The Future Of Bitcoin

What is ahead?

As many of you may know, Bitcoin is the king of all cryptocurrencies. It formed the platform of which most alt-coins use to this day. In 2008, 1 BTC was worth $0.08 and now it is worth more than $700. Here is the key question:

What is Bitcoin's current state?

Bitcoin is currently 8 years old, which means there is still room for improvement. Yes, Bitcoin could have problems in the future, such as Centralization issues and running out of supply; the last ever Bitcoin will be mined on the year of 2140. This means that Bitcoin will become a rarity as there is only going to be 21,000,000 available to be mined. In 2015, a staggering 14,000,000 Bitcoins were mined so far, meaning that only 7,000,000 are left in circulation.

 “Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It’ll be distributed to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half every 4 years.
First 4 years: 10,500,000 coins
Next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins
Next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins
Next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins” 

Above is some simple data about how it will be distrubuted across the network.

What does Bitcoin hold for the future?

Bitcoin is looking very positive towards the future. More software will be available for users to get their hands on Bitcoin much easier. This gives the opportunity for Bitcoin to grow it's target audience. Also, many more companies will take Bitcoin as a type of payment method. If this option is available to everyone, it will be able to expand its current market cap of $11,386,316,561. 

With regards to mining, China is responsible for over 50% of Bitcoin's hash rate. This could be treated as a bad thing as it could be classed as making the coin 'centralized'. In the coming months, a company will hopefully change all of that; the company 21.co says that “someone needs to build the full-stack infrastructure for bitcoin, from silicon to software … that someone is us.” In November, they released their first product, the 21 Bitcoin Computer. It was designed to make developers more active towards Bitcoin. As this company grows, they will be able to drastically improve the quality and power of their chips that they use to power these computers. This opens up a new set of doors:

• You could add the chip to a smartphone and mine Bitcoins while your device is in your pocket.
• Spreads the block reward, so that some individuals do not recieve every penny from the block.

This is just some of the things which Bitcoin will achieve in the future. There is plenty more technologies and developments to come in the 7 years which are left.

What will happen after the last Bitcoin is mined?

 Nothing will happen once the last bitcoin  has been mined. Bitcoins are released to miners on a strict schedule to  support the gradual transition of the bitcoin network from incentives  tied to the mining block reward to incentives tied to bitcoin  transaction fees. Initially, miners were only concerned about the block  reward, which started in 2009 at 50 bitcoins per block, went to 25  bitcoins per block at the end of 2012, and will halve again to 12.5  bitcoins per block in July of 2016. These block rewards are critical to  bootstrapping the bitcoin network, but they also introduce monetary  inflation by issuing new bitcoins to the miners. As bitcoin marches on  and becomes adopted worldwide, this inflation will end and transaction  fees will become the dominant incentive. This is one reason why  decentralization is such a critical part of bitcoin, because in a  decentralized system those fees will be kept low in a competitive  market. For a case study in how centralized systems result in high fees,  just look at the fees for wire transfers, remittances, and credit cards today.

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