By Morgen E. Peck

Last Wednesday, Bitcoin—the global, stateless, digital cryptocurrency that has won the heart of technophiles, libertarians, and privacy advocates everywhere—reached an important milestone. It marked the first change in the minting rate of the currency, a feature that Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin engineered very deliberately into its design. Late last week, the rate of new coins being created halved, from 50 every ten minutes to 25 every ten minutes. In approximately another four years, it will halve again.

What Satoshi may not have known is that this feature, intended to control the growth of the economy by predictable and indifferent metrics, would become an international, quadrennial holiday. Bitcoiners around the world celebrated Wednesday as the ball went down and many sent in their pictures, providing a rare visual tour of Bitcoin’s global reach.

Perhaps the only Bitcoin fan who is younger than the currency itself. Jonas, who is 2 ½ years old celebrated with his dad, Johannes Grill, in Austria.

Jonas points out the 210,000th block in the Bitcoin block chain a minute after it was created.

This one, sent in by Erik Voorhees of BitInstant (far left), was taken at the starting gate of a celebration in the casinos of Macau. Presumably they’ve crossed the finish line by now.

Solid representation from Campinas in São Paulo, Brazil, sent in by Felipe Lalli.

Until 2016, Happy Halving Day!

Top image credit: Vitalik Buterin

Morgen E. Peck is a contributor to IEEE Spectrum, Innovation News Daily and Scientific American.