Ending in 2140?
"It gets increasingly difficult and expensive to mine, and eventually the costs outweigh the reward. At this rate, it is estimated that 81 per cent of Bitcoins have been mined, and the last coins will be mined in approximately 2140"
Excuse my ignorance here, but my understanding is that what the Bitcoin 'mining' is actually doing is validating Bitcoin transactions on the network, and Bitcoins are 'issued' by the network as a reward for validating transactions. So if there is a limit on how many Bitcoins can be mined (and it gets progressively more difficult) does that not mean that it will get progressively more difficult to make any transactions on the network until there are more transactions that need to be processed than coins than can be mined? And once it's impossible to transact in a currency it basically becomes worthless?
What am I missing?