Bitcoin completes its fourth 'halving'

This is an algorithm to reduce the rate of creation of new bitcoins, thereby limiting inflation when too many people participate in mining bitcoins, while eliminating ineffective miners.

Binance exchange's announcement on social network

Notably, this is the first time bitcoin price has broken a record right before the halving event. Since the beginning of the year, the digital currency's value has increased 50%, reaching a peak of $73,797 last month, before falling in recent days.

Since the launch of the bitcoin digital currency in 2009, according to the halving algorithm, the reward for miners will be halved after the 210,000th block is mined. With an average block mining time of 10 minutes, the halving event usually takes place every 4 years. In 2020, the reward for mining a new block was fixed at 6.25 bitcoins, but now this reward is only 3,125 bitcoins.

Mr. Reginald Smith, an analyst at JPMorgan, believes that this halving will cut the revenue of the bitcoin mining industry in half. Meanwhile, some other experts say this event will expose the weakest bitcoin mining companies and potentially cause a wave of consolidation so that the strongest companies survive.

At around 00:30 GMT on the morning of April 20, after the Halving event, bitcoin price increased 0.7% to 63,467.46 USD.

Jessica Tanner

Update 20 April 2024