Bitcoin – The Halving

“The Halving” was created by artist Christina Hess in celebration of the 2016 Bitcoin Halving.  “The Halvening” is an event that occurs approximately every four years and signifies a reduction in the rate in which new bitcoin is released.  In July of 2016,  the amount of bitcoin released in each new block dropped from 25 to 12.5.   Since new blocks are generated on average every ten minutes, this represented a significant reduction in the dilutive effect of new bitcoin.  75% of all bitcoin that will ever be created was released by this point.

The central element of this art piece is a rendition of the tally stick — an ancient device used to record debts between two parties.  A stick was marked to signify the debt, then broken and given to each party.  The larger half was given to the creditor and the short end given to the debtor (hence the saying “Short end of the stick“).  Similar to the private-key to public-key relationship of cryptography, only one pair could be combined to verify the debt.  In this regard, tally sticks represent sound money by not contributing to fractional reserve banking.  Additional reading:  Controlled Supply of Bitcoin.