Halving

Halving is a process in which the reward given to miners or validators in a cryptocurrency network is reduced by half after a certain number of blocks are processed. It is a crucial feature of several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC).The Bitcoin blockchain uses a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to validate transactions, which rewards miners with a share of the new BTC created in the process and a percentage of the transaction fees as an incentive to participate. Miners can sell their BTC through exchanges for other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies.New blocks are added to the chain every 10 minutes. The meaning of halving is that after the creation of every 210,000 blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain – which works out to approximately every four years – the reward is reduced by half.The frequency of such events is determined by the number of blocks on the chain rather than specific dates, so estimated halving dates can change slightly based on the pace of block creation.Blockchains that were created from a hard fork, or spinoff, from the Bitcoin blockchain – such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), and Litecoin (LTC) – or use its source code also experience halvings.