The Bitcoin blockchain has experienced its third block reward halving on May 11, 2020, at approximately 3:21 p.m EST, even though quite a few countdown clocks estimated that the halving would occur on May 12. Bitcoin miners now get 6.25 BTC per block rather than the 12.5 BTC they acquired before the halving.
On Sunday, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the bitcoin halving that was expected to happen on May 12, 2020, but due to the speed of the network, it happened to take place on May 11 instead. At the time of publication, BTC’s hashrate is around 120 exahash per second (EH/s) and the price has been hovering in the mid-$8K range (between $8,300-8,700) per coin all day long.
The halvings happen every four years (210,000 blocks) on the BTC chain, and the last two were in 2012 and 2016. Before the first halving, miners got 50 coins and after that event, the block reward was cut down to 25 coins per block. The second halving saw the reward cut in July 2016, as it was shaved down to 12.5 BTC per block.
The halving means no matter how miners feel about it, the reward (revenue) they get per block will be chopped in half. In our previous article, it was mentioned that there were three key data points to watch leading up to the halving which include; countdown clocks, the overall hashrate, and the price per BTC. Now that the halving is over and block 630,000 has been mined, the last two key data points will still be watched with great interest. One could also add that BTC’s network difficulty will be another statistic to watch during the days and
