At the beginning of 2020, Bitcoin will undergo a halving event. This is where the new supply of Bitcoin that is created every 10 minutes is cut in half, from 50 BTC to 25 BTC.
Many industry analysts are concerned about how this will affect the price of bitcoin and what impact it may have on the cryptocurrency market as a whole.
So, what it means for you how to stay safe? The cryptocurrency industry has grown exponentially in the past few years. Bitcoin, the first and most popular cryptocurrency, has captured the attention of many investors, entrepreneurs, and traders.
What Is A Halving Event?
Bitcoin’s supply is currently capped at just over 21 million coins. This means that every 10 minutes, a fixed amount of cryptocurrency is added to the blockchain and distributed among miners in accordance with their activity level and total computing power on the network.
There are two halving events happening right now – one at block number 479559, which will happen around 2 pm (UTC) on May 17th this year ,and one happening right now, which gives us 1 BTC per 10-minute interval since 2013 (as reported by Blockchain Info ).
What happens during these halving events? During these type of events, Bitcoin’s supply remains much the same at 21 million coins, but each time an individual miner or node receives a block reward they will receive half of their usual amount.
From bitcoin.org: “For example, if a mining pool has 25 Bitcoins then after every 478500 blocks or in 210 days (approximately 10 weeks) they will only mine approximately 1225 new bitcoins instead of 25.”
This is why many refer to the event as ‘halving’ when it really occurs twice per month on average – because it cuts down the current total supply by 50%!
How Does The Halving Event Affect The Price Of Bitcoin?
When Bitcoin’s supply is being cut in half, it has a direct impact on the number of new coins that are distributed through mining and block rewards.
As this divide occurs more frequently over time, there will be fewer bitcoins entering circulation as we approach full-time offers to miners roughly every 3 1/2 years. Negative Supply News (from Zerohedge)
The halving event occurred exactly this July – at 7:40am Eastern Time. The New York Times best-selling book ‘ Money Guide Series’ by author Suze Orman has been translated into Chinese.
According to an article from South China Morning Post that was translated by Mercantile, Suze Orman’s book has been seen in ‘ middle class’ houses.
Pretty impressive, considering books like this would have never even hit the mainstream news before – mainly because there just wasn’t so much English literature being sold out-of-sorts to Chinese people.
The publication date for her latest work is yet undecided but it did explain how despite a slow economy and recession, sales of books continue to rise among upper-income households.
“Book publishing outlets said demand for well-known authors like Orman remained brisk during interviews with wealthy Chinese, who were also quick to see which titles have the ‘right’ social status.
Orman said in 2012 that her Money Guide Series on financial planning saw tremendous demand after she had written How To Pay Off Debt In 8 Years During The Recession, but insisted such interest is more pronounced during an economic downturn.”
Do my readers think Suze Orman was one of these wealthy Chinese subscribers? I could only imagine if the number of copies sold rises significantly over time due to this significant price drop – record books would eventually be outsold by paperbacks and even e-books.
What Impact Will The Halving Event Have On The Cryptocurrency Market As A Whole?
I’d imagine this event will have little or no influence – it’s a one-time offer and the books are digital, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth any money!
The reason I say this is due to the fact they won’t be available until the end of July/beginning of August at least through normal channels. What value will remain with them once their stop running?
Bitcoiners tend to buy physical bitcoins when low on market volumes (which has been seen from Monday afternoon in Europe and Wednesday morning here in USD) so you can guarantee some dollar signs come your way by selling too!
Whether or not you should sell your digital copies of Suze Orman’s bestsellers because they’ll be worthless later this month, I leave it up to you.
How Can You Prepare For The Halving Event?
I suggest spending a couple of hours researching the anticipated dive, looking up related news stories and blog posts. If you come to this website it will take much less time!
What are your thoughts about Bitcoin halving event? Are you going to spend all or some of the available fiat currency on books celebrating their eighth-years-old birthday? How do bitcoin fans feel about such an idea today –
Are there still enough backers left from their initial purchase that they’ll be able to turn around and make a profit at least partially as promised by Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper in 2008.
Why Do We Need To Wait For A Block Reward To Be Cut In Half Before It Starts Affecting Us?
For the answer I’ll invite you to take a look at my recent articles:
Bitcoin Nonprofits still without fundraisers, important info vs. “creative” self-promotion.
Analysis – What makes today’s bitcoin price so hard to explain? Why doesn’t it just go up more? What could convince traders that Bitcoin is growing year after year instead of losing ground all the time in huge chunks with each new halving event?
How much do we really expect current BTC market cap holders to make as they watch their asset estimates quickly decrease along with this block reward halving deadline?
What are your differences with me? Why do I like bitcoin so much and why didn’t that have to stroke my ego or make me think “man, the amount of prejudice on this planet is just too great”?
Do you really expect there will not be any consequences when a number of important non-tradable assets suddenly become cheaper in bitcoins than expected? Just look at what we call candy but often eat as medicine.
It’s considered absurd by some Bitcoin evangelists for instance if someone were to take chocolate Synthroid or hisalyn SR (an alternative supplemental estrogen) as a nutritional supplement instead of the pharmacy version.
Oh yeah, and the price skyrocketed overnight from just 0,80 EUR per pill up to 2,50 EUR! Still a lot less than its street vendor “street value” of 10€/pill.
So when you see that Bitcoin’s inflation rate might double for 2012 or even quadruple with each new block reward halving – then we all need data from an outside perspective
So far as forecasting hidden costs is concerned before assessing if cutting this subsidy in half will have any long-term effects at all on real bitcoin usage metrics. On top of their own transactions.
What Are Some Possible Impacts Of A Reduced Block Reward On Miners And Mining Hardware Manufacturers?
Miner payouts and Bitcoin usage metrics are dependent on a number of other factors, including but not limited to:
block reward (in USD) fee market amount difficulty hash rate hardware prices electricity price Mhash/s i.e. #Hash/s is the measure for MHashes per the second Difficulty adjusts by itself every 2016 blocks Difficulty Affected By Previous Block Timestamp Hash Competition Marginal Cost Premine
The value of bitcoins To my knowledge there were no official comments in this regard when it comes to miners’ incentives – or so they seem themselves reluctant to admit that the block rewards halving could have an impact.
At least not that seems reasonable. Their evidence mostly consists solely of the halving chart on this page which graphs block reward liabilities and the steadily growing coin supply to a value they assume must be constant – though again I am certain it’s wrong (Paul Sztorc nailed my point already in here ).
So keep your eyes open when you see discussions like “why would any miner actually peg his income by 30%? Volatility is so huge up until now”.
Well, yes, but Bitcoin still has many unknown factors such as transaction fees market price volatility, etc that are not taken into account by the Bitcoin block reward. Block Reward Inflation
So you might as well ask: Why is bitcoin deflationary? Short answer: We are in a currency crisis and we don’t really know how it will end.
Only some of us can afford to drop our money on trivial things, like running servers or keeping rented hard disks full time – those with disposable income always have more power over others; meanwhile the unbanked are unable to move that value at all due to its costliness – so they need their BitCoins (or other means).
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What Advantages Does Bitcoin Have Over Normal Money?
The inherent advantage of Bitcoins is what drives them to be a leading currency today. However, the primary advantage explained in this post would be that there are a limited amount of bitcoins available for use –
Meaning it becomes much harder to “print” more fiat or other digital currencies without increasing the associated cost, and thus making inflationary problems appear all too quickly.
2. What Is the Potential Impact of Bitcoin Halving on Cryptocurrencies in General?
This could be an immense event for the cryptocurrency industry. The price of Bitcoin has risen significantly since this market shift, and many people have become interested in investing in digital currencies as a result.
3. How Is Bitcoin Halving?
Bitcoin halving occurs at the halfway point of every 210,000 block. What happens during Bitcoin’s “halving” can be seen below:
4. How Is a “Halving Event” Significant?
A ‘Halvening’ is when things are divided in half so that each person/item has a smaller amount. When something doubles it halves as well –
Such as bitcoin which moves from 8 BTC to 4 BTC per coin without having any changes in its characteristics such for example, the supply or value relative.
5. Is Halving Good for Bitcoin?
Yes, a halving is almost always good for Bitcoin. When the novogratz payouts are changed to happen every 210,000 blocks on average, this event actually increases interest in cryptocurrencies as more people turn their attention towards it and its potential – because there’s a new incentive of receiving such payout soon.
Conclusion
Bitcoin’s halving event has been a major milestone for the cryptocurrency industry. The price of Bitcoin has risen significantly since the event, and many people have become interested in investing in cryptocurrencies as a result.
As we all know, Bitcoin is currently on the edge of another major shift. This means that we could see another huge growth spurt like what happened after the last halving event. I expect now you understand what it means for you how to stay safe.