Bitcoin Halving Event: Rewards Halved and Price Trends Upward
Bitcoin, the premier cryptocurrency, has completed its fourth “halving” event as it reached the 840,000th block milestone. This significant occurrence has reduced the miners’ reward from 6.25 BTC per block to 3.125 BTC, marking a pivotal moment in Bitcoin’s economic model.
Following the halving, there has been a noticeable increase in Bitcoin’s market value. Over the past 24 hours, the price of Bitcoin rose by 3.7%, trading just below $64,000, with an additional 0.5% increase observed in the last hour alone. The halving took place at 12:10 GMT, with the cryptocurrency priced at $63,900 at that moment.
Historically, halving events have preceded substantial price appreciations. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has already surged by 75%, climbing from a start price of $42,200 to a new all-time high of $73,737.94 on March 14, 2024. Analysts from GrayScale suggest that the reduced reward could drive up demand as smaller buying pressures are needed to maintain the price, potentially leading to further increases.
Bitcoin has experienced three previous halvings:
- The first in 2012, where rewards were cut from 50 BTC to 25 BTC.
- In 2016, rewards were further reduced to 12.5 BTC.
- The most recent before this, on May 11, 2020, saw rewards decrease to 6.25 BTC.
These halvings are automatically scheduled to occur every 210,000 blocks, approximately every four years, reducing the Bitcoin rewards for miners by 50%. Despite the reduction, miners continue to earn transaction fees for every block they mine.
Moreover, Bitcoin’s infrastructure and use cases have significantly expanded. Notably, the Bitcoin blockchain has introduced ordinal inscriptions and BRC-20 tokens, fostering innovations previously exclusive to networks like Ethereum, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and fungible tokens.
These innovations have reinvigorated chain activity and participation, indicated by an increase in network transactions and miner fees. Additionally, the launch of the Runes Protocol alongside the halving has sparked excitement within the Bitcoin community. This new token standard offers a more efficient and straightforward method for creating altcoins on the Bitcoin platform, marking another step forward in its continuous evolution.
