<p>If mining isn't profitable, fewer people will mine. That means the difficulty will drop, increasing the profitability of mining. That means more people will mine. The system is, by design, self-regulating.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-03T19:14:40.860Z
2020-03-03T19:14:40.860Z
David Schwartz
<p>The fact that the reward to mine bitcoin will become less and less interesting over time especially in the long run is one of the major threat for bitcoin in the long run, there will be a point when there is gonna be almost no incentive to mine and so the hashing power might decrease rendering a 51% attack easier.</p>

<p>There is currently not a true solution but luckily bitcoin can be patch and there is lots of ideas on how to fix this threat.</p>

<p>This problem is called "tragedy of the commons" and here is a similar question from 7 years ago with lots of ideas , explanation and useful links: </p>

<p><a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3111/will-bitcoin-suffer-from-a-mining-tragedy-of-the-commons-when-mining-fees-drop-t">Will Bitcoin suffer from a mining Tragedy of the Commons when mining fees drop to zero?</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-05T17:29:52.130Z
2019-10-05T17:29:52.130Z
Saxtheowl
<p>You still have transaction fees.
And if the transaction fees will be to high maybe something like that happens:</p>

<ul>
<li>Hard-Fork</li>
<li>With less incentive to mine, the transaction fees will drop</li>
<li>Switch to PoS that does not cost so much energy</li>
<li>...</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-05T14:13:33.347Z
I am a beginner. Can you explain what is PoS and Hard-Fork.
harsh kumar Chourasia
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-05T19:24:01.097Z
PoS means `Proof of Stake`. It does not cost CPU-Power (or just a little) to mine. This means no energy waste, lower energy costs. So the transaction fees can be very low, and mining still be profitable.
Everything is just some code. And it is not given, that the code will change and just set the block reward to a higher level again. There are hard forks and soft forks. Hard forks can not use mining nodes with old software.

Did u downvote me?!
user674907
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-10-05T14:08:01.780Z
2019-10-05T14:08:01.780Z
user674907
<p>We know that the bitcoin for mining a block is going to converge to approximately zero as the number of bitcoins will be almost constant after a certain amount of time. So, mining will no more profitable in the future and if no one is going to maintain the ledgers then how the bitcoin going to survive?</p>

<mining-theory><mining-reward>
Who will be the future miners?
harsh kumar Chourasia
# Who will be the future miners?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-10-05)

We know that the bitcoin for mining a block is going to converge to approximately zero as the number of bitcoins will be almost constant after a certain amount of time. So, mining will no more profitable in the future and if no one is going to maintain the ledgers then how the bitcoin going to survive?

**Tags:** mining-theory, mining-reward


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## 3 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-03-03. Score: 3

If mining isn't profitable, fewer people will mine. That means the difficulty will drop, increasing the profitability of mining. That means more people will mine. The system is, by design, self-regulating.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2019-10-05. Score: 0

The fact that the reward to mine bitcoin will become less and less interesting over time especially in the long run is one of the major threat for bitcoin in the long run, there will be a point when there is gonna be almost no incentive to mine and so the hashing power might decrease rendering a 51% attack easier.

There is currently not a true solution but luckily bitcoin can be patch and there is lots of ideas on how to fix this threat.

This problem is called "tragedy of the commons" and here is a similar question from 7 years ago with lots of ideas , explanation and useful links:

[Will Bitcoin suffer from a mining Tragedy of the Commons when mining fees drop to zero?](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3111/will-bitcoin-suffer-from-a-mining-tragedy-of-the-commons-when-mining-fees-drop-t)


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### Answer by username_3 on 2019-10-05. Score: -3

You still have transaction fees.
And if the transaction fees will be to high maybe something like that happens:

* Hard-Fork
* With less incentive to mine, the transaction fees will drop
* Switch to PoS that does not cost so much energy
* ...

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I am a beginner. Can you explain what is PoS and Hard-Fork.  
> **username_3**: PoS means `Proof of Stake`. It does not cost CPU-Power (or just a little) to mine. This means no energy waste, lower energy costs. So the transaction fees can be very low, and mining still be profitable. Everything is just some code. And it is not given, that the code will change and just set the block reward to a higher level again. There are hard forks and soft forks. Hard forks can not use mining nodes with old software.  Did u downvote me?!  

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