Excitement is brewing in the cryptocurrency community as both Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) gear up for their respective halving events.
With these highly anticipated milestones on the horizon, investors and enthusiasts are eagerly counting down the days until the reward for mining, along with its inflation rate, is cut in half.
Halving events, which occur typically every four years for both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, are programmed into the protocols of these cryptocurrencies as a means of controlling inflation and supply entering the market.
By reducing mining rewards by half and then decreasing the rate at which new coins are generated, halvings serve to increase scarcity and establish a deflationary supply model, frequently leading to upward pressure on prices.
Bitcoin halving countdown
For Bitcoin, the next halving event is expected to occur in April 2024, when the block reward for miners will be reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.
This reduction in reward for Bitcoin miners is anticipated to have a significant impact on the supply dynamics of Bitcoin, potentially driving up demand and pushing prices higher.
Multichain crypto and blockchain explorer OKLink gives the current countdown to the Bitcoin halving event as 42 days and 10 hours, with an estimated date of April 20, 2024. The remaining blocks left for this event are currently 6,114.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) halving countdown
Similarly, Bitcoin's hard fork, Bitcoin Cash, is also gearing up for its halving event, which is scheduled to take place in April 2024 as well, albeit earlier than the Bitcoin halving event.
According to OKLink, the Bitcoin Cash halving event is expected to occur in the next 26 days, with a countdown of 26 days and 9 hours as of this writing. The expected date for the BCH halving event is April 4, 2024.
At that time, the block reward for miners will be halved from 6.25 BCH to 3.125 BCH per block, mirroring the reduction in mining rewards seen with Bitcoin.