Bitcoin Halving Explained

What is Halvening in Bitcoin and Other Cryptos

In Bitcoin, halving is when block rewards for mining are cut in half. Halving happens at regular intervals based on the Bitcoin protocol.

Many other cryptos mined in the style of Bitcoin (proof-of-work mining) are subject to halving as as well. With that in mind, coins have unique mechanisms for slowing down block rewards.

In other words, in terms fo coins that work like Bitcoin, be we talking about Bitcoin or Litecoin, the code underlying the network dictates that X new coins minted as mining rewards for miners adding blocks of transactions to the blockchain will be cut in half every Y blocks until the reward reaches zero and no new coins are mined.

With Bitcoin halving occurs every 210,000 blocks.

Since one block is added to the Bitcoin blockchain roughly every 10 minutes, each halving is about 210,000 blocks x 10 minutes = 2,100,000 minutes = 4 years apart.

When is the next Bitcoin Halving: Assuming no major changes, the mining reward will drop from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block in May 2020. See a breakdown of past halving events at Bitcoinist.com.

SEMANTICS: Some may stylize the halving process as “halvening.”

Will Bitcoin’s price be affected by the halvening? The correlation between halvenings and price have been positive so far in Bitcoin’s history… of course, the past doesn’t tell us anything about the future with certainty. I explain that relationship of halving in price here. Meanwhile, you can see a price chart since 2011 with Bitcoin halving dates on it at ihodl.com.