- CoinGecko marks the 7th anniversary of Bitcoin’s second halving event.
- The second Bitcoin halving slashed block rewards from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC.
- Bitcoin’s next halving is expected to happen in April 2024.
Today marks the seventh anniversary of the second Bitcoin halving, when Bitcoin’s block reward was slashed from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC. CoinGecko, the crypto aggregation platform, invited its Twitter followers to celebrate the occasion, adding that April 2024 is the expected time for the next Bitcoin halving.
CoinGecko’s tweet included a chart displaying the predetermined Bitcoin halving protocol. It involved curves that show the BTC supply trajectory and the diminishing pattern of the block rewards. The BTC supply is decreasing, with fewer Bitcoin entering the system over time until 2140.
The mining reward curve illustrates a dropping block reward after each four-year Bitcoin halving event. The pattern will also continue until 2140, when the last Bitcoin will be mined and introduced into the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin halving is a significant event and one that is fundamental to the Bitcoin protocol. It happens every four years to counteract inflation by maintaining BTC scarcity. The Bitcoin halving policy was written into Bitcoin’s mining algorithm and has been executed three times.
The first Bitcoin halving happened on November 28, 2012, reducing the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. On July 9, 2016, Bitcoin’s second halving happened, and the block reward was slashed to 12.5 BTC. The third Bitcoin halving was on May 11, 2020, after which miners earned 6.25 BTC for every block they discovered.
The next Bitcoin halving event will be the fourth, after which the block reward will drop to 3.125 BTC. That implies the rate of introducing new Bitcoin into the Bitcoin network will reduce. It would increase the scarcity of Bitcoin, and users expect it to have a significant impact on the cryptocurrency’s price.
Source: https://coinedition.com/today-marks-the-7th-anniversary-of-the-second-bitcoin-halving/