Bitcoin Half Day Betting with Groundhog Prediction: Pick your fighter

The Bitcoin (BTC) halving, a historic event set to reduce the Bitcoin mining reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, is coming sometime in April 2024, but the exact date is yet to be determined, at least on this Groundhog Day.

Based on various Bitcoin halving countdown trackers, including NiceHash and BitcoinBlockHalf.com, the fourth Bitcoin halving will likely occur between April 8 and April 22, 2024.

Estimates suggest that the fourth Bitcoin halving could happen in 66 to 79 days, depending on block height, hash rate, and mining difficulty.

Bitcoin halving is a once-in-a-lifetime event of 210,000 blocks, which is estimated to occur every four years. The upcoming bitcoin halving is set to reach block 840,000, which is 11,449 blocks away from the current 828,551 blocks mined at the time of writing, according to data from BlockExplorer.

The problem with predicting the date of the bitcoin drop with various countdown trackers is that until it actually happens, one is very unlikely to accurately predict the exact date.

“I think it has something to do with how the algorithms interpret the data,” Quantum Economics founder Matty Greenspan told Cointelegraph. He added:

“Such lyrical talent embodied by Satoshi. The exact timing of the event will remain a mystery until it happens.

A similar sentiment was shared on BitcoinTalk, the main crypto forum in the Bitcoin community. Some observers have suggested that the estimates be adjusted every two weeks – or technically, every 2,016 blocks – to adjust to Bitcoin's mining difficulty.

According to historical records, all three bitcoin halvings took different times to occur. The first fork event occurred on November 28, 2012, or 1,425 days after Bitcoin's launch on January 3, 2009. The second halving occurred in 1,319 days on July 9, 2016. The third Bitcoin halving took place on May 11, 2020. 1,402 days later.

Related: Bitcoin halving 2024 – Miners predict possible consequences of halved BTC rewards

Since the last Bitcoin halving on May 11, 2020, a total of 1,362 days have passed at the time of this writing.

While it is unlikely to predict the exact Bitcoin half-day, the community is mostly betting on April 20, 2024, which is an international holiday of counterculture and a meme based on the celebration and consumption of cannabis.

“The proposed Bitcoin halving date is 4/20. We live in a simulation at best,” an industry observer posted on social media platform X on Feb. 1.

The community has yet to find out if the spring equinox will occur on April 20. The only thing known is that the community must wait for the beginning of spring, as predicted by the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil.

Phil's accuracy rate is said to average about 40% over the past decade.

Magazine: A Reality Doctor on the Web 3: Tony Pearce's Time and Space Travel