Why did Beam halve? What is Halving?
This is a basic description of the halving event.
Cryptocurrencies are constantly being mined/created over time. They serve as rewards to the people who use their computers to store information and maintain the integrity of that blockchain.
The number of coins created is fixed over time. For example, every 10 minutes, 12.5 bitcoins are created on the bitcoin blockchain. The same way, every 1 minute, 100 Beam coins are created on Beam’s blockchain.
Halving is an event that slashes the rewards by half. The programmers write a code for the blockchain to execute at a set time. This code would make the blockchain reduce its reward by half once it is executed.
So, a few hours ago, that code was executed on the Beam Blockchain. And the rewards the blockchain gives has reduced from 100 coins to 50 coins.
Why is this a good thing?
Well, economically, it makes sense. For something to be valuable, it has to have a certain degree of scarcity. Take Precious Metals, for example, the more people find them, the lesser they become in the soil. And the harder it takes to find them, the more valuable humans perceive them to be.
Scarcity drives the demand for a thing, which in turn, increases its market value.
How often?
Most Cryptocurrencies have been programmed to continue halving periodically. Bitcoin, for example, halves once in every 4 years. The next bitcoin halving event will ‘probably’ happen on the 20th May 2020.
Beam was programmed to halve once in every 4 years too. After this one, its next halving event will happen in 2024. If things continue this way, Beam’s total supply of 262,800,000 coins would have all been mined in 132 years.
Credits: Many thanks to our Ambassador Wisdom Augustine who represents Beam in Southern Nigeria, in the city of Port Harcourt. For putting together this informative article.
