Bitcoin’s hashrate has been running hot despite the lower prices and the recent difficulty increases. In fact, blocks are being discovered faster than the ten-minute block interval average and because of this factor, the network’s reward halving may come sooner than expected. While some halving counters that simply leverage the ten-minute average note the halving is expected in May or April 2024, halving counters leveraging precise block interval times show the halving event could happen as early as March 1, 2024.
Show block interval The halving date may be much closer than most expected
While the cryptocurrency community is focused on The Merge, the hashpower behind the bitcoin network has been higher than usual, which has accelerated the block gap. Currently, there is 244.62 exhash per second (EH/s) dedicated to the blockchain, and on September 4, 2022, it tapped an accelerated lifetime high. 301.45 Eh/s at block height 752,510.
Just before the end of August, Bitcoin.com News reported on how Bitcoin’s block times have been much faster than the ten-minute average. When block times are faster than the ten-minute average and consistently remain faster during the two weeks leading up to a difficulty change, the shift will increase the difficulty.
The same happened on August 31, when the bitcoin network printed The second biggest difficulty increase in 2022. The difficulty increase did not slow down the miners and the next difficulty change, expected on 15 September, is expected to grow Again over 3%.
Block times have been a lot faster than the ten-minute interval and on September 11, the average block time was less than eight minutes. Block discovery speed has made it so the Bitcoin network halving may come a lot earlier than most expected. However, the estimate is based on the data and speeds recorded right now, and there’s still more than a year of time that could change things indefinitely.
Today’s information More from bitcoinsensus.com matrix goodhash.com indicates that the fourth halving of bitcoin will occur in March 2024. The date is much earlier than the most frequently used date May 3, 2024 Estimatewhich takes advantage of the ten minute block interval to calculate the halving date.
In fact, bitcoinsensus.com shows two counters with one based on current block times (8.50 Minutes) and one counter based on the average of ten minutes per block. Bitcoinsensus.com estimates that the current halving date, based on actual block times will be March 2, 2024. So instead of 598 days away, the Bitcoin block halving is estimated to be 509 days away.
NiceHash.com’s halving counter suggests that the date could be March 1, 2024, or a day earlier than the estimate shown on bitcoinsensus.com’s web portal. Each time 210,000 blocks are mined, the block reward is halved.
The current block reward is 6.25 BTC per block and by the time the next halving takes place, miners will get 3.125 coins per block post halving. A closer halving suggests the price could increase sooner than expected as bitcoin’s value typically rises ahead of the block reward halving.
