The fourth halving in Bitcoin's history has entered the final countdown, but no one can accurately predict the exact time of the halving. The currency circle generally expects it to occur around April 19-20. The current block reward is 6.25 BTC, which will drop to 3.125 after the halving.

What is halving

When the Bitcoin blockchain generates 210,000 blocks, the miner's block reward will be halved. This halving occurs approximately every four years and will slow the issuance of Bitcoin until the total issuance of Bitcoin reaches 21 million. Currently, more than 19 million Bitcoins have been mined, and nearly 2 million remain to be mined.

Encoded into the Bitcoin protocol by Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto, it is a way to limit the total supply of Bitcoin and increase its scarcity in order to avoid the uncontrolled issuance of traditional fiat currencies.

The last Bitcoin is expected to be released in 2140, and there will be no more additional Bitcoins after that. By then, Bitcoin may fall into a certain degree of deflation, which will then push up prices. At that time, miners will no longer receive mining rewards for mining new blocks, and can only earn income through transaction fees from users.

The reason why halving has received widespread attention is that many halvings in history are also closely related to the bull cycle of the entire digital currency market. Bitcoin's inherent scarcity, coupled with the historical increase in demand after previous halving events, has fostered a sense of digital scarcity, which may lead to potential upward pressure on prices.

Does the halving have to happen every four years?

Although Bitcoin halvings are generally expected to occur every four years, the actual time interval between halvings can vary due to the self-adjusting mechanism of the protocol. The 10-minute block time target ensures that a new block is added to the blockchain approximately every 10 minutes. However, as the network computing power fluctuates, the time to achieve this goal will also fluctuate. If miners collectively exceed the target, the difficulty will be adjusted upward, causing the next halving to occur later than the expected four years.

There have been three halvings in history. The miner reward was reduced from 50 BTC per block to 25 BTC in 2012, and then to 12.5 BTC in 2016. The last halving was on May 11, 2020, when it was reduced to 6.25 BTC. After each halving of Bitcoin, the price rose rapidly and reached a record high.