Brave New Coin Weekly Bitcoin halving countdown update: 9th 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 has bounced back after a significant fall, bringing the predicted halving dates forward

This week’s consolidated (across all Brave New Coin prediction models) Bitcoin block reward having prediction date is 12/05/2020 0:07.

The consolidated prediction date from a week earlier was 15/05/2020 0:07 This week’s predicted date is 57 hours and 50 minutes earlier than last week. Each model is recalculated every day. The consolidated block halving prediction date has been pushed back quite significantly.

The Bitcoin network’s hashrate continues to recover with a recent downward difficulty adjustment making mining more economical in the short term. Hashrate continues to trend upwards creating added anticipation which is set to occur in just over 30 days.

The start of April is set to be a key period for SHA256 miners with the first halving event for the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network set to occur this week. Following the event on the network, block rewards are halved and mining profitability on the network shrinks significantly. Block rewards on the Bitcoin Cash network are set to drop from ~US$3,045 to ~US$1,970, and Bitcoin Cash block rewards as a percentage of Bitcoin (BTC) block rewards continue to slide.

In the short term, SHA256 miners may choose to allocate resources away from the Bitcoin Cash network and towards the Bitcoin network before it has its reward halving adjustment about a month from now. This may mean the Bitcoin network’s hash rate will continue trending upwards in the near term, pushing forwards its predicted halving dates.

Over the last week the BTC price and hashrate have both risen strongly. Price and hashrate often follow each other, and improving sentiment in crypto markets raising the value of crypto assets has made miners more confident about returning to work on the blockchain.

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 14:16

Average predicted block halving date the week before across the 8 different models = 15/05/2020 00:07

Difference= 57 hours & 50 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 05/04/2020)= 07/05/2020 23:30
Predicted halving date a week before= 12/05/2020 21:32

__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.

Average predicted halving date (first observation 01/01/2019)= 12/05/2020 02:39
Predicted halving date on 22/03/2020= 12/05/2020 08:00

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 16:24

Predicted halving date on 01/03/2020= 15/05/2020 03:35

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)= 13/05/2020 18:24

Predicted halving date on 01/03/2020= 14/05/2020 07:14

https://bravenewcoin.com/data-and-charts/bitcoin-halving

Network fundamentals

Average Daily Hashrate 05/04/2020-30/03/2020= 106,025,631,969 Th/s

Average Daily Hashrate the week before= 101,931,941,371 Th/s

Percentage change= 4.02%

Bitcoin left to be mined before the halving as of 23/03/2020= 67412.5 btc