The Bitcoin halving, which the entire cryptocurrency market follows closely, has finally happened.
Bitcoin miners, 840,000. They ushered in a new era of Bitcoin by mining the block. In the new period, miners will now receive 3,125 BTC rewards per block instead of 6.25 BTC.
With the halving, Bitcoin's inflation rate will be roughly halved, dropping from 1.7% to 0.85%.
Transaction blocks on the BTC network are added roughly every 10 minutes, and Bitcoin code stipulates that the reward for miners will be reduced by half after every 210,000 blocks are created. The next halving is estimated to occur in 2028.
The first BTC halving took place in November 2012. The next halving occurred in July 2016 and the most recent halving occurred in May 2020.
Rewards for mining started at 50 BTC per block when BTC was launched in 2009. This amount is halved every time a new halving occurs. For example, after the first halving, the reward for BTC mining dropped to 25 BTC per block.
The last halving will occur in 2140. At this point, there will be 21 million BTC in circulation and no more coins will be produced. From now on, miners will only be paid transaction fees.
Analysts note that miners may shift processing power away from BTC when the next halving occurs as they seek more transaction fees elsewhere to make up for lost bitcoin revenue.
*This is not investment advice.