Honestly, few people think about what will happen to Bitcoin in the long term. Especially when it comes to miners and their income. Right now, everything seems stable, but if you look at the numbers more carefully, it becomes clear: the Bitcoin system is heading toward a quite interesting turning point.

Just imagine: a world with a limited money supply, where nothing can be printed. Sounds strange? But in Bitcoin, this is not a hypothesis, but a reality. The network is capped at 21 million coins, and we are already close to the peak. Today, about 20 million 32 thousand bitcoins have been mined — almost 95% of the total supply. Less than 1 million remains. And here’s where the most interesting part begins.

The last halving once again confirmed this: the reward dropped to 3.125 BTC per block. Miners are used to living off new coins, but when the last bitcoin is mined, everything will change radically. It is expected to happen around 2140, but the trend is already visible now. By 2039, 99.52% of all bitcoins will be mined — almost all of them.

What’s next? After the last satoshi lands in someone’s wallet, miners will lose their main source of income. No new coins will be coming in. Instead, they will depend solely on transaction fees. It sounds not very optimistic, but not all is so bleak.

When the last bitcoin is mined, fees will already become the main source of profit, and they will likely grow. Currently, the average fee is about $15 per transaction (0.00022 BTC). But it hasn’t always been like this. Back in 2011, people paid 0.01 BTC to send, and many transfers were completely free. By 2017, the average fee rose to a dollar, and now it’s already $15.

The cost of mining one block today varies wildly. In the US, it’s over $20,000, in Britain — nearly $50,000. After the last halving, these costs only increased. But miners are lucky: the price of Bitcoin compensates for the losses. From January 2020 to May 2026, the price increased by about 1100%, and now one bitcoin costs $77,500. In dollar terms, mining remains profitable despite the reduced reward.

The scarcity of bitcoins will only grow. According to analysts, up to 20% of all ever-issued bitcoins have been irreversibly lost — people forgot passwords, died without a will, sent coins to wrong addresses. This means the actual supply is even less than it appears. Demand is growing, supply is shrinking, and the price is going up. Basic economics.

The network is designed to remain secure even amid these changes. The difficulty adjustment algorithm ensures that blocks are generated at a constant rate, regardless of how many miners are in the network. It’s a brilliantly simple solution.

But there is a scalability issue. When the last bitcoin is mined and fees become the main income, small payments might become unprofitable. Fees could eat up the entire payment. That’s why developers rely on second-layer solutions, especially the Lightning Network. It’s like a parallel system: large transactions go on the main blockchain, while daily payments happen in the Lightning network, where everything is fast and cheap. When needed, funds are moved back into the main network.

What will happen next — no one knows. There may be new forks, improvements, side chains. But one thing is clear: as long as the internet works, Bitcoin will operate exactly as Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned. A decentralized, unstoppable network. And when the last bitcoin is mined, it will just be another milestone in the history of the world’s first cryptocurrency, which has already changed people’s ideas about money.