Why Mine Bitcoin?

In addition to lining the pockets of miners and supporting the Bitcoin ecosystem, mining serves another vital purpose: It is the only way to release new cryptocurrency into circulation.  Miners are basically "minting" currency. For example, as of March 2022, there were just under 19 million bitcoins in circulation, out of a total of 21 million.  Aside from the coins minted via the genesis block (the very first block, which founder Satoshi Nakamoto created), every single one of those bitcoins came into being because of miners. In the absence of miners, Bitcoin as a network would still exist and be usable, but there would never be any additional bitcoin. However, because the rate of bitcoin "mined" is reduced over time, the final bitcoin won't be circulated until around the year 2140. This does not mean that transactions will cease to be verified. Miners will continue to verify transactions and will be paid fees for doing so in order to keep the integrity of Bitcoin's network.