Brave New Coin Weekly Bitcoin halving countdown update: 16th April
What is the Halving?
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, with no central authority. The Bitcoin network is secured by miners which are specialized computers that use a consensus mechanism called “proof of work” to verify each block of bitcoin transactions.
The miner that verifies each block is rewarded for their work with newly-created bitcoins. This ‘block reward’ is how new bitcoins are released into the system. A new block of transactions is added to the Bitcoin blockchain approximately every 10 minutes. The current reward is 12.5 bitcoins per block.
An average of 144 blocks are mined every day which means approximately 1,800 new bitcoins are generated every 24 hours.
The number of new bitcoins that are created via the block reward is reduced by half every four years. This is known as the Bitcoin Halving. The next halving will be the third halving, and the current block reward of 12.5 bitcoins will reduce to 6.25 bitcoins.
This week in the halving countdown
The Bitcoin network’s hashrate continues to recover following a mid-March collapse. A number of halving predictors are now converging around the 12th May.
This week’s consolidated (across all Brave New Coin prediction models) Bitcoin (BTC) block reward having prediction date is 12/05/2020 18:24.
The consolidated prediction date from a week earlier was 13/05/2020 15:30 This week’s predicted date is 21 hours and 54 minutes earlier than last week. Each model is recalculated every day. The consolidated block halving prediction date has been pushed forward.
The Bitcoin network’s hashrate has grown steadily over the last week and miners continue to recover and input electricity back to the network following the March 13th BTC price Black Swan event. Block halving prediction times are based on average daily block times, as hashrate increases more blocks are produced each day, pushing forward the predicted halving dates.
While the Bitcoin network’s hashrate has benefited from a surge in miner output over recent days, this may be set to change with a large difficulty adjustment set to occur in 4 days. Popular Bitcoin analyst, Plan B, suggests that the adjustment will be “epic”.
“Difficulty” is a measure of how difficult it is for miners to solve Bitcoin hash problems. It is designed to be adjusted every 2016 blocks by an algorithm that attempts to ensure a block is published on the network approximately every 10 minutes. A positive difficulty adjustment, such as the one expected in 4 days, is used to slow down network block production when rates are faster than the targeted level.
The upcoming difficulty adjustment is an automatic network response to new industry hardware that is letting network miners publish blocks at a rate faster than 10 minutes. The adjustment will lead to the capitulation (complete exit) of some smaller miners that are likely only maintaining profitability at lower difficulty levels.
https://bravenewcoin.com/data-and-charts/bitcoin-halving
Halving prediction dates (average across the week)
Average predicted block halving date 22/03/2020 across the 8 different models= 12/05/2020 13:16 Average predicted block halving date the week before across the 8 different models= 12/05/2020 14:16 Difference= 59 minutes earlier
Date Convergence charts
Scenario 1: Average Daily Block Time
This is the average execution time of all Bitcoin blocks mined the day before. This model estimates the number of days left until the next halving, by multiplying the average daily block time by the number of blocks left to be mined before the next halving. Using this measure we calculate the timestamp for next halving.
Average predicted halving date (first observation 01/01/2019)= 12/05/2020 22:29
Predicted halving date on 12/04/2020= 11/05/2020 08:33
Scenario 2: Cumulative Average Block Time
This is the cumulative numerical average of execution time of all Bitcoin blocks mined till the present day. In order to remove the long gap between the initial block execution, the average block time between those blocks is taken as 600 seconds. We estimate the number of days left until the next halving, by multiplying the cumulative average block time with the number of blocks left to be mined before the next halving. By using this measure we calculate the timestamp for next halving.
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Average predicted halving date (first observation 01/01/2019)= 08/05/2020 12:42
Predicted halving date on 12/04/2020= 11/05/2020 22:50
Scenario 3: Simple Moving Average Block Time 50 day
This is an arithmetic moving average of all block times calculated by adding the average block time of blocks executed each day for the last 50 days of the period. This is a lagging technical indicator which applies an equal weight to all observations over the period for determining if the block time will continue to have the same trend or reverse it. If the simple moving average points up, this will explain the increase in the number of blocks executed which means the halving date will arrive faster than expected. If it is pointing down it means that the blocks executed will decrease on a daily basis and the halving date can move further away.
Average predicted halving date (first observation 01/01/2019)= 13/05/2020 18:15
Predicted halving date on 01/04/2020= 13/05/2020 03:50
Scenario 4: Exponential Moving Average block time 200 day
This is a type of moving average where a greater significance is given to the most recent average block times. This provides good signals on crossovers and divergences from the historical average block time. This is a lagging technical indicator. When the average block time crosses the moving average block time, the large changes are expected in the average block time, where the trend changes direction. As EMA provides higher weight to the recent daily average block time than on older data, it is more reactive to the latest block time changes.
Average predicted halving date (first observation 01/01/2019)= 15/05/2020 06:36
Predicted halving date on 01/03/2020= 13/05/2020 13:58
https://bravenewcoin.com/data-and-charts/bitcoin-halving
Network fundamentals
Average Daily Hashrate 12/04/2020-06/04/2020= 109,802,926,261 Th/s
Average Daily Hashrate the week before= 106,264,611,798 Th/s
Percentage change= 3.33%
Bitcoin left to be mined before the halving as of 23/03/2020= 54050 btc
OhNoCrypto
via https://www.ohnocrypto.com
Aditya Das, Khareem Sudlow