Digital currencies Bitcoin and Ethereum, the #1 and #2 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, both drifted downward in weekend and early Monday trading.One Bitcoin trades for $646.57 this morning, down 0.17%.An Ether trades for $10.39, down 5.02%.Also popular alternative currency Litecoin trades for $4.08, down 0.87%.This surprised some industry watchers, who expected Saturday's Bitcoin block halving to put new buy pressure on the currency.As programmed within Bitcoin's software, the block reward subsidy for miners who "solve" a block successfully is scheduled to reduce by 50% every 210,000 blocks, which happens roughly every four years.The last Bitcoin block halving before Saturday's occurred in 2012, dropping the 50 Bitcoins per block subsidy to 25 Bitcoins per block where it has remained until Saturday, when as programmed the reward was slashed from 25 to 12.5 Bitcoins per block.Ultimately, however, the major cryptocurrency exchanges essentially shrugged in response to the halving event.

24 hour trading volume of Bitcoin, $100.2 million, and of Ethereum, $10.6 million, are both certainly well within recent normal bounds and nothing extraordinary.HOW TO GET INTO ETHER & BITCOIN?I frequently get asked this, and it's happening more and more often now that my YouTube videos on both currencies are increasing in viewership.I'd recommend trying Coinbase to buy your first batch of Bitcoin.The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency services firm has more than 4 million customers, services 32 countries, and in my experience is the best overall way to buy Bitcoin with a debit card or linked bank account.WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH ETHEREUM THAT YOU CAN'T DO WITH BITCOIN?Another frequently asked question lately.Of course we are at a stage where Bitcoin and Ethereum are still both so new - Bitcoin launched in 2009, Ethereum a year ago - that we probably can't envision all, or even most, of the ways they will eventually be used by individuals, businesses, and one day even governments.With that said, by following the various developer communities for these technologies, you can get a sense of what is now - or in the near future - going to be technically feasible on the blockchain.

My video below shows some of the early use cases for Ethereum that appear to differentiate it from Bitcoin.(Special thanks to ether.camp for some of the data highlighted.)Full disclosure: Not financial advice, provided for educational purposes only.Also not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any cryptocurrency or asset.At time of publication, I do hold some bitcoins and ethers in my long term portfolio.Ethereum Sign up or log in to customize your list._ Here's how it works: Anybody can ask a question Anybody can answer The best answers are voted up and rise to the top up vote 2 down vote favorite Bitcoin has a halving which will likely happen around June 2020.Is there anything similar for Ethereum?proof-of-stake proof-of-work protocol block-reward Your Answer Sign up or log in Sign up using Google Sign up using Email and Password Post as a guest Name Email discard By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Browse other questions tagged proof-of-stake proof-of-work protocol block-reward or ask your own question.What are Mining Rewards in Ethereum?Mining Ether will start with the release of the Frontier platform.The Olympics test beforehand had no value attributed to the Ether which was mined and all balances at the Ether launch were set back to the close of the Fundraising – so even if you had transferred our Ether on the testnet after contributing to your fundraise you will keep the Ether on the launch of the Frontier platform.safest bitcoin web walletThe proof of work in Ethereum is run through Ethash.bitcoin core syncThe successful PoW miner will receive a static block reward that is equal to 5 Ether.crypto bitcoin faucet

The successful miner will also receive all the gas in fees that it generates from the transactions in the block that it verifies.As time goes on and the amount of Ether created grows it is expected that gas rewards will take the lions share of mining rewards.The miner will also receive an award of 1/32 per Uncle block included.Uncles are stale blocks with parents that are a maximum of six blocks back from the present block.litecoin pool chartValid Uncle blocks are rewarded to halt network lag (time to propagate a valid block to the whole network).bitcoin armory for macUncles included in a block receive 7/8 of the static block reward – or 4.375 Ether- with a maximum of 2 Uncles allowed per block.cashout cvv to bitcoinAfter you have mined some ether you will need somewhere to store it and you can choose the best place here with our ethereum wallet comparison page.

Related guides How to Buy Ethereum?How are Ether currency units issued in Ethereum?What is the GHOST protocol for Ethereum?Why is Ethereum different to Bitcoin?What is Ether in Ethereum?How to connect to an Ethereum mining pool?Popular guides CryptoCompare Portfolio FAQ Where to spend your Bitcoins How to use MyEtherWallet How to mine Zcash - Who we are!How to Add Sold Coins on the CryptoCompare PortfolioIt's an event that brings equal parts predictability and uncertainty.For close to a year, bitcoin miners and investors have been preparing for a network change nicknamed 'the halving'.At approximately 18:00 UTC tomorrow, the subsidy the bitcoin network uses to compensate miners will drop from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC, never to increase again.Yet, despite its scheduled arrival, many in the industry remain unsure just how significant an impact it could have on bitcoin's still-volatile price and the health of the distributed payment network's transaction validators (aka miners).

A programmed feature in the code, the bitcoin subsidy controls the supply of new bitcoins that are released into the market with each new block.When bitcoin first launched, a miner could earn 50 BTC for sealing a block on the blockchain ledger.After 210,000 blocks, or approximately four years, however, the reward was cut in half to 25.And tomorrow, as block 420,000 is sealed, miners will be left with a reward of 12.5 bitcoin.As currently set, only 21m BTC will ever be mined, a figure that would require the consensus of all or most bitcoin users to change.Because the figure does not vary or become irregular, there is a steady, predictable supply of new bitcoins.To traders, this has quelled some uncertainty regarding how many new bitcoins could suddenly appear for sale, and to miners, it has provided a steady incentive for them to continue maintaining bitcoin's ledger.Complicating matters, however, is that not all traders are altruistic and that mining costs money, and since bitcoin's price impacts other areas of the ecosystem, some believe this delicate balance could be altered by the halving.

Petar Zivkovski, the director of operations at WhaleClub, argues that the price of bitcoin will drop after halving, due to the fact it marks a likely exit event for speculative buyers."The halving’s impact on price has been felt since September of last year when price was hovering in the $200s.During that time, smart money began buying bitcoin in a market phase commonly known as accumulation."So, what impact will halving have on the network?What will happen to the price?What can the average bitcoin investor or user expect to happen – or not to happen – once the halving occurs?CoinDesk surveyed a number of market experts to explore.At one point, there were some miners who expressed concern that the halving could impact their profitability, enough so that some would be forced offline.Chandler Guo, the founder of Bitbank and its subsidiary, BW, was one of these community members.He argued in the beginning of June that, "if the price doesn’t go up very quickly, up two times, it means a lot of the older machines will be shut down.

They must shut down".Further, he cautioned that 300 petahash of older machines could be forced off the network.But, since that interview, the price has increased from $530 to $650, meaning that this dynamic has changed.Guo's thesis focused on the belief that if transactions took longer to verify, individuals would grow disenfranchised with the network, which could ultimately send the price down.If that happened, especially with the reward cutting in half, the profits for miners could degrade, making continuous mining more difficult.Eric Lombrozo, founder of Ciphrex and a contributor to the open-source Bitcoin Core developer team, said in June that it was possible that such an event could occur, but that the extent of any impact was likely to be mitigated, based on historical analysis."We’ve already had a halving in the past…and we’ve also seen significant sudden drops in bitcoin price – both of these situations imply lower short-term miner revenue.In neither case did we see a significant drop in hashrate."

While Armageddon is not around the corner, there is agreement that hashrate on the network, which currently stands at 1.54 exahashes per second will experience a slight decline.Marco Streng, CEO of hosted mining services firm, Genesis Mining, isn’t too concerned about this, however."I think due to the halving, a slight hashrate drop is realistic to assume,” he said.Terrence Thurber, co-founder and CEO of hosted bitcoin miner Oregon Mines, echoed Streng's predictions about the network experiencing some drop in the total hashrate."We continue to believe that total network hash rate will decrease by approximately 10% after halving as older equipment that is no longer economically viable will leave the network.Later generation machines ... will pick up some of the slack," he told CoinDesk.Elsewhere, BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov expressed optimism about the halving, though admitted that his firm expects some drop in hashrate."Some decline in the bitcoin network hashrate is expected (after the halving), and we believe it will be insignificant," he told CoinDesk, adding: "The most important thing is that even if the hashrate declines, it will not compromise the security of the bitcoin network."

But the drop in hashrate won’t be as significant primarily because the only real cost that miners have is electricity.Eric Mu, the chief marketing officer at HaoBTC, a mining firm with approximately 5.5% of hashrate, explained that the effect of halving likely won’t be immediate."The bulk of the cost is sunk in the form of mining equipment and infrastructure, at least that is our case," he said.Litecoin’s halving event, which took place on 25th August, 2015, supports Mu and Lombrozo's belief that the effect won’t be significant.When the halving happened, the hashrate was 1.19 TH/s.Over the following days, that dropped to 1.11 TH/s, which was only a 7% drop.Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin and director of engineering at Coinbase, explained why the drop was so small in a reddit post.Because China-based hydro power plants generate too much electricity, he explained, they will sometimes give miners free electricity for a share of revenue.Miners may make half as much at halving, but with free electricity, he argued they're still profitable.

The price will drop But, how the price will be affected remains to be seen.As noted by Zivkovski, the smart money — institutions, professional traders and knowledgeable bitcoiners — were banking on the rumor and event cycle.It's arguable that yesterday's near-10% price correction was already a sign that this is starting to occur.Zivkovski said to CoinDesk: "This is the classic 'buy the rumor, sell the event' cycle.In this case, the event is the halving.Smart (and patient) money, in the most part, is no longer looking to accumulate.Their holdings have more than tripled in value."And after halving, the accumulators will start looking to liquidate those holdings, Zivkovski explained."Post-halving, however, the excitement will die down.Bitcoin, the network, has not changed fundamentally or significant in the past six months,” he said.While he couldn’t offer a precise prediction on price, he did say that after accumulators take their profits, "a higher support level will form and the cycle will slowly take shape again".

Later, the price will rise While the price could decline in the short term, it remains unclear how supply and demand will shift after the halving, if it will at all.Miners are earning 25 BTC today, but it's not known whether they're selling at the same rate to maintain operations now that the price has increased.With prices rising, they could even be holding more bitcoin than they would normally.Either way, the rate at which they could potentially sell new bitcoins into the market will undoubtedly fall, which could mean that, assuming demand does not decline, buyers will need to acquire bitcoin from the market, which would push the price up.Where there is uncertainty is how much the price will rise."The price of bitcoin after the halving would normally be expected to rise as decreasing supply meets increasing demand," Thurber explained."The unknown is how much price increase has already been baked into the current price."But when the halving dust settles, Thurber believes that the price will be even higher than this recent run-up.