There’s been a growing buzz about Bitcoin halving over the past few weeks, and you’ll likely hear it referenced even more often as this upcoming weekend approaches!In this post, we’ll explain exactly what Bitcoin halving is, why it’s important to know about, and we’ll also share some cool resources to help keep you in the loop.If you need to rewind and refresh your memory on some bitcoin basics before diving into this post, feel free to check out these introductory resources in our Support Center first.Bitcoin halving is a process that is built into Bitcoin’s code, and it occurs once for every 210,000 blocks mined, roughly every 4 years.The process affects how much of a reward miners receive for validating new blocks of transactions on the blockchain.Miners play a crucial role in preventing fraud and maintaining Bitcoin’s unique system of checks and balances.In other words, the work miners do helps make it possible for us to securely send and receive peer-to-peer transactions, instead of having to trust a third party like a bank.

Miners are motivated to continue participating in the Bitcoin network by the rewards they earn for validating new blocks.The reward for mining first started out as 50 BTC per block until the first halving event occurred in November 2012, which cut the reward in half to 25 BTC.bitcoin is a disruptive technologyThe second halving is on course to happen on July 9th, 2016, and will cut the reward to 12.5 BTC.bitcoin office in delhiThe final halving will take place in the year 2140.ethereum pool sourceAt first you might think that it is counter-intuitive to decrease the miner’s reward, but there’s a good reason for it.bitcoin mt4 trading

Unlike most national currencies we’re familiar with like Dollars or Euros, Bitcoin was designed with a fixed supply and predictable inflation schedule.There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins.This pre-determined number makes them scarce, and it’s this scarcity alongside their utility that largely influences their market value.regulation of bitcoin is up for grabsWhen bitcoin was first created there were very few miners participating on the network and they were originally rewarded with a bigger amount.bitcoin aml riskOver time, bitcoin has become adopted by many people increasing the global competition in mining.dogecoin exchange usdThe increase in demand for bitcoins combined with a decreasing block reward has a tendency to push upward price pressure on the value of Bitcoin.bitcoin plus mx

The halvening is a rare but predictable event in the bitcoin community.Bitcoin enthusiast, Laurent D, and designer, Élise Dé, joined forces to create an interesting resource called The Halvening!We love it because it’s easy to follow the countdown and includes some great resources to learn more.bitcoin 3600If you really want to get in on the fun, there are meet ups happening all over the world as part of Halving Day; here’s a partial list.Many in the industry speculate that the halving may be one of the reasons for the recent price fluctuations, which we’ve covered extensively each week in our news recaps.The new block announcement powering the Halvening website is provided through the websocket API established through the Blockchain API, a fun reminder of just a few of the cool things developers can build on top of our developer platform.We also discussed the halving countdown using our API in November of last year, where developer Kyle Honeycutt used the API to create a countdown clock to calculate the amount of time left until the bitcoin block reward halving happens in real-time.

Are you excited for the upcoming halving?Let us know how you’ll be celebrating it in the comments below!The requested URL /index.php?topic=9217.0 was not found on this server.Bitcoin Clock Reward-Drop ETA: 2020-06-20 18:35:18 UTC (156 weeks, 12 hours, 10 minutes) Block count: 472679      Blocks since last difficulty change: 935 Hour Hand Minute Hand Second Hand Blocks per Revolution 210,000 2016 144 Approx.Cycle Duration 4 years 2 weeks 24 hours Cycle Event Block reward drops by half Difficulty change occursJuly 9 2016 is being eagerly anticipated by many cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and may have broader implications for how we regulate other currencies as a whole.Because Bitcoin is about to go through its second halving.One of Bitcoin’s unique properties is the halving.The halving is a disinflationary measure that caps how many Bitcoins can be created.To understand why the halving is so important first you have to understand more about how Bitcoin works.

Bitcoin was designed by Satoshi Nakamoto who wanted to create a self-regulating currency with a fixed maximum number of units.Bitcoin is a decentralised digital currency, which means no governing body or individual is in charge.Instead all transactions are recorded on a publicly verified ledger known as the blockchain.Miners create the blockchain about every 10 minutes creating a consensus on which addresses hold which funds.Generating a block involves completing a series of calculations in computationally intensive race to verify the ownership of different bitcoins.Bitcoin is incentivised for its users because each winner of this race receives a number new bitcoins as a reward.It is this reward which halves every 210,000 blocks – or roughly every 4 years.Bitcoin was launched in early 2009 back then each block provided the miner who found it 50 bitcoins.This halved to 25 bitcoins in November 2012 and is about to halve again on the 9th July 2016 to 12.5 bitcoins per block.This will happen every 210,000 blocks until all 21 million bitcoins have been mined.

It is estimated that the next halving will not happen again until 2020.In the short term it’s expected that the halving may affect the price of Bitcoin as bitcoins will be produced at a slower rate and will be more expensive to create.However longer term the halving has interesting implications for how we manage our currency in a fast-moving digital world.For many used to traditional currencies the fact that Bitcoin is decentralised and no one is in charge can seem worrying – a weakness at the heart of the currency.But the fact that no government or individual micromanages Bitcoin is what many of its enthusiasts regard as its greatest strength.You can always be certain how many bitcoins you have and what the rules for using those coins are.Inbuilt rules such as the halving means that Bitcoin is self-regulating currency with a predictable algorithm providing a clear schedule for what volume of new currency will be generated and when.Contrast this with the current economic crisis in the Eurozone.

The UK recently held a referendum on its membership of the EU and opted to leave.Whilst the referendum was specifically about UK’s legal and trade ties to Europe it has broader international implications for the European financial union which is currently in deep trouble.Uniting the currency union members’ economies with a single currency, the Euro, whilst allowing each to individually manage its own financial affairs was a bad plan to put it mildly.Now there is no way for a country which has mismanaged its finances, such as Greece to hit the reset button, without affecting all the others in the currency union.This is creating a complicated mess, with the EU centrally trying to mitigate damage and the member countries with problematic economies being torn apart from within by political infighting.The EU’s current economic policy response is complicated, but one key aspect of it is to punish the banks for hoarding money – a process called negative interest rates – in the belief that this will encourage the banks to loan their money out, increasing spending and get the economy jump started again.

Under extreme negative interest rate policies money is deleted from everyone’s bank balance when it’s left in a bank account.Yes, literally the bank deducts some of money from your account each month.In the past this has created situations where people hoard physical cash outside the banks.So the solution to this is to freeze cash withdrawals; people can still receive their monthly salary and pay bills all by electronic transfer, but can’t take their money out as physical cash.However, some recent evidence shows people try and save even more to make up for the loss; so rather than fixing the problem this policy could be compounding it potentially leading to a downward spiral of negative interest rates.With Bitcoin because it is decentralised, no one can change the policies governing their movement or deduct money from your balance.– The EU central bank has set its deposit rate as a negative rate and some counties’ bonds are being offered at negative interest rates.Yes that’s right some investors are buying bonds which cost them money to hold each month.