Bitcoin Forum

Hello,
is it advisable to reduce the halving time from 4 to 2 years, from 210 000 to 105 000 blocks?

It is possible, it would take only a hard fork. But that would not do any good.

If something like that happens, the total amount of coins mined by 2140 would not be 21 million, but less than that (as we are halving sooner, there will be less total mined coins). Less blocks with higher subsidy...

As people are thinking about creating sub satoshi units because 1 satoshi is already some money, reducing the total amount of mineable coins would not make any good.

No. Changes like that undermine the trust in Bitcoin. If this can change, halving can become a doubling too. Let's not go there.

I'm guessing this question is because you think that the last halving has something to do with Bitcoin's bull run now? Well if you want to reduce the period of the next expected Bitcoin halving because you want another bull run then I don't think it is advisable to do so. There is really no benefit on fast-forwarding the process of the next Bitcoin halving as definitely a lot of people will be affected especially the miners, we don't even know yet if the mining farms will be capable of operating giving those situations where the block rewards will be halve 2 years earlier that what we expected. With them being affected us users too will take a hit because of that, the bull run you are expecting might not even happen at all.

Since this is "Project Development" I'm going to assume you have a "new project" aka an altcoin, in which case it doesn't matter that much if the halving interval is 105k blocks or 210k as long as you keep in mind that this interval is not arbitrary, it is deciding the total supply and also how fast we get there. By changing it you also have to change block reward, block time, difficulty adjustment period and method, etc.
Also halving interval is not even among the top 50 things you need to think about when creating a new altcoin.

Bitcoin is very volatile, not even from day to day, but sinking much in between the halvings and rising too much around it.
Perhaps the timespan between the reducing of the availibility is to long for humans.
Some even call it a cyclical asset.
Perhaps the guess for the halving time for 4 years was a little bit to long.
For a more stable constant rise and a mature asset perhaps it has to be a shorter period
then nearly half a decade.
The total amount of 21mill coins has never to be touched.

Volatility of bitcoin is almost all about its market situation and has little to nothing to do with its halving. It is small and so excitable so we see sudden demand bursts where price shoots up, we see sudden panic sells where price drops, we see bubbles that burst eventually and lead to long bear markets, etc. all of which are because of the market not halving. Halving contributes very little to this situation.
Changing that interval specially from 4 to 2 is not going to change anything. The market will remain the same.

Every market that is subject to speculation will be volatile. It not only Bitcoin.

Apparently, the time span is long for naive and impatient crypto enthusiats.

Every asset has its own cyclical season.

Trust is an edible characteristic in every setting (business, relationship etc), the crypto community rally behind Bitcoin when the government was against it due to the trust they in Bitcoin, and if there suddenly changes in the total supply or halving timespan that trust will quench. Network upgrading is what Bitcoin need now but hard fork is the solution to your idea.

What's the problem exactly? I think one of the concerns regarding when we reach the total supply, miners will be less incentivized to mine Bitcoin, and probably quit because it is no longer profitable. Speeding up the halving would probably increase the speed of that going to happen no?

Not to mention with the current stock-to-supply ratio, I think we're seeing a pretty much stable increase in supply, and it does not affect volatility that much.

Man... you going to have a difficult time convincing full-nodes to do a hard fork for that. We saw how the previous hard forks went and people were fighting like cats and dogs.  ::)

Why don't you rather create a whole new Alt coin and work that into the protocol and see how many people would be interested in a "rushed" halving cycle.  ???

The Bitcoin (BTC) protocol is a well oiled machine now and there are Billions of Dollars invested into this experiment, so messing with a beast like that and risking people's investment ...is going to be a huge ask. (Rather do it with a whole new Alt coin, with no risk) 

A lower block reward means miners rely more on transaction fees. Every halving, miners are less incentivized to mine, but every halving, a new equilibrium is found. I don't expect this to be a problem when (decades from now) transaction fees are the main source of income for miners.
I'm always amazed how well Satoshi's planning works out.

Miners are not less incentivized to mine after a halving.  The system was designed to compensate miners with transaction fees as bitcoin grows

The problem is people are impatient.  More coin being moved means longer confirm times.   So we fork btc to make it faster, and that is what reduces incentive to mine.   We take away their highwall toll booth because the drivers complain the queue is too long, and the people paying for the highway move to more profitable enviroments.