The global bitcoin ecosystem has one of its most anticipated events in the BTC halving. Expectations are always high because it marks the moment when coin issuance is halved, confirming bitcoin's definite and immutable disinflationary monetary policy. The activation occurs approximately every four years and each time has marked a before and after, in terms of its meaning for the Bitcoin network. The provisions of the code, written by Satoshi Nakamoto, have happened four times since 2012. Yesterday's halving, Friday, April 19, is the most recent, but it won't be the last, not yet. These four events have four “witnesses”: block 210,000, 420,000, 630,000 and 840,000. This is because the halving is like a Swiss clock, it happens exactly every 210,000 blocks. Here we present the “stories” of the four Bitcoin blocks narrated by themselves.
Block 210,000
«I was mined on November 28, 2012 by Slush Pool. It was almost 11:00 in the morning, Venezuela time, when I entered the chain. If Slush Pool is my mother, then my father is Satoshi Nakamoto, although I never met him because he disappeared a few months before I was born. I have another twin brother, but he went to live in Bitcoin Cash. At that time I think I was not well received because it was the first time that reward for my friends the miners was reduced. It went from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. I was born with that stigma.
First halving block of the bitcoin network. Source: mempool.space They tell me that at that time the price of one bitcoin was $12.25. Wow, and to think that for “mining me”, the network gave mom 25 bitcoin plus 13.56 BTC in fees. In total he pocketed $465. 2012 was a particular year, I was Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road market active and the disgraced exchange Mt. Gox. The latter, one of the hardest when it comes to using bitcoin. In that period the hashrate only exceeded 25 TH/s. Inside me there are 457 transactions that will remain for the rest of history. All processed by GPU graphics cards. I am the only halving block forged in that way when the difficulty still allowed it. I don't talk much to my neighbors 209,999 and 210,001, they can be seen as older than me because they have more transactions recorded. What is certain is that we are all in a row, one next to the other as if going to infinity.
Block 420,000
«They call me 'the decimal'. It turns out that when I hit the chain on July 9, 2016, the reward started having a decimal for the first time. It went from 25 bitcoin to 12.5 BTC and then they “baptized” me that way. Things are tight in here, there are 1,257 transactions that my mother F2Pool extracted. For that work she received 12.5 BTC plus 0.57 BTC in commissions, which represented about $8,484 at that time.
Block 420,000 was mined 8 years ago by F2Pool. Source: mempool.space I was the first halving block in which ASIC equipment for specialized mining was already available, but I don't look anything special. I'm more like a cube, just like all of us here tied to each other. At that time I heard a lot that programmers were designing a second layer on top of us, but I wasn't very aware of that. I did know that they called it the Lightning Network. Another thing I heard a lot about was something called SegWit. I remember there were people talking about a race, but I didn't know what it was about. It seems like it was something about the price of bitcoin. Then I learned that they were referring to the fact that, when I was already a year and a half old, a maximum price in the price of BTC was reached at that time.
Block 630,000
«The world was upside down when I was mined on May 11, 2020. There was a global COVID-19 pandemic. At Antpool they told me that I had arrived at a very difficult time, but to rest assured that they would continue with my 3,134 transactions. I was the first with an incentive reduced to 6.25 BTC. Governments were printing money like crazy and inflation took hold, over time, in many of the world's economies. Part of that money ended up in bitcoin., which caused the price to recover. I say this because I learned later that the price fell to less than $4,000 when the pandemic was declared.
The third Bitcoin halving was recorded in block 630,000. Source: mempool.space. He confessed that he was nervous about the news of contagion. My friends, the miners, were slow to update their equipment because the shipments did not arrive on time. Everything was chaos. At that time there were also many clandestine mining in China, but it was the country with the greatest computing capacity for all of us to stay safe. In my favor I can say, if you allow me, that unlike my brothers in blocks 210,000 and 420,000, I was until that moment the halving block with the most income, if we measure it in dollars. «At Antpool they received more than USD 66,000 for the incentive and commissions from me.»
Block 840,000
«I am 1 day old and I don't speak much. Last night I arrived at the chain with obesity, weighing 2.33 MB and containing 3,050 transactions. ViaBTC brought me to a network that only remains congested and where there are over 230,000 transactions to process. I identify with 420,000 and 630,000 because they are decimals, but I am more because I have three figures after the comma. I am the first with 3,125 BTC reward. They tell me blocks older than there was a lot of expectation for my arrival. There has never been so much interest in a block as I have, a marked one.
The Bitcoin network has experienced four halvings in its history. Source: mempool.space I have a lot to learn, there is everything on my walls: runes, transactions with RBF, addresses of all kinds, multi-signatures, Taproot, coinjoin, registrations and more. I need someone to explain many things to me. I heard him say to block 630,000 that the miners made a lot of money because of it. My block generated over $2.4 million in commissions and the reward was almost $200,000. I didn't want to say goodbye without saying this. There is a commotion with the runes for which I am not to blame. I don't know if that protocol will be a good or bad thing for bitcoin. The truth is that, at least for now, people complain a lot about how expensive it is to write or record data about us. Happy halving everyone!