Won't they still mine for the transaction fees?
Bitcoin can process a maximum of roughly 6–7 transactions per second (TPS). With 86,400 seconds in a day, that works out to approximately 518,400–604,800 transactions per day.
The current average Bitcoin transaction fee is about $0.1737. At maximum throughput, that would generate only about $90,046–$105,054 per day in transaction-fee revenue.
Source:
https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_feeBy comparison, the current block subsidy is 3.125 BTC per block. With roughly one block every 10 minutes, or 144 blocks per day, miners receive:
144 × 3.125 BTC = 450 BTC per day
At a BTC price of approximately $78,400, that represents:
450 × $78,400 = $35.28 million per day
So all Bitcoin miners worldwide are currently sharing roughly $35.28 million per day in block-subsidy revenue.
At today's fee levels, transaction fees would generate only about 0.25–0.30% as much revenue as the block subsidy.
If Bitcoin had zero new issuance and transaction fees alone had to replace today's $35.28 million daily block subsidy, fee revenue would need to increase by roughly 336×–392×.
Applied to today's average transaction fee of $0.1737, that implies an average fee of roughly $58–$68 per transaction just to replace the miner revenue currently provided by issuance.
BITCOIN BLOCK REWARDS
3.125000 BTC (2024) 1
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1.562500 BTC (2028) 1/2
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0.781250 BTC (2032) 1/4
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0.390625 BTC (2036) 1/8
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0.195313 BTC (2040) 1/16
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0.097656 BTC (2044) 1/32
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0.048828 BTC (2048) 1/64
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