Halving
A pre-programmed event that cuts the block reward for mining new blocks in half, reducing the rate at which new coins are created. Bitcoin's halving occurs every 210,000 blocks (approximately every 4 years) and is a core mechanism for enforcing its deflationary supply schedule. Halvings are historically correlated with subsequent bull markets due to reduced sell pressure from miners.
“Bitcoin's most recent halving in April 2024 reduced the block subsidy from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC. After the three previous halvings, Bitcoin's price eventually reached new all-time highs.”
Bitcoin (BTC)
The first and largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is designed as a decentralized digital currency with a hard-capped supply of 21 million coins, enforced through a halving mechanism that reduces new coin issuance approximately every four years. It uses Proof of Work consensus and is often referred to as 'digital gold.'
Block Reward
The cryptocurrency awarded to a miner or validator for successfully creating a new block on the blockchain. Block rewards consist of newly minted coins (block subsidy) plus the transaction fees from all transactions included in the block. In Bitcoin, the block subsidy halves approximately every four years.
Mining
The process of using computational power to validate transactions and add new blocks to a Proof of Work blockchain. Miners compete to solve a cryptographic puzzle (finding a hash below a target difficulty), and the first to succeed earns the block reward plus transaction fees. Mining secures the network by making it prohibitively expensive to attack.
Token Supply
The quantitative metrics describing a token's availability: Circulating Supply is the number of tokens currently available in the market; Total Supply is all tokens that have been created minus any that have been burned; Max Supply is the absolute maximum number of tokens that can ever exist (if capped). These metrics directly impact market capitalization calculations and price analysis.