'Halving' arrives for bitcoin miners

NEW YORK, United States — The bitcoin market on Friday engineered the "halving" of the reward for operating the cryptocurrency, a much-anticipated step designed to limit production and boost the digital money.

"The 4th #Bitcoin halving is complete!," announced cryptocurrency exchange Binance on X, the former Twitter.

"The countdown has been reset -- see you in 2028."

Bitcoin is created as a reward when computers solve complex puzzles to decide which miner wins the privilege to validate the block -- and receive the reward in bitcoins.

However, since the digital currency's launch in 2009, the reward has been halved for every 210,000 blocks in a process called halving.

With one block validated roughly every ten minutes, this critical industry event occurs just under every four years.

The reward, which was fixed since May 2020 at 6.25 bitcoins per new block, has now fallen to 3.125 bitcoins.

Bitcoin was conceived in 2008 by a person or group writing under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

The halving process slows the rate at which new bitcoins are created, thereby restricting supply.

The reward amount has been trimmed over time, via halving, to implement Nakamoto's overall global limit of 21 million bitcoins.

But this ceiling is due to be reached by 2040.

"The primary purpose of halving is to control bitcoin's supply," City Index analyst Matthew Weller said in a research note ahead of the event.

"By slowing the rate at which new bitcoins are created, halving helps to maintain scarcity and potentially increase the cryptocurrency's value, assuming demand remains steady or increases," he added.

The price of bitcoin has blazed a record-breaking trail on the prospect of reduced supplies, as well as big moves toward greater trading accessibility.

Bitcoin has rocketed by 50 percent in value since the start of the year, climaxing last month at a record $73,797. Prices have fallen in recent days.

"This is the first time that bitcoin beat the previous historical record before the halving has even taken place," said eToro analyst Simon Peters, noting there had been a pullback in recent days.

Commercial bitcoin mining companies operate thousands of computers in huge hangers or