning Network. If L2 solutions succeed, it will drive the Bitcoin network from professional applications to everyday applications, thereby increasing transaction fees on the main Bitcoin blockchain network.

Bitcoin符文

The runes that became popular in 2024 are a token standard that utilizes Bitcoin's UTXO model and the OP_RETURN opcode. Runes enable the creation of meme coins and community tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. At its peak, runes pushed the average transaction fee for Bitcoin to a historic high of $127 per transaction. Although market interest in runes has waned, this innovation demonstrates that new use cases could potentially drive up Bitcoin transaction fees, paving the way for a Bitcoin economy supported solely by fees in the future.

Future User Experience

For ordinary users, interacting with Bitcoin may be a multi-layered experience. Sending transactions directly on the first layer is expected to become expensive and only suitable for large transfers. For everyday transactions, users will almost certainly interact with Bitcoin through L2 solutions like the Lightning Network, which can provide instant and low-cost experiences, or by using wrapped Bitcoin. This shift means that the user experience for small payments will still be feasible, but will be realized on a different technological layer than the main blockchain.

Long-term Outlook for Investors

For investors, the end of block subsidies has triggered a critical conflict between the two core attributes of Bitcoin (scarcity and security). Investors are attracted by Bitcoin's fixed supply, but they now have to face the reality that the security of the network is dynamic and will depend on the future fee market. If the network supporting the scarce asset is perceived to have vulnerabilities, then its long-term value is called into question. Ultimately, the value of Bitcoin stems not only from its technological characteristics but also from the collective confidence of the market in its ability to remain secure.

Conclusion

The day the last new Bitcoin is mined does not mean the end of Bitcoin, but rather the beginning of its ultimate test. The end of block subsidies is the final state anticipated by the protocol, and the ecosystem has over a century to adapt to this challenge. The long-term security of Bitcoin will be determined by the complex interplay of various forces: technological innovations in L2 solutions, the economic evolution of the fee market, and the social consensus surrounding Bitcoin as a global settlement layer.

It is important to note that this article discusses concerns that may exist in the distant future of Bitcoin, and given the long time interval from now until 2140, its content is highly speculative.