What happens when the 21 million cap is reached? I've just recently gotten into bitcoin, but I'm a bit confused about this 21 million bitcoin cap. From what I've read, computers on the bitcoin network validate transactions, which confirms the transfer of bitcoins between addresses. As a reward, these nodes receive bitcoins. My question is once the 21 million bitcoin cap is reached, doesn't that mean there's no incentive to validate transactions anymore? Won't the whole network essentially cease to function? Thanks!
Miners (who will no longer be mining, but will be validating transactions in the blockchain) will earn transaction fees. What those fees amount to or are to be interpreted as are hypothetical at this point, but might be imagined to be a transaction cost that ensures the security of the ledger.