Bitcoin block mining reward has decreased from 25 to 12.50 BTC. So far, it does not seem to have any significant impact on the community except for proving one more time the stability of the protocol.

The upcoming bitcoin halving has been a subject of ongoing discussion among bitcoiners for almost a year, as testified by a number of Reddit threads, one of which started as early as August 2015. The opinions varied considerably. Some forum participants expected that a limited supply of bitcoins would cause a great surge in price. Others were more sceptic or outright mocking, one Redditor remarking:

“If you cut the supply of dog feces in half, does its value rise?”

As the event was approaching, bitcoin price began to grow for real. Starting from $453 on 27 May, it leapt close to $700 on 13 June. While there were other important factors behind this surge, such as the tremendous growth of demand for bitcoin in China and the upcoming Brexit vote in the UK, the expectations of the bitcoin halving also played their role.

However, immediately after the halving, the bitcoin price dropped from $660 to $632 before stabilising in the range of $645-660. At the press time, one bitcoin is worth $648. Nevertheless, it did not stop bitcoiners from enthusiastic predictions that the cryptocurrency would, yes, “go to the moon”.

Some remembered the first halving, which took place in November 2012. At first, the event did not seem to seriously influence bitcoin price. However, the price started growing over the next months: from $11 at the time of halving to $20 in January 2013. After a jump to $220, it stabilised at $150 in April 2013. The comparison provoked remarks both enthusiastic and sceptic:

Will shoot to $8,000 in two or three days (boogie) Yes looks like we are heading to 150$ too (forgotmyoldusern)

In general, there is a lot of sarcasm showing that the bitcoin community is tired of the ceaseless price discussion. Commenting the prediction that bitcoin halving would bring the price to $3000, Reddit user Chairmen Pao rеacted:

I really need price to hit $5000 or I'll need to get a smaller yacht :'(

Of course, the cryptocurrency price is not the only preoccupation of bitcoiners. Many discuss the future of the mining industry that will earn half as much money after the block reward reduction. What complicates the situation for miners even further is the growth of difficulty. The user jwBTC says:

“Yeah I'm a miner and this halving sucks just like the last one for me, but difficulty is the real variable that make and break miners and most people have no clue about. Difficulty is now 4x higher than it was a year ago, so we've already had the equivalent of TWO HALVINGs in the past 365 days!”

The major bitcoin mining firm KnCMiner went bankrupt in the end of May, and some others may follow suit. This may deal a blow to the decentralisation of the bitcoin network leading to the concentration of mining in the hands of stronger competitors. Accоrding to Marco Streng, co-founder of Genesis Mining,

“The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner. When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie.”

However, some Redditors suggested that miners would wait for the price growth to compensate for their losses even if they have to operate some time with a lesser profit or with no profit at all, similar to gas and oil producers that do not shut down their operations because of the current decline of prices.

In any case, bitcoin halving was celebrated throughout the bitcoin community as a great event showing the strength of the cryptocurrency and the stability of the protocol. For them, the very fact that bitcoin halving takes place exactly when programmed by Satoshi Nakamoto is a new reassuring sign. Bitcoin entrepreneur Muneeb Ali wrote on his Twitter:

Bitcoin halving means that 7 years into this experiment the software/protocol still sets the rules and participants (humans) listen. — Muneeb Ali (@muneeb) July 9, 2016

Henry Brade, CEO of Coinmotion and BTCStoreEU, declared:

The next #Bitcoin halving will be televised. — Henry Brade (@Technom4ge) 10 июля 2016 г.

His readers reacted by a dialogue:

I'm hoping for a national holiday by 2024 :) You mean world holiday? :) Indeed. Thanks for the correction :)

Alexey Tereshchenko