Number Go Up Tech ™: PoW Cryptocurrency Halving Explained
A look at cryptocurrency halvings and their impact on price
Considering the upcoming halving for Epic Cash on June 25th, 2023, let’s explore what a halving means for fixed supply, proof of work (PoW) cryptocurrencies and the impact these events can have on price. According to Investopedia:
A halving event occurs when the reward for mining transactions is cut in half. Halvings reduce the rate at which new coins are created and thus lower the available amount of new supply.
Looking back, these halving events have had strong correlations with bull and bear markets in both Bitcoin and Epic Cash.
Epic Cash Halving Design
Epic Cash is a PoW, layer 1 cryptocurrency that improves upon Satoshi’s original Bitcoin whitepaper with cryptographic technology unavailable to the founder(s) in 2009, when the first block was mined. In the EPIC whitepaper from 2019, which borrowed many of Bitcoin’s design decisions, there are five era’s that converge on a singularity with Bitcoin’s supply emission in 2028. It seeks to follow the DNA of Bitcoin, while addressing its shortcomings.
In 2028, dubbed the Singularity, the total supply and declining mining rewards of both EPIC and BTC will match. We can see a chart from the whitepaper that puts this into perspective. As of two halvings from now for EPIC (June 2023, August 2025) and one for BTC (June 2024), the supply of both BTC and EPIC will stand at 20.3 million. Source: EDNA
Each of these mining eras in EPIC’s design end with a supply halving that reduces the mining reward as the emission converges the total supply asymptotically to 21 million. We can see each Era below in detail, also from the whitepaper.
*These dates may vary slightly due to actual blocks mined over the course of time
Currently in Era 3, the Epic Cash supply from miners will be reduced as we enter Era 4, from an emission rate of 5760 coins per day to 2880. In other words, the block reward reduces from 4 coins per minute to 2, or what is defined as a halving.
Bitcoin’s 3 previous halvings
Halving 1: This event occurred on November 28th, 2012 and the price of Bitcoin surged 8500% over the course just over a year, from $12 to $1032.
Chart courtesy of TradingView
Halving 2: The second halving on July 9th, 2016 prompted a bull market in the next year and a half, from a low of $465 to a high of $19,666, a gain of 4200%.
Chart courtesy of TradingView
Halving 3: The May 11th, 2020 halving, when BTC traded at $8787, prompted a third bull market, from a low of $3,850 in March 2020 to a high of $69,000 (1800%) with calls for a “supercycle” that didn’t materialize.
Chart courtesy of TradingView
Epic Cash previous halvings
Post Era 1 Halving: Era 1 ended on June 29, 2020 and like Bitcoin, resulted in a price increase from a low of 0.5 cents in March of that year to 61 cents over the course of 5 months. For context, BTC rose by 8,500% in one year, whereas EPIC returned 12,000% over 3 months.
Chart courtesy of CoinPaprika
Poste Era 2 Halving: During this halving, emission of 8 -> 4 coins per block occurred on 10/11/21, and this time the price of EPIC shot up from $0.21 in September to a high of $6.75 over the course of just 3 months. A resulting gain of over 3,000%, and an incredible 8,700% from the low just 6 months prior.
Chart courtesy of CoinPaprika
Epic Cash’s upcoming third halving
At the time of writing, there are less than 80 days to the next halving event for Epic Cash. EPIC’s price has already seen an increase from around $.30 to $1.95, and currently trades at $1.45 on 4/6/23.
While the market cap is arguably smaller than Bitcoin’s at each corresponding halving event, EPIC is less than 4 years old, and trading in the single digit dollars closely correlates to Bitcoin’s market cap as the technology was discovered by early adopters. This nascent asset, which underpins a growing ecosystem of financial products and services, has the fundamentals and Number Go Up Tech ™ with its third halving shortly on the horizon.
You can find more information about the project at epiccash.com.