For the first time in nearly four years, and for only the third time in its 11-year history, bitcoin is about to undergo a seismic shift to its technological foundations. The halving event will not only affect how bitcoin is created, it will likely also have a significant impact on the entire cryptocurrency market.
Scheduled to take place next month, the event all stems from bitcoin's unique digital design. Unlike traditional currencies, the number of bitcoins that will ever exist is fixed. The mathematical code underpinning the cryptocurrency means that only 21 million bitcoins can ever be produced and no amount of quantitative easing can artificially inflate this.
More than 18 million bitcoins have already been produced through a process called mining, whereby new units of the cryptocurrency are generated by networks of computers programmed to solve complex mathematical puzzles.
The imminent halving of bitcoin, however, is about to make this process considerably more difficult.
What is halving and why is it necessary?
The halving event, sometimes referred to as “the halvening”, is essentially the opposite of quantitative easing – so much so that some crypto enthusiasts refer to it as quantitative hardening.
As the name indicates, the halving cuts the production of bitcoin in half in such a way that mining the cryptocurrency only generates 50 per cent of the yield it used to.