The Bitcoin community celebrates "halving day," a major milestone marking the 210,000th block mined, thereby reducing the Bitcoin created per block as part of the built-in deflationary promise.

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-- Today, the Bitcoin community celebrates a major milestone, the first “halving day.” For the first three years of the Bitcoin Network’s existence, each time a ‘block’ was found, 50 Bitcoins were issued to the lucky finder.As of 11/28/2012 at 15:24:38 UTC, however, only 25 BTC will be issued per block found. This halving of bitcoin issuance is an integral part of the money scheme’s deflationary promise, and is being treated as a community-wide holiday.Although Bitcoin miners will receive less Bitcoin for each block mined, according to Bitcoin theory, they believe decreased supply of Bitcoins will yield higher prices over time.The online Bitcoin community has been abuzz with the news, flooding online forums and using the Twitter hashtag #bitcoinhalvingday.“Today marks a major milestone for Bitcoiners everywhere. As a community, we negotiated this deflationary moment gracefully and without major incident.” said Peter Vessenes, Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation. “The excitement in the Bitcoin community is palpable - it seems we all really do believe in deflation.”As of this press release, Bitcoin prices were up 1% since close of business yesterday (current price: 12.34; COB 11/27/12: 12.2). Prices have risen more than 230% since January 1, 2012 (COB price 1/1/12: 5.26766).The next Bitcoin Halving Day will see bitcoin mining rewards drop to 12.5 BTC per block mined, which is not currently estimated to occur until November 2016.The Bitcoin Foundation was founded in September 2012 with the mission to standardize, protect, and promote Bitcoin cryptographic money for the benefit of users worldwide.