Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys.


The thing is every now and then in several topics (specially in economics section ) I hear the word bitcoin halving??

What does that word mean???  I really don't get it.


I would be grateful if anybody explains what is meant by it.

Thanks

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http://bfy.tw/5Nab

The reward for miners solving a block is halved.

An article:
http://mining.ghash.io/what-is-block-reward/

Yes the block reward for mining is halving which means instead of the 25 bitcoins rewarded for every block solved it will be lowered by half down to 12.5. So in essence the supply of bitcoins is halved . So in theory most people are expecting some sort of price rise due to a decreased supply of coin.

Thanks for the link and I'm from Egypt by the way  ::)

Thanks guys.  I understood now but miners must be upset for.that right ?

That's completely fucking wrong..

Not at all.

its simply to explain to newbie like that,and if that completly wrong,then what should we used for explain what bitcoin block halving is?
if you said that was wrong,then you should give us a right answer.

The only part he got correct was


He's making it sound like the total # of BTC goes from 21 million to 10.5 million, which is absolutely not true. The only thing that will change is the block reward.
The second part he got wrong is the price of bitcoin rising, in 2012 when halving occurred, it had no noticeable impact on the price per coin

Don't spread false information. He shouldn't have even replied if he didn't know the correct answer.

Some say it will make a big difference to the price (ie higher) but I'm really not convinced. A friend of mine who works in various parts of China tells me the electricity cost is like 5% of what we in the west pay so it seems to me it will make little difference to the Chinese miners. Will make a big difference to mining companies in the west though, if there are any left?

I don't get what's meant by this line ? Supply of the coin?

it is simple economics term, supply and demand here is an article from wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

in short i can say it is like this:
when they block rewards halves there will be less coins created each day and you can assume that there will be less coins being sold each day, hence less supply and if the demand stays the same or even gets bigger that will lead to price rise.

although there is a lot of argument about this , i am just saying the theory here don't shoot the messenger :)

I don't think it will make a difference for anyone. Noobs get confused into thinking that miners only get to keep the block reward, the block reward for each individual miner is extremely small by the time it gets divided up by the entire pool. They don't realize that every coin they mine they get to keep, I would say the majority of miners are mining at cost or just slightly under. Mining in itself is not very profitable, miners are just doing it based on speculation, they hold BTC for a significant time and sell during price spikes  

You're basing this off the assumption that many will quit mining after the next halving

Historically, this has not been proven to be true.

The amount of bitcoin that is be mined every day in not depended on the total number of miners. The block reward is a fixed amount. Now it is 25 bitcoin and after the halving it become 12.5 Bitcoin roughly every 10 minutes. So the amount of grow everyday is indeed halved but not by the number of miners.

So what is the main main reason for this halvening??

Like who is in charge of it?

Nobody is in charge of it. Also the halvening is stipulated in the bitcoinprotocol from 2009 and nobody can change that without the permission of more than 50% of all bitcoin users. That is the power of bitcoin.

So it can be refused to proceed with the halving if 50% of bitcoiners oppose of it?
That I was not aware of  :o

well... just like many altcoin. Bitcoin can be hard forked but it's a big decision so it must be agreed by the majority. It's quite obvious I can say :D

Bitcoin halving is when miners receive half of the original bitcoin when a new block is mined. It started with 50 btc per blocks mined. Then at November 28, 2012 the first subsidy halving occur. Some speculate that the price will increase dramatically because of the supply deceases and demand increasing. Others say that the miners will lose profit and stop mining, causing it to drop. However there is not much changes happened. THe bitcoin halving happens every 4 years to control the supply of bitcoin. Maybe in year 2140 there will be no new bitcoin generated.
You can read more at http://cryptocoinblog.com/what-is-the-halving-effect-in-bitcoin-mining-investments/

Halving basically means the halving of the block reward. Currently this figure stands at 25 BTC per block, it's soon going to be only 12.5. It's a great time to buy in, I suppose.

There is a similar question in the same section here where I have recently answered two.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1446999.0

I posted two links which are explaining exactly what halving is, which impact it will has and when it will come.

From the word bitcoin halving it means the block reward will be half from 25 to 12.5 and for the share holders it is the right time to sell their bitcoin because they can make a lot of profit from it like if they but it from $480 and sell it after bitcoin halving at $1200 and their profit is $720.

Thanks a lot guys. I think I kinda get the concept now.
X13 I'll those links as well ty. 😚😀

In bitcoin I have read that the code dictates that 21 million coins will be released over the course of bitcoin's life cycle. Trough limiting the total amount or number of bitcoins that could be created, Mr. Nakamoto was able to establish a defined amount of available data, a revolutionary accomplishment in and of itself.

The limited production of bitcoins was, in the same way, aimed at counteracting the endless printing of paper currencies, thus, there is halving.

in my opinion other than halving explanation, and this is the effect of halving can make the price increase, due to a reduction in the number of block reward, so that when the demand will increase and price will also increase.

The meaning of halving is making the block rewards half from 25 to 12.5 and resulting for miners to mine bitcoin harder after bitcoin halving event because the mining difficulty will rise. Other users said that after halving, Mining bitcoin will not be profitable anymore but i think that they are wrong because the price is adjusting and rising to make the mining halving still profitable ;D.

I don't really know what is meant with halving it, but I know something effect of halving surely when halving it will have an impact on the price increase.

This event, the moment when the mining reward is divided by 2, is commonly called "Bitcoin halving". and some other people are saying that because of it the price will go high .

In very short, it means m0000000000000000000000000000n :D
In longer version, it means 12,5 bitcoins mined every 10 minutes instead of 25. Thats huge.

Yes youre right every halving makes the bitcoin price to go up,, buyers and traders are waiting for this halving to come,cause for them it one way to make an easy profit..

Yeah it will go up because the stocks will be fewer than before and bitcoin will be hard to mine or earn. So it cause for other people to buy a lot of bitcoins on low price just like what happened on few weeks ago and they continue keeping it for the incoming halving because they believe that holding bitcoin can help us to make good profits because the price is continue rising and resulting for easy profit :).

Yes halving will take price of bitcoin higher and that is the reason everyone is holding their coins to get higher profits by selling their coins at that time.

That is true but we can't be sure about that high price that it will last for long time because the price of bitcoin is always depending on the users if the users will keep selling their coins after halving it will result for a massive drop for the price but it's a good thing in disguise because we can be able to buy bitcoin for a lower price again so it means that it's a opportunity to make more money because if we buy at a lower price i.e the price is $300 and we hold it again and sell it for $450 for 1 bitcoin and we can take home that $150 profit 8).

Price of bitcoin is not moving up now and that is really a big thing to worry as we were expecting some higher price by now but its not happening at a moment.

I assume by "stocks", you mean bitcoins. The number of bitcoins is always increasing toward 21 million. There will be more bitcoins after the halving than before the halving.

Bitcoins will be only temporarily be harder to mine until the difficulty drops and/or miner efficiency rises.

Bitcoins will not be harder to earn unless the price rises.

There has only been one Bitcoin halving, so I don't know why you write "every halving". Anyway, the price of a bitcoin was flat for two months after the first halving.

Maybe you are including the Litecoin halving last year. In that case, the price dropped after the halving and was flat for nine months.

I don't think that halving will show us the best price that we all are expecting from it but lets hope we may see higher price in compare to current price.

There is a price increase after halving because the supply of the coins are Low and The mining reward is halved!!!!!

Currently, the supply of bitcoins increases by 25 every 10 minutes. After the halving, the supply will increase by 12.5 every 10 minutes. Regardless, the supply is higher after the halving and it continues to increase.

I don't think people are buying at a moment as if they would be buying then price would not be stable and it will continue to move up, but its not happening at a moment.

Yeah that is right there is no hype on buying and almost users are just holding their bitcoins until halving but let just see and wait if the big whales will move and make a big change like pumping the bitcoin price or dumping it for a lower price which good for the big whales because they can buy more bitcoin and get big profits in the future.

In simple word it can be easily understandable.

Bitcoin is a First cryptocurrency(Digital Currency) in market having highest value of exchange against fiat currency. Bitcoin is based on SHA 256 scrypt and already defined some programs in it.

As Firstly when mining start at 2008 price for 1 mined block was 50 BTC as per day 3000 BTC can be mined according to this maths it takes 4 years to mine 210000 blocks after every 210000 blocks mined Halving Occurs.

Halving mainly affects on reward of blocks every-time it occurs.

Currently we are in second halving as 2012 to 2016 and currently block reward is 25 BTC. After 2nd halving price of block reward will be 12.5 BTC.

This process of decreasing price of block reward after every 4 years can be called as "Halving".

Thank you for a great explanation. So basically it just makes mining less affordable? Will this lead small miners to shut down shop or will BTC price increases balance out the reward loss? As it continues to half in the future will BTC become more centralized as only the huge mining farms will be able to "survive?"

mining is affordable and will remain affordable even if the price went down a little. halving will make mining less profitable.
also bitcoin price shouldn't change with halving to balance anything out, although this happens. and as for the future nothing is certain and always the amount of fees can change so that it matches the price and make mining profitable again if price goes down.

My understanding about halving is to give more value to bitcoin 50% more by making it harder to mine it in huge numbers. Think of gold mining. It is really hard these days to mine it and you need a more technically advanced equipment, tools, and methods of meaning gold before you get it. Miners are investing a huge amount of money to mine gold. By so doing, this makes the value of gold soaring and seems always increasing as time goes.

The comparison to gold mining is flawed because the same amount of bitcoins are mined regardless of how much money is spent mining them.

Just like bitcoin, the cost of obtaining the gold does not determine its value. Despite the increasing costs of mining gold, its price fell during the years 1981-2000 and 2011-2016.

There is not going to be a decreased supply of coin it will just be harder to collect from while mining because the reward will be 12.5 BTC per block and not 25 BTC per block.  In my opinion to many people are making to big of a deal on this.  It will get harder to mine, and the price will raise, but that is all. 

Mining, Halving, Market Cap and Price are individually separate thing but all are dependent.

Halving off course reduce price of block reward but rate of exchange is exponentially growing comparative to USD, we can get higher value for exchange of bitcoin. And as per time go it will too costly to transfer bitcoin with small amount as fee will be higher for transaction verification.