Today, we review the halving history of bitcoin, the first ever and leading cryptocurrency in the markets today and what to expect thereafter. But before we get into the nitty gritty, what is bitcoin halving?
Basically, bitcoin halving is when the mining rewards for securing the network are cut by 50%. What you may not know about halving is that it happens after every 210,000 blocks, that’s approximately 4 years.
Now, the current reward for solving a block is 12.5 BTC. This means that after the next halving, the reward will be 6.25 BTC for each block.
Halving helps bitcoin secure the ecosystem against inflation. Reducing the mining rewards, ensures an ever present scarcity of bitcoin. Bitcoin therefore becomes more similar to gold than fiat currencies that are printed by the central bank. Halving makes the obtaining bitcoin even harder.
Analysts have calculated and pre-determined that as the halving continues, the last of bitcoin to be rewarded for a mining block will be in the year 2140.
Last Bitcoin Halving
Bitcoin’s last halving was on July 16th 2016 at block 420,000. The then value of bitcoin was $657. Today, the price is just above $10,000. This is a 1485% increase in bitcoin price since the last halving.
Further analysis has been conducted on bitcoin’s price and a chart has been derived to determine the possible next price of bitcoin in the halving following the immediate one.
Now, the genesis block was mined on January 3rd 2009. There has been an interesting aftermath in bitcoin’s price following each halving. Every time the reward is halved, there has been no immediate reaction in regards to new all-time highs.
For instance the last halving was in 2016, but it wasn’t until 2017 December when the price reached an all-time high of $19,843. That a year and 5 months later. You could say that it took time for bitcoin to realize the new conditions set by bitcoin’s scarcity.
But bitcoin made a quicker reaction in 2012. It took a quicker arch to the new all-time high of $1149 in just a year and 3 days later.
The Next Bitcoin Halving
The next bitcoin halving is in approximated to be on May 17th 2020 and is scheduled for block 630,000 and will be set to cut down rewards to 6.25 BTC per block.
Now, remember that the date is in approximation. Here’s how we arrive at May 17th
The current block is 59,675. It takes 10 minutes every block, meaning that 144 blocks are mined every 24hours. Now, 39,325 blocks are left until the next halving. Now divide this by 144 blocks a day and you have 273 days till the next halving. That takes us to May 17th 2020.
Bitcoin Halving 2020
We mentioned earlier that the cryptocurrency market is not quick to respond to halving. Investors have been slower to react, at least judging from the last two halving events. But does that mean we should expect an all-time high in the post 2020 era?
Well, nobody knows. However, we are learning from history and it has taught us that after every halving, bitcoin experiences a higher price volatility. This is due to the new lower influx of BTC in the market which may lead to a rally.
While it may be known how the market reacts to halving, it still remains to be see how things will turn out post May 17th 2020.