Update: Article updated to include details of block #420,000.Everyone is in a party mood today as the rate of bitcoin production just reduced by 50% for only a second time in Bitcoin’s history.Celebratory parties are being held across the world, from Israel to Taiwan, with numerous events held in US and Europe.Meanwhile, almost all bitcoin-related public spaces feel like a giant online party as all eyes turned to the rocket ticking clock.My #btc #halving party.Stuck in finance class?/44hLubLL8T — Cody Burns (@DontPanicBurns) July 9, 2016 Block 420,000 was mined by Chinese bitcoin miner F2Pool, installing the milestone of the first reduced block mining reward since 2012.The block contained 1,257 transactions, with an estimated transaction value of 1,688.69 BTC.With block 420,000, almost 80% of all bitcoins ever are produced and the inflation rate dropped to 4.17%, translating to just above 650,000 btc a year or slightly more than $400 million at the current price, according to Bitcoin’s wiki.

The third halving period, around 2020, will bring inflation down to less than 2% with almost 95% of all bitcoins mined in just 8 years from now.As supply has decreased, assuming demand remains constant, price may increase and perhaps eventually provide a new all-time high after almost three years, but that is in no way a given, especially as bitcoin’s price has almost doubled in just 2-3 months, presumably in anticipation of the halving, potentially pricing in the event.The opposite, therefore, may be the case in the short term.As celebration reaches its high point, we may have to face a hangover once the event is over, but for today few can escape the jubilant mood.Another dimension to the halving event may be concerns raised in regards to miners’ profitability and ability to operate and secure the network.KnCMiner recently declared bankruptcy, citing the halving.Price has considerably increased since then however and they are still mining, so it is not clear how their bankruptcy is progressing.

On the other hand, Jihan Wu of Bitmain and Valery Vavilov, CEO of Bitfury, have both publicly stated they are not at all concerned about the halving.Whichever way price or miners may go, today isn’t really the time to talk about any of these matters, but celebrate, not just a halving.After almost eight years, this new invention, which promises to revolutionize the world, especially its blockchain underlying technology that has created so many new concepts in a stroke of genius by Nakamoto, such as smart contracts, IoT, Fintech, a fourth industrial revolution, continues to operate after almost a decade and by doing so proves to all that it does actually really work.That’s something very much worthy of celebrating on this historical day.Celebrating the #halving with all my bitcoin friends.#/DKMmiRFsyt — Mike Hulbig (@mhulbig) July 9, 2016With the Halving about 4 days away, it’s now very much the time to organize your Halving Party!Find yours in the list below.The current estimated time for the Halving is: Saturday, 9th of July 2016 17:27:23 GMT.

Your party doesn’t appear in the list?Drop us a comment below and be sure we’ll add it soon!Israel: /bitcoin-il/events/231962822/ (/events/167233333680024/) US: /Capital-Region-Bitcoin-Meetup/events/232017055/ /Asheville-Bitcoin-Meetup/events/232059102/ /Bitcoin-Atlanta/events/231216902/ /Tampa-Bay-Bitcoineers/events/232080919/ /Bitcoin-Open-Blockchain-Community-Chicago/events/232155753/ /Dallas-Bitcoin-User-Meetup/events/231763930 /Las-Vegas-Bitcoin-Meetup/events/232239935/ /Los-Angeles-Bitcoin/events/231050197/ /Nashville-Bitcoin-Meetup/events/232283839/ /Coinspace-HQ/events/232392781/ /# /Omaha-Bitcoin-Meetup-Group/events/230591613/ /Jacksonville-Bitcoin/events/231580935/ /St-Louis-Bitcoin-Users-Group/events/231565974/ /San-Francisco-Bitcoin-Social/events/228473627/ethereum secrets wow questThere’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!bitcoin paper wallet deutsch

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.ethereum posThe process affects how much of a reward miners receive for validating new blocks of transactions on the blockchain.ethereum gas marketMiners play a crucial role in preventing fraud and maintaining Bitcoin’s unique system of checks and balances.bitcoin ventures llcIn 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.greece coin bitcoin

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.The second halving is on course to happen on July 9th, 2016, and will cut the reward to 12.5 BTC.The final halving will take place in the year 2140.At first you might think that it is counter-intuitive to decrease the miner’s reward, but there’s a good reason for it.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.When bitcoin was first created there were very few miners participating on the network and they were originally rewarded with a bigger amount.

Over time, bitcoin has become adopted by many people increasing the global competition in mining.The increase in demand for bitcoins combined with a decreasing block reward has a tendency to push upward price pressure on the value of Bitcoin.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.If 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.