user481: According to Wikipedia, here's a projection of expected future Bitcoin supply:

Is there any effect to the dynamics of the system beyond the valuation of Bitcoins?
For example, is mining required to produce computations to support the system, and if so, how would the system manage a massive decline in mining with a surge in transactions?

user27346: I have read a lot about bitcoin,and It seems by design, That as popularity and usefulness grows that the miners will be paid by transactions fees equal x number of bits by continued mining for the last infinite bitcoin which will never be reached.........by design to go on forever.

user85: A surge in transactions would mean a surge in transaction fees. So it does not follow that there would be a massive decline in mining.
In any event, we have about a decade to work out what changes, if any, are needed. Nobody has a crystal ball.
One interesting issue though -- right after a block is mined, all the 'juicy' transactions will be taken, and the available transaction fees will be low. Miners might wait a bit (especially if they can save power/money by pausing mining) until the possible transaction fees reach a higher level. The consequences of that "off and on" surging in mining power need to be considered.

user-1: 
For example, is mining required to produce computations to support the system, and if so, how would the system manage a massive decline in mining with a surge in transactions?

Miners don't "share the load" but rather compete to find an answer to the same problem: a nonce for the next block which makes the block header hash smaller than a certain value. The difficulty of this problem is set artificially (but by distributed consensus) to keep the rate of new blocks being created at about 1 per 10 minutes.
If a lot of miners quit, the difficulty is automatically lowered and transactions will continue to be confirmed at the same rate. In this sense, it is not necessary to have a lot of miners.
However, this does make the network less secure because it makes it easier for an attacker with a lot of computing power (i.e. more than 50%) to make large changes to the block chain. That would enable double spending attacks among other things.
To prevent miners from quitting, transaction fees would have to compensate for the reduced block reward. So the real question is: what will the transaction fees become as the block reward tends to zero? And will they be enough to keep the block chain safe?

481: <p>According to Wikipedia, here's a projection of expected future Bitcoin supply:</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2crBU.png" alt="enter image description here" /></p>
<p>Is there any effect to the dynamics of the system beyond the valuation of Bitcoins?</p>
<p>For example, is mining required to produce computations to support the system, and if so, how would the system manage a massive decline in mining with a surge in transactions?</p>
 27346: <p>I have read a lot about bitcoin,and It seems by design, That as popularity and usefulness grows that the miners will be paid by transactions fees equal x number of bits by continued mining for the last infinite bitcoin which will never be reached.........by design to go on forever.</p>
 85: <p>A surge in transactions would mean a surge in transaction fees. So it does not follow that there would be a massive decline in mining.</p>

<p>In any event, we have about a decade to work out what changes, if any, are needed. Nobody has a crystal ball.</p>

<p>One interesting issue though -- right after a block is mined, all the 'juicy' transactions will be taken, and the available transaction fees will be low. Miners might wait a bit (especially if they can save power/money by pausing mining) until the possible transaction fees reach a higher level. The consequences of that "off and on" surging in mining power need to be considered.</p>
 -1: <blockquote>
  <p>For example, is mining required to produce computations to support the system, and if so, how would the system manage a massive decline in mining with a surge in transactions?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Miners don't "share the load" but rather compete to find an answer to the same problem: a nonce for the next block which makes the block header hash smaller than a certain value. The difficulty of this problem is set artificially (but by distributed consensus) to keep the rate of new blocks being created at about 1 per 10 minutes.</p>

<p>If a lot of miners quit, the difficulty is automatically lowered and transactions will continue to be confirmed at the same rate. In this sense, it is not necessary to have a lot of miners.</p>

<p>However, this does make the network less secure because it makes it easier for an <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power" rel="nofollow noreferrer">attacker with a lot of computing power</a> (i.e. more than 50%) to make large changes to the block chain. That would enable double spending attacks among other things.</p>

<p>To prevent miners from quitting, transaction fees would have to compensate for the reduced block reward. So the real question is: <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/876/how-much-will-transaction-fees-eventually-be">what will the transaction fees become</a> as the block reward tends to zero? And will they be enough to keep the block chain safe?</p>
