What exactly is Bitcoin halving? It’s not a lack of Bitcoin; it’s a halving of Bitcoin. What does it imply? When does the Bitcoin halving occur? What happens to the value of Bitcoin if this occurs? Stay tuned to Techdeposists for answers to these and other questions. Satoshi Nakamoto developed a means to distribute fresh bitcoins without a single or group of individuals selecting who should get them when he established Bitcoin in 2009. The concept behind bitcoin mining was to reward users with fresh bitcoin for performing the computational effort of confirming new transactions into new blocks. Check read our Forbes article about mining for a deeper understanding. To summarize, a new bitcoin is issued as a reward for minors that verify blocks in the network. When Bitcoin first began, the reward each block was fixed at 50 coins. However, Nakamoto added a rule to the protocol that halves the reward in half every 2100 blocks, or around every four years, and this is known as a having event.
History of Bitcoin
- The first bitcoin halving happened in late 2012, when block number 210,000 awarded 50 coins to the winning minor.
- However, block number 210,001 only awarded its winning minor 25 coins.
- The second having event occurred in mid-2016, having the block reward once more.
- So the payout for block number 4200 in one was twelve and a half cents.
- The next bitcoin halving is scheduled for March 2, 2024, and will continue until approximately 2040, when all 21 million bitcoins will have been mined.
On January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto, the enigmatic creator of Bitcoin, mined the first block of the blockchain, often known as “Genesis Block” or “Block 0”. Bitcoin’s creator set the initial block reward at 50 BTC. Back then, there was no compelling reason for anyone to mine Bitcoin, and Satoshi was virtually the lone miner. On March 17, 2010, however, BitcoinMarket.com became the first Bitcoin exchange. As a result of increased interest in the new currency, the price of Bitcoin surpassed $1 in the spring of 2011.
Details of Bitcoin Halving 2023
The block reward subsidy schedule is referred to as Bitcoin halving. The Bitcoin protocol outlines the Bitcoin halving cycle, which involves halving the Bitcoin block reward every 210,000 blocks.
This procedure and timetable is known as Bitcoin block reward halving since the Bitcoin block reward is decreased in half from 50 to 25, to 12.5, to 6.25, and so on.
When was the last time Bitcoin was halved?
The most recent Bitcoin halving occurred on May 11, 2020, at 7:23:43 PM UTC, at block 630,000. At the time, the Bitcoin block reward was reduced from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.
When will the next Bitcoin halving take place?
The next Bitcoin halving date is set for block 840,000, which is expected to occur on April 26, 2024 at 10:47:36 PM UTC.
The block reward will be reduced from 6.25 Bitcoin per block to 3.125 Bitcoin per block on the Bitcoin halving date.
At the time of the Bitcoin halving, the block reward will be slashed in half, reducing revenue for all Bitcoin mining operations (big and small).
This is a difficult moment for miners, and as a result, some will be forced to turn off their mining hardware or seek for more profitable cryptocurrencies to mine.
You can estimate your mining rewards when the block reward is cut in half using our Bitcoin mining calculator.
There are five main steps of bitcoin halving
- The reward is halved
- Half the inflation
- Lower available supply
- Higher demand
- Higher price
Why the change? Why change the reward? Doesn’t that hurt miners? Supply and demand answers it. If too many bitcoins are generated, they will lose value. In an op-ed for Bitcoin magazine, Ethereum Project head developer Vitalik Buterin explained the necessity to delay bitcoin circulation.
Inflation management is the key factor. Central banks may generate unlimited amounts of fiat currencies, which is a huge drawback. If they print too much, supply and demand lower currency value soon.
Bitcoin mimics gold. Every gramme of gold mined makes the remaining gold tougher to get. Due to its restricted supply, gold has maintained its worth as an international means of exchange and store of value for over 60 years, and bitcoin is expected to do the same.
I know you’re wondering about my Bitcoin’s value. Nobody knows. A week later, 2016. Bitcoin’s US exchange rate barely changed. Dollar, when bitcoin was selling about $650. It’s About $675 a week later. So little change. Many claimed that bitcoin’s price rose between three months and a year before the incident, when it was trading at $300 and $430.03, respectively. It was different then.
The 2017 media attention and public awareness boom, the exponential expansion of ICOs and new currencies, government laws and limits, and futures and derivative offers opened avenues for institutional participation. Predicting global currency rates after the next occurrence is difficult.
Remember that bitcoin was supposed to be valued first, that there will only ever be a certain quantity of them, and that limiting their distribution via having keeps bitcoin’s economy from inflating. This should clarify bitcoin and why it’s valuable.
