Crypto Dictionary
Halving
Definition
An event where the reward for mining new blocks is halved, meaning miners receive 50% fewer coins for verifying transactions.
Deep Dive
Halving, often referred to as "the halving event," is a pre-programmed and significant phenomenon within certain cryptocurrency protocols, most notably Bitcoin. It refers to the periodic reduction by half of the block reward that miners receive for successfully verifying and adding a new block of transactions to the blockchain. This event is hardcoded into the protocol to occur at regular intervals, typically after a specific number of blocks have been mined.
Examples & Use Cases
- 1Bitcoin's halving events, which occur approximately every four years (after every 210,000 blocks), reducing the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC, then 12.5 BTC, 6.25 BTC, and so on.
- 2Litecoin's halving, which also halves its block reward roughly every four years, affecting its supply issuance.
- 3Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin SV (BSV), as forks of Bitcoin, also have their own halving schedules that mirror the underlying mechanism.
Related Terms
Block RewardMonetary PolicyScarcity