What is bitcoin's 'halving', and does it matter?
Depending on where you sit, the halving is a vital event that will burnish bitcoin's value as an increasingly scarce commodity, or nothing more than a technical change talked up by speculators to inflate its price.
But what exactly is it, and does it really matter?
WHAT IS IT?
The halving is a change in bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology, designed to reduce the rate at which new bitcoins are created.
Did you Know?
The world of cryptocurrencies is very dynamic. Prices can go up or down in a matter of seconds. Thus, having reliable answers to such questions is crucial for investors.
View Details» Bitcoin was designed from its inception by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto to have a capped supply of 21 million tokens.
Nakamoto wrote the halving into bitcoin's code and it works by reducing the rate at which new bitcoin are released into circulation.
So far, about 19 million tokens have been released.
HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?
Blockchain technology involves creating records of information — called 'blocks' — which are added to the chain in a process called 'mining'.
Miners use computing power to solve complex mathematical puzzles to build the blockchain and earn rewards in the form of new bitcoin.
At the halving, the
