The fourth Bitcoin Halving event has finally concluded. The block reward for miners has officially decreased from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.
At 07:10 AM on April 20, 2024 , Bitcoin completed its fourth Halving at block 840,000, which was mined by the ViaBTC mining pool.
Although the reward in this block was halved from 6.25 BTC to just 3.125 BTC, block 840,000 still recorded over 37 BTC in transaction fees, worth more than $2.4 million USD. This shows that a significant part of the community wanted their transactions included in this historic block and also to catch up with the ‘Runes Protocol’ trend.
As explained by tonraffles, Halving is a BTC deflation mechanism designed to halve the amount of new coins generated as mining rewards every 120,000 blocks, approximately every four years. It is designed to prolong the Bitcoin issuance timeline, with a total maximum supply of 21 million BTC expected by the year 2140.
Since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009, the currency has undergone three Halvings in 2012, 2016, and 2020.
With this Halving, the block reward has decreased from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Future Halving events will continue until the last Bitcoin is expected to be mined around the year 2140. After that, miners will only earn from transaction fees.
The next Halving event is anticipated to occur between February and April 2028.
Bitcoin’s price experienced sudden fluctuations on April 19. After a drop to $59,600 in the morning due to news of Israel launching a missile retaliation against Iran, the largest cryptocurrency in the world recovered strongly to around $65,000 by evening. However, at the time of the halving, BTC stabilized around $63,500.
However, Halving has a greater impact on prices in the long term rather than the short term. According to historical data, after a Halving, BTC prices begin to enter a growth cycle and set new highs, which leads the entire cryptocurrency market upward. This is then followed by a strong correction.
However, the current situation seems somewhat different. Thanks to the momentum from ETFs after the SEC officially green-lighted Bitcoin spot ETFs in January 2024, BTC prices have climbed dramatically in the subsequent months. BTC broke the previous all-time high (ATH) recorded last season and set a new ATH of over $73,000 in March.
Therefore, it is difficult to predict how the price of the king coin will fluctuate after this Halving. This is especially true in the context of tense geopolitical situations that can impact the group of risk assets.