The Bitcoin “halvening” happened last week—an event within the Bitcoin protocol where a new Bitcoin mining era started with the mining reward dropping to 12.5 BTC from 25 BTC. Speculation before the event held that something might happen to the market, economy or community; but so far, very little has changed in reaction.
After the Ethereum DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organization) attack with millions of dollars’ worth of ETH stolen, the Ethereum community has successfully executed a hardfork to secure the stolen funds. Keep reading for resources and details about that hardfork and the events leading up to it.
Ever wondered if you can live on only bitcoins? Bitcoin programmer Felix Weis answered that question in part by roaming the world for 18 months using only bitcoins to pay his way. Netki CEO spoke up at a conference suggesting that pokémon could be added to the blockchain (not a new suggestion, but still worth mulling over). Bitcoin mining equipment maker Bitmain acquires blockchain data analysis company Blocktrail.
Finally, Charlie Shrem, CEO of now-defunct Bitcoin exchange BitInstant has been released from a two-year jail sentence he received after being charged with money laundering.
As for the market, Bitcoin value is currently at $667.59 (BitcoinAverage.com) after showing a two percent dip from $677 over the last four hours. As for a weekly review of the price, the current market value is very close to what it was seven days ago. The market rose up above $685 during July 17; but fell once again back down to its more familiar price.
Bitcoin’s second “Halvening” came and went and not much happened
Last week saw something that seemed like it would be a momentous event for the Bitcoin market: the block discovery reward was halved, reducing to 12.5 BTC from 25 BTC. This is a planned event that is effected by the very code that runs the Bitcoin protocol, as more Bitcoins are mined (by way of miners securing blocks onto the Bitcoin blockchain) every so many the number rewarded will halve until eventually blocks will no longer produce rewards. This is because the pool of total bitcoins has a set limit at 21 million that will never be changed.
The halving event came and went on July 9, 2016. Not much happened to the market, the hashrate of miners working to add blocks to the blockchain or the economy and community in general.
According to Bitcoin Magazine examining the lack of reaction, the market exchange rate did not change as a result of the halving event—but the market value did increase before the halving in anticipation of the event. The current market value has been hovering around $673 (up only a little from $650 right before the event). However, on the run up to July, the Bitcoin market value rose approximately 50 percent from $450 in the three months before the event.
Hash rate, a metric that can help designate the health of the blockchain by measuring how much computational power miners are aiming at discovering blocks (and thus earning bitcoins as reward), did not change very much either. According to Bitcoin Magazine, the hash rate did not change much at all—dipping as little as one percent or less. It was predicted that some miners might drop out, or increase their power to make up for the half-reward, but the birds-eye view of the hash rate shares has not changed very much.
Finally, coupled with fears that miners might drop out with the reduction of potential profits from mining, are predictions about the stability of the network. So far, this has not happened, as Bitcoin market volatility still remains fairly smoothed out, hash rate has not changed and the number of miners has not changed that much.
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It could be too early to tell if there will be an impact, only a week and a half in. Miners would have already bought their mining equipment, the reward-halving event has been known for years (and its date of effect easily predicted) and miners would already have their equipment bought and paid for, rent paid, and electricity predicted for the month. It will likely take a few months for the running costs to catch up with sunk costs such as mining equipment.