Countdown to Bitcoin’s halving
Every four years, or more specifically, after 210,000 blocks are mined, the Bitcoin network halves its block reward. When the Bitcoin Network was first launched, the block reward was set at 50 BTC. This meant that any miner or group of miners involved in mining a block received a 50 BTC reward. After 2 halvings, this reward now stands at 12.5 BTC, and is set to drop to only 6.25 BTC in a matter of hours. This is what happened 4 years ago.
The last halving occurred on July 9, 2016. In early July 2016, the BTC was trading at about $673, having fallen from a peak of over $750 the previous month. Bitcoin then fluctuated between $600 and $700 on that day, reaching a high of $666.
Bitcoin continued without major variation until the end of the month, after which it experienced a dramatic sale, and crashed to $533 on August 3. Then it began to recover.
This recovery became one of the most important moments in Bitcoin’s history, as it gradually rose to over $1,000 in January 2017, $2,000 in May, $4,000 in August and $8,000 in November of the same year.
Bitcoin recorded its all-time high of $20,089 on December 17, 2017, which is equivalent to a 2.916% increase between the date of the second halving and its price peak. This rise from $666 to $20,089 took a total of 17 months.
With this halving so close, Bitcoin’s “dominance rate” essentially indicates Bitcoin’s current share of the total market cap for crypto. A high dominance rate demonstrates that people find Bitcoin more attractive right now than all other crypto competitors combined. Do you agree with this statement? What do you think will happen after today’s halving? Let us know in your comments below.
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