Crypto fans count down to bitcoin's 'halving'

LONDON: Bitcoin enthusiasts were eagerly waiting for bitcoin's 'halving' on Friday (Apr 19) - a change to the cryptocurrency's underlying technology designed to cut the rate at which new bitcoins are created.

The halving, which happens roughly every four years, was written into Bitcoin's code at its inception by pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto as a way to reduce the rate at which bitcoins are created.

Chris Gannatti, Global Head of Research at asset manager WisdomTree, which markets bitcoin exchange-traded funds, called the halving "one of the biggest events in crypto this year".

According to CoinGecko's countdown clock, the halving is scheduled to happen in the early hours of Saturday GMT.

For some crypto fans, the halving will underscore bitcoin's value as an increasingly scarce commodity - Nakamoto capped bitcoin supply at 21 million tokens - while sceptics see it as little more than a technical change talked up by speculators to inflate the virtual currency's price.

The halving works by halving the rewards cryptocurrency miners receive for creating new tokens, making it more expensive for them to put new bitcoins into circulation.

It follows a surge in bitcoin's price to an all-time high of US$73,803.25 in March, having spent much of 2023 slowly recovering from 2022's dramatic plunge. On Thursday the world's biggest cryptocurrency was trading at US$63,800.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been supported by excitement around the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to approve spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January, as well as expectations that central banks will cut interest rates.

Previous halvings occurred in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Some crypto fans point to price rallies that followed them as