Oddbean

For each Halving, I will create a homage, all of which are identical in structure and follow each other seamlessly, like one Bitcoin block after the next. Halving II, III and IV will be added over the next few months. In 2028, I will continue this series with Halving V. Of course, the focus is always on the respective Halving block. The series begins with block 210000. When I was first thinking about a concept for the artistic theming of the Halving, I immediately thought of @TC's Timechain Calendar and was inspired by his ingenious gem. The circular arrangement is not only graceful in many ways, but also symbolic: on the one hand, the circle stands for perfection, calm and strength. Attributes that I associate with Bitcoin. The circle unites the beginning (A) and the end (Ω), is a perfect system in itself and with the axial and rotational symmetry, a lot can be conjured up in terms of design: I have added a subtle pie chart in the background, which expands clockwise with each halving drawing by the respective amount of Bitcoin issued within an epoch. For Halving I it is 50%, 10.5M Bitcoin. For Halving II, this circle will show 75%, as 75% of all Bitcoin ever available was in circulation at block 420000. For Halving III it was 87.5%, and soon Halving IV: 93.75%. So all drawings have a nice connection and you can see the monetary development in relation to time. By the way, have you noticed this lovely mathematical detail about Bitcoin: the block subsidy prevailing at each epoch is always the nominal percentage of the total amount of Bitcoin in circulation for that epoch. Here are a few facts and figures about block 210000, which I have included in the drawing: the first block of the second epoch. - took place on November 28, 2012. - block subsidy: 25 Bitcoin/block. - supply: 10,500,000 Bitcoin (50%). The median fee for the first Halving block was ~387 sat/vB. Just 457 transactions and a storage requirement of just under 200kB are contained in this block. I have used the representation from mempoolspace here as I find it very illustrative. The hash of block 210000: 0000000000048b95347e83192f69cf0366076336c639f9b7228e9ba171342e. Note the low number of zeros at the beginning. It will increase significantly in the following Halving drawings as the difficulty grows. The approximate hashrate that prevailed at block 210000. It was around 28TH/s, which in turn is 0.000028 EH/s and thus less than 0.00001% of the current hash rate compared to today's values (~500EH/s). The development of the Bitcoin network will also be very noticeable here. To emphasize the character of a series of drawings that expands every ~ 4 years, I have added a 'Halving barometer' to the left half. It consists of 32 small, empty blocks and with each Halving the next block is filled with the number of the respective Halving. On the right half is a clock face calibrated to "210000", which also carries the two blocks before and after the Halving block. These figures also change with each drawing. The lower half is engraved with messages associated with Bitcoin in Latin: "VBI LIBERTAS IBI PATRIA" (where there is freedom, there is my home) and "ALEA IACTA EST" (the dice have been cast). These words are musically proclaimed and celebrated by little angels. There are still a few little Easter eggs lovingly incorporated. And, obviously, my fondness for human sculptures is not to be missed. To give the drawing a proper finish, I added the block times at the time of the first and last pencil stroke.