The Bitcoin Halving (or “Halvening”) is a fundamental aspect of Bitcoin's monetary policy, programmed into its blockchain protocol by its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. The process reduces the block reward — the number of bitcoins granted to miners for validating transactions and adding a new block to the blockchain — by 50% approximately every four years, or after every 210,000 blocks mined. The initial block reward was set at 50 bitcoins per block when Bitcoin was launched in 2009. Since then, there have been three halving events: • November 28, 2012: The reward was reduced to 25 bitcoins. • July 9, 2016: ... (full story)