Bit­coin ‘halv­ing’ event: What is it and how will it affect the price?

Every four years, the world observes the Sum­mer Olympics, the U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, and the much-antic­i­pat­ed bit­coin “halv­ing” event.
The next bit­coin halv­ing, or “hal­ven­ing,” is expect­ed to occur on April 20 at 11 a.m. East­ern time, and experts say this could have major impli­ca­tions for the cryp­tocur­ren­cy mar­ket.
What is the ‘halv­ing’ event?
The bit­coin “halv­ing” event refers to a point when the reward allot­ted to bit­coin min­ers is cut in half. Occur­ring rough­ly once every four years, the halv­ing is designed to facil­i­tate scarci­ty in the cryp­tocur­ren­cy.
Approx­i­mate­ly every 10 min­utes, 6.25 BTC, cur­rent­ly worth over $400,000, is award­ed to the min­er who val­i­dates the most recent “block” of trans­ac­tions. The data from each block are strung togeth­er and dis­trib­uted to every com­put­er run­ning a node. This forms what is known as the “blockchain.”
The ini­tial “block reward” was 50 BTC, cur­rent­ly about $3.5 mil­lion, and soon it will be 3.125 BTC, cur­rent­ly over $200,000. The amount of bit­coin mined will con­tin­ue to decrease over time until every bit­coin has been mined, which is esti­mat­ed to hap­pen a …