Blockchain Analysis

6a1e57656c636f6d6520746f20426c6f636b636861696e20416e616c79736973

Month: April 2024

A change of host

17/04/2024 /

Previously this blog was hosted on IONOS’ managed WordPress service. After a couple of years of poor performance and price increases I moved to hosting to Amazon Web Services (AWS) which have provided good availability and performance for other services I host. The transfer was conducted without downtime, with the transition of the DNS entries being the final step to direct visitors to AWS rather than IONOS. This seamless transfer meant that my uptime tracker captured the change beautifully and the performance difference is readily apparent; around 1/4 of the time for the homepage to load on the new host.

In the main, the transfer was successful in retaining all the original data, however, some images using a ‘lightbox’ enlargement system don’t always load. I’m looking into this and hope to restore this functionality throughout in the coming weeks.

Something a little different but hopefully interesting to some.

Bitcoin Halving – 2024

16/04/2024 /

At the time of writing the latest Bitcoin block is at height 839,523, just 477 blocks from the next halving of Bitcoin’s block reward. In theory this should be in 79 ½ hours’ time; around 01:59 on 20th April 2024 (UTC), but this is based on 10 minutes for each block. As discussed in my post Bitcoin Block Time Consistency, at that time the average (mean) block time from the genesis block was 9 minutes and 47 seconds which would result in the halving event occurring sooner.

The last difficulty adjustment was made at block 838,656 (21:17:33 10th April 2024) and the next won’t occur until block 840,672 which will be after the halving.

Since the last difficulty adjustment, the average block time has been 586 seconds, or 9 minutes and 46 seconds. Based on this trajectory the halving event should occur in 6,678 seconds earlier than the aforementioned time on 20th April 2024, approximately 12:08:47 on 20th April 2024.

Extending the block time analysis back until the beginning of the year, the block time has been surprisingly consistent, with an average of 586 seconds; the same as since the last difficulty adjustment.

So how does this compare to Satoshi’s intent? With a 10-minute block time, and the genesis block being timed at 06:15:05 on 3rd January 2009, the current halving would not be expected until 02:15:05 on 23rd December 2024. The Bitcoin blockchain is therefore approximately 247 ½ days ahead of the designed schedule.

© 2025 Blockchain Analysis

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑