Over the past few months, the Bitcoin world has been totally consumed by the halving that took place late last night.
Many people believed the Bitcoin world would come crashing down, while others thought that the halving would cause Bitcoin to moon.
But now the Bitcoin halving is done and dusted, what lays ahead for the number one cryptocurrency in the next four years?
The Bitcoin halving is now complete and we’re seeing 6.25 BTC block rewards
A Fitting End to 12.5 BTC Blocks
In the run-up to the halving which took place at block 630,000, many people believed a wide range of theories.
One such theory was that Bitcoin would shoot up and become worth tens of thousands of dollars almost instantly.
However, just we predicted, the halving was followed by a slight pullback towards the $8,000 region.
Another theory was that miners would abandon the network, causing the hash rate to drop and transactions to sit in the mem pool for days on end.
Fortunately for everyone that loves Bitcoin, there was no real change in hash rate outside of the daily average.
Hash rate on the Bitcoin network remained much the same
Antpool mined block 630,000, the first block with the 6.25 BTC reward, while f2pool mined the final block of the 12.5 BTC rewards.
In that final block, also known as block 629,999, f2pool left a rather touching tribute to the genesis block that Bitcoin enthusiasts will truly appreciate.
The final block of the 12.5 BTC rewards was mined by f2pool, leaving a touching message
What’s Next for Bitcoin?
The next big event in the Bitcoin calendar has still yet to receive a definite date, but it’s going to bring some huge changes to Bitcoin that are arguably more important than the halving.
In Bitcoin’s next soft fork, a process Bitcoin goes through every now and then to add in new features and upgrades, we’re expecting to see Schorr Signatures, Taproot and Tapscript deployed.
Bitcoin will soft-fork this year. It will be one of the most innovative additions to L1 thus far:
bip-schnorr+bip-taproot+bip-tapscript
These are powerful foundational technologies that will bring novel smart contracts to Bitcoin’s base layer.
2020 will be good. https://t.co/aVVGNdNziR
— Lucas Nuzzi (@LucasNuzzi) January 16, 2020
However, it’s still not yet clear whether these will go live towards the end of 2020 or in the early months of 2021. Either way, this is the next big event for Bitcoin, outside of regulations.
What Are Schorr Signatures?
Unless you’re up to date with all the Bitcoin lingo, then Schorr Signatures might seem a little confusing.
Simply put, Schorr Signatures give more privacy to multisignature transactions while taking up less on the blockchain.
For your average joe that just likes to use Bitcoin at your favorite Bitcoin casino, then this feature will likely be of no use to you as it’s intended more power users of Bitcoin.
Is Taproot and Tapscript Useful? Or Just for Power Users Too?
Taproot and Tapscript are both features that are going to be included in the next Bitcoin soft fork, but their benefits aren’t really for everyone.
Similarly to Schorr Signatures, your average joe isn’t going to be using Taproot and Tapscript.
These new features will allow more complex transactions to take place in Bitcoin, which is rather exciting if you want more flexibility when making transactions in Bitcoin.
This does mean that simple and easy to use wallets can implement this technology in a way that allows regular joes to use these features.
For example, a basic wallet could make transacting with these features as simple as clicking a button and selecting an option from a dropdown.
If this is the case, your average joe could dabble with this new tech and make more interesting and complex transactions.
Is That it?
Unfortunately, the world of Bitcoin coding and its updates is rather limited. Halvings simply cut the block rewards and happen every four years, while soft forks occur sporadically.
There are no other real events in the pipeline in terms of coding, so if you’re looking for your next moon signal, you’re best off checking out how Bitcoin is getting adopted around the world.
Until next time!
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