In light of new data, Bitcoin’s hashrate appears to be accelerating — which could mean that the next blockchain reward halving will happen at least a month sooner than expected.

According to its design, Bitcoin is set to go through an event known as a halving, which occurs after every 210,000 blocks that are mined. This has already happened twice in Bitcoin’s past.

The first BTC halving happened when miners mined block 210,000, after which, the rewards were cut in half from 50 BTC to 25 BTC per block. The second halving came around when miners reached block 420,000, and the rewards once again got cut in half, dropping from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC.

The third halving has not yet arrived, and it is tentatively scheduled to occur next year. However, while it was originally predicted that it would happen in mid-May of 2020, it appears as though it could arrive almost an entire month sooner.

Why Is This a Big Deal?

In order to understand why this is so important, it should be noted that Bitcoin’s entire blockchain was designed to be rather precise when it comes to these events. Bitcoin’s total supply is set at 21 million BTC, and it will never have a single coin over this amount. In fact, due to the halving process, the 21-millionth coin won’t be mined until the year 2140 as mining rewards continue to get cut into minuscule amounts.

Another component to the mining equation in Bitcoin’s design is ‘block difficulty,’ which makes BTC block solving more difficult as more miners join the process. In other words, with more computing power and resources available for solving blocks, the blocks themselves become more difficult to solve. In that way, each block requires about 10 minutes to be solved.

This brings a certain level of stability to mining, making it possible to a certain degree how much BTC will be released in a certain period of time.

Early Delivery

The issue now is that the hash rate seems to be accelerating, meaning that the blocks are being solved faster than 10 minutes. In other words, block difficulty is failing to keep up with all the computing power that is available at the moment, which is a rather fascinating phenomenon.

It would indicate that Bitcoin miners are more enthusiastic than ever, and possibly that their numbers are growing rapidly. This is likely caused by the proximity of the halving itself, which is often seen when it comes to such events.

Historically, the price of a cryptocurrency surges rapidly in months before a halving takes place. It was seen most recently with Litecoin, which was one of the best performers a few months ago, before seeing its block rewards cut in half yet again. However, the situation is likely to be significantly more intense when it comes to Bitcoin.

BTC price has always been way ahead of most other altcoins, with the potential to grow enough to reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions, according to some experts. While this may still lie in its long-term future, the short-term future is very likely to see a significant price surge. And, with the halving date possibly occurring one month ahead of schedule, it is understandable why this is a big deal for the Bitcoin community, as well as for the rest of the cryptocurrency market.

After all, any growth of Bitcoin’s price is immediately followed by the growth of most altcoins prices as well, which might indicate that the next big rally is just around the corner.

Do you think that Bitcoin’s price will grow soon? Do you plan to invest? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and tell us what you think about this new development.

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