Bitcoin hits a milestone journey on Thursday as it traversed the halfway point to its next halving. The Bitcoin hash rate hit the 105,000th block establishing the halfway point to the next halving.
Bitcoin crossed the halfway point to the next halving at 10:29 UTC in block number 735,000. The mining was carried out by Poolin. It also earned him 0.16215354 BTC ($6,402.45) in fees.
A milestone to the next bitcoin halving
For every 210,000 blocks, a halving occurs. May 5 witnessed the point of the beginning of the second stretch of 105,000 blocks. At a time when few of the hodlers think to sell their BTC holdings, bitcoiners like Samson Mow consider that the halving is a reminder to stack up enough BTC to brace yourself.
Halving is necessary as it reduces the available number of bitcoin, which in turn increase the value of the BTC to be mined. Bitcoin recently crossed the 19 million mark, and the issuance rate currently stands at 6.25 new BTC in roughly over 10 minutes. With every new block, approximately $250,000 BTC is minted.
The previous halving took place on May 11th, 2020, and the next halving is set to take place in April 2024. The reward for each block produced on the chain was 50 bitcoins in 2009. After the initial halving, it was 25, then 12.5, and on May 11, 2020, it was 6.25 bitcoins per block.
The halving had a positive impact on the price every time. November 28, 2021, which witnessed the first halving, saw the price go from $12 to $1217 on November 28, 2013. On July 9, 2016, the second Bitcoin halving took place. The price of a bitcoin was $647 at the time of the halving, and by December 17, 2017, it had risen to $19,800. The next halving is also assumed to increase the BTC price exponentially. Post the next halving, the miners will witness the block reward plummet to 3.125 from 6.25 BTC.
Even though the reward will be halved, the difficulty of miners is also expected to be lesser as the value of BTC is expected to rise with every halving. The process of BTC to minimize the difficulty of mining will ensure that the miners are paid well. In a situation when all the 21 million bitcoins will be mined, the miners would still be rewarded as they will continue to validate and confirm new transactions.
As far as the bitcoin mining hash rate is concerned, it hit an all-time high.
On May 4th, the hash rate reached 249.1 exahashes per second (EH/s), surpassing the previous all-time record by one exahash. In other words, as the hash rate continues to rise, Bitcoin security has never been more robust as miners labor to safeguard the network.