First know this, Bitcoin is a computer program. It's code, spread across thousands of independent computers across the world. Only 21 million whole bitcoin can ever be issued. 21 million. That’s it. Or you've probably heard the term mined, mining Bitcoin. That's based on like mining for gold — it’s hard to do and requires effort by computers. Work.

The way that work happens is that there are thousands of specialized computers racing, and every 10 minutes there's a new lottery where these computers are trying to guess a number, millions of times per second. They're trying to guess a number that will produce a specific value, and when a computer makes a correct guess, which happens every 10 minutes, that computer's owner gets a reward for a very specific amount of bitcoin. So here’s where we’ll explain what the halving is.

When Bitcoin started in 2009, every time there was a reward, remember every 10 minutes, 50 Bitcoin would be rewarded, 50 of the 21 million. And the way that the computer code works is that the number of Bitcoin rewarded gets cut in half, approximately every four years. So it's gone from 50 to 25, to 12.5, to 6.25, and in April 2024, it’ll go to 3.125. Then 4 years later, 1.5625 and so on until the last bitcoin is issued from the block reward in about 2140.

Because of all of that, today, the majority of the bitcoin to ever be issued and in circulation are already in existence. And remember, the code says that only 21 million can ever be made. That means there's only this many left to ever be issued or mined. This is what’s known as a predictable issuance. Predictable inflation of the monetary supply locked at a fixed rate that gets cut in half every 4 years. Remember that it’s nearly impossible to change this part of the code. So unlike governments, who can print more and more money, there won't be more Bitcoin. It'll only be 21 million.