Halving is one of the major events occupying the minds of crypto community currently, and it means slashing the rewards given to Bitcoin miners.
The process is mainly aimed at reducing the reward of miners and thus preventing the cryptocurrency from inflation.
It is very similar to what happens to gold. The more they mine gold, the more they deplete the mine.
Countdown
A total of 18.23 million coins have been mined, representing nearly 86.82% of the total number of Bitcoin to be ever produced, according to bitcoinblockhalf website.
Once 21 million coins are mined, the network will never produce anymore.
On the other hand, miners stopped mining new Ripples (XPR), and they currently trade one third of the available XPR and hold the remaining two thirds.
Halving Details
The miners solve equations to create a new block on a blockchain network. They get a reward for each block they get.
The reward of miners was 50 Bitcoin for each block they created.
However, the reward was reduced to 25, and then currently to 12.5.
On 12 May, the reward will be slashed to 6.25.
The halving rule was set by pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto almost a decade ago.
To read the previous capsules, please click the following links: What Are Peer-To-Peer Networks?, What Are Safe Havens?
