What happens when the last Bitcoin is mined?

A Bitcoin token is produced every 10 minutes when a miner adds a new block to the chain. Each time a miner successfully processes a transaction, they are rewarded in BTC. 

Once the last Bitcoin transaction is made, all the miners in the chain will still be a part of the network, but they will no longer receive BTCs as incentives for maintaining the blockchain.

As the price of Bitcoin continues to rise, it encourages a lot of people to become miners. Through the use of high-end devices, miners are able to participate and add more blocks to the chain. However, if this process goes unchecked, the supply can run out immediately. 

18.5 million Bitcoin tokens have already been mined. With roughly 3 million tokens left, it’s easy to imagine that Bitcoin’s mining stage could be coming to an end soon. 

To slow down the production of tokens, Bitcoin halving happens when the 210,000 blocks are added to the blockchain. During this event, the miners’ rewards are halved to ensure that the value of Bitcoin becomes scarce, which in turn pushes up its price in the market.

When the first Bitcoin was mined, miners would receive a reward of 50 BTC. It was cut by 50% in 2012, which decreased their incentives by half. Then in 2016, miners received 12.5 BTC, and then it was again cut in half so it became 6.25 BTC in 2020. When the 740,001st block is added to the chain, the reward will be 3.125 BTC. This halving process will continue every four years until all the tokens are mined. In the Bitcoin timeline, BTC tokens won’t run out for the next hundred years.