Topic: What term to use? Halving or Halvening? Term history (Read 514 times)

These terms can be adopted over time as we've seen with "hodl" against "hold" and both can be used to correctly pass the intending message. Halving seems to be the more popular spelling, with the latest LTC halving currently a hot topic. Regardless of the spelling I'm looking forward to the halving and piling up the token in ongoing pre-halving event on Bitget. So halving or halveing, to me there's no difference

 OP there's no calls for confusion, because both terms are correct, it doesn't matter the time or years it's been used by bitcoin enthusiasts, because according to the Oxford dictionary halving means reduction by half and halvening also means to divide something into two or equal parts, they both involves splitting an item equally and non should be considered wrong.
 Both terms are used in bitcoin community to describe the event that occurs when the reward for mining Bitcoin transactions is cut in half, and it's the users choice to determine which word is suitable or preferred to be used by them in describing or explaining the bitcoin halving or halvening, majority of people in the bitcoin community prefer to use the world halving and consider it the best word to use in describing the particular terminology related to it but none should be considered best to the other because they both share same meaning and equally used to describe on particular terminology in bitcoin, each are being used based on the users choice.

I would use "Halfining" quicker than "Halfening" purely as a reference to Hal.

in my brain and how I learned it, Halving is the grammatically correct word to use.
People have been using Halvening I suspect as a king of meme similar to HODL,
but it wouldnt be correct, HODL is an acronym Halvening is just incorrect.


Search for Halvening on Google and there is no official meaning for that, its only
related to Bitcoin - its a made up word.

My personal preference is also "halving". I don't know why but it sounds better to me. Although I understand there may be some nuances between the two forms but yeah, "halving" sounds better to me!

Well in the common context of how this is being used on the forum, we often use "halving" and this represent the half reward of the block reward being calculated from the previous one, i bitcoin network we can always make use of halving while the other half is the commonly used term for dividing something into two out of the bitcoin context, so the use of Halving might just be the unique way of referring to bitcoin half of block reward every four years, you're also correct about that mate.

I have created various Bitcoin Chart threads and have always preffered to use the word "Halving".
It makes more sense as it suggests that the supply is going to be 50% less, not half. Makes sense?

50% is mathematically more correct relating to the Bitcoin Halving process rather than supply getting half. Other than that, It is personal preference and I am sure everyone in the community understands the context no matter which word you choose to use.

Halving, halvening, or even we could call it as "Halfining" in honor of Hal Finney. There's nothing wrong in saying that to communicate, while what we say can be received or understood by others, but many people use the word "Halving" compared to "Halvening".

I think the right word to use is "Halving", because more people know this than Halvening, and in my opinion, if we do writing, it's better to use the word Halving, apart from being known or used by more people, the word halving is also more short to type, or when talking it's also shorter to say.

Wow!! Thanks for the link provided, I think I have just added some new knowledge to my knowledge of BTC as a whole. I would admit I never knew bitcoin had so many terminologies following the various units. I am only familiar with mbtc(milibitcoin) and some few terms even the this term halfining is quite strange to me although I can relate to its meaning if its been used in conversation concerning BTC but the most common am term would be the halving which is used here by most users.

Yeah, doesn't matter whether it's halving or halvening, sometimes I used both of this terms, interchangeably.

And I think members here are not confused, it's just a semantics and nothing more. And there are people here that English is not their first language, so they can used anything at long as they can convey the message and the other party understands it, then it's fine. We don't need to complicate things around here, IMHO.

You might be correct that the topics might be considered to be related, but I have my doubt that mere disagreements regarding clarifying what unit that you are dealing with would rise to the level of deception, absent some other facts that help to establish that deception had been taking place.

In some sense, I personally get confused by a variety of the intermediate kinds of descriptions that are used to describe units of a bitcoin, and accordingly, I personally tend to gravitate towards referring either to bitcoin or to satoshis.... and of course, it can become a bit confusing to figure out if someone might be using some other kind of unit, and surely people have troubles thinking in terms of factions of a bitcoin.. but they also might have to get used to talking about satoshis as well.. and a lot of the clarification or perhaps the becoming easy of thinking about bitcoin (and it's various possible units will continue to become more comfortable the more and more that we get used to transacting and/or communicating in bitcoin whether it is bitcoin, satoshis or some other way of speaking about bitcoin units..   

I suppose I am taking a position that is more descriptive rather than prescriptive in regards to the topic, so in other words I don't give too many shits, don't necessarily want to assert (or impose) my own views, and I am more than willing to see if Schelling points might start to evolve around having certain preferences over certain kinds of unit descriptions as compared with others, and currently it seems that the so far most Schelling points are seeming to formulate around bitcoin and satoshis.

What important is the way we communicate with each other and whatever terms it would be, that doesn't matter as long as we can express the things we want to say and also we don't need to worry about it since the community doesn't really care about it though. there is some thread that states all the terminologies used in the crypto industry and that would be more important than learning these old words that are not even worth using since no one really uses them nowadays unlike those new terms.

There will be many variants from an original term and I think of two cases with different usability purposes for people who create or use a variant term.

If a new variant term does not bring any harmful in finance, like halving and halvening, halfining, 1/2 ing, it is nothing to worry. In my imagination, nothing can harm financially by using those terms.

A second case is more serious, as it can be used to scam intentionally such as Bitcoin units. Scammers can use a term bit to scam people and say like I sell you 1 bit at x price, the victim thinks he will get 1 bitcoin at x price. At the end, bit is not bitcoin and it is an unit of bitcoin and very smaller than 1 BTC.

bit is micro-bitcoin (μBTC) which equals to 0.000001 BTC

[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Units#cite_note-3

You can say whatever you like, and some people are going to continue to use the word halvening or halfining or whatever other variation that they would like...

With a new and paradigm-shifting technology such as bitcoin, there are likely going to be a few new words that come out of the mix (including the fact that there are actual financial and informational battles going on), and/or even variations of old words might be used from time to time to express ideas, and sometimes there might not be a goal to actually want to use a "proper"... .. and maybe even moreso NOT to use any proper word if some people are telling you which word that you are supposed to use.. .. so go ahead, use whatever word that you like.

By the way, three days ago I also made a response to OP's topic in this other thread.

I never heard or read the word halvening before even my google built in grammar telling me to correct the word halvening by underlining it red. And suggesting me two words. One is halving and other is havening. And i think it would also be nice if we could use havening too as it means haven and that's what halving of BTC brings.

I do not think it is wise to select the right term on the basis of history of these dudes because they are not any english professor they are also ordinary people like us. So, why should we decide the right term on the basis of their usage. They might made a mistake while writing it as halvening.

Halving is the right term and mostly used by everyone actually it is 100% used. I have read it everywhere and never got a chance to read halvening so let's just say halvening is not a term even.

I only knew that community suggested a finney unit for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin units
Proposal

Never heard about halfining.

It's reasonable to suggest finney as a Bitcoin unit but do you know Ethereum has finney unit too. Not sure why Ethereum community tried to connect Finney to ETH units.
https://eth-converter.com/extended-converter.html

Problem with ½ ing is it is hard to type on phone.

If I'm not mistaken the memefied version was an attempt to combine the grammatically correct term of "halving" with the word "happening" from then popular "it's happening" Ron Paul memes.
I believe the same origins can be attributed to the word "flippening" (in reference to the possibility of ETH taking BTC's No. 1 spot).

I also prefer the 2nd version. A little things like this one (or "hodl") gives BTC community some uniqueness.

Never heard of the term "halfining" used and I'm pretty active in the community lol. While it sounds cute, it's quite pushing it though. We already have a good number of tributes to Hal that making more is making us look like a cult.

Well ½ ing is pretty clear to me, But to each their own.

I typically refer to it as the halving, but I saw a post somewhere on here a while back where they were saying that in order to tribute Hal Finney in a similar fashion to satoshi nakamoto with satoshis, the halving event should be referred to as the halfining. Sure, it’s the halving of the block reward, but it’s also an owed to hal when called the halfining.

Make sense, halving for me is the one that is widely used since Bitcoin started. It's the term what the majority of people use and for me, it is the official word we must use so some people will don't have any confusion even though they are almost the same meaning.
It's already stated in the first OP, where "halving" is used earlier that "halvening".

As long as both words convey the meaning of the idea, it really shouldn't matter what term to use.

Halving is a verb which means to divide into two. In this case where BTC is involved, it would be when BTC is divide into two. When a whole becomes half.
This event is expected to happen sometime next year 2024, and it is that whatever coin in BTC, will have a reduced value. It is a strategic event and when it is happening, in the process, it can be called halvening. 

Although the term halvening is hardly used, it means same as halving.

Yep, everyone settles with the term halving as it's easier to say and just two syllables.

It's just all about the terminology mate and not about what's gonna be the effect of halving and how much everyone can make from it. Everyone knows what's the effect of it and why we should buy Bitcoin but the topic and this thread is just plainly all about the terms that might have not been known to others that there are also other terms being used.

Lol what a way to get around this terminology debacle, if only I knew the key blaze for that I would've used it too instead of the halving.

In all seriousness though I don't think it should be halvening. It's not even a real word for crying out loud and that alone is a strong argument about its invalidity. Plus Halving has a nice ring to it and it rolls off the tongue easier than halvening with its three stupid syllables lol. I don't know if you're shitposting or what but you should've read from the title alone that we're not talking about the halving here, but what proper terminology should be used for the halving. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that, does it?

In proper English it should be halving. Words like halvening or hodling are just fun jokes that became a part of the bitcoin lore, if we can call it that.
There's so many investment meme words, like stonks, or corn (bitcorn), shitcoin, nocoiner and so on. They all have their uses, and it's up to you when and how you will use them.
For example, this fun lingo will work here or when you're having a beer with friends, but when summoned to court or a congressional hearing, you won't say: noobs dumped all their cornz before the halvening, but I'm an OG hodler, I'm stacking.

Based on the halving,we can expect to get good value for the bitcoin in 2024.Many of my friends holding their bitcoin since 2021 for the 2024 halving.If the prediction is successful,they will earn some good money from the bitcoin and their life will be get settled.Every person ultimate aim will be earn more money before the old age and enjoy some part of their life.But only few was willing to work for it and taking huge risk for the things.The crypto currency had give a lot profit to their holding people all the time.

There are things called terminology, sometimes they do not fall in same connection with the English words or mean the same thing someone who isn't in that field understand as. We can see terminology in coding, military services and of course in Crypto-currency, that's why as a newbie your understanding about crypto terminology is very important as not to be lost.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1346100

Here is a helpful post on terminology.

I like the word "halvening", because it's funny and it's a meme, and memes make people curious, they make people want to belong. These days its hard to imagine an online community without its own unique memes and jargon. So I don't think we should shy from words like hodl and halvening, we should embrace them.

The two word may mean the same thing, but they belong to two different parts of speech, one is a verb, and the other one a noun, and that is what will determine if their usage is correct or not.
For  Halve and Half,
The correct one to use is bitcoin Halving/Halvening, because it is an action (Verb) that we are all expecting to happen. It is after Bitcoin has been Halved, that the term Bitcoin Halfing (noun) can then be used, which will refer to what is left after the action of Halving/Halvening.

Yeah Halving is the most recognized one according to Oxford Dictionary and also correct since it states that it is a direct reduction by half which is the idea behind the bitcoin halving. But the other one also is correct because it can be used in some old English sentences according to Middle English compendium, it means dividing into two, which is the same.But then just like how the whole hodling came about it is even suggested to call it Halfing in respect to Hal Fin.

Agreed, There’s no right term to use since we are free to use any term as long as it describes same thought which others can understand. This is same with hodling and other slang term on crypto. I think most important thing is that we understand what’s gonna happened after halving/halvening/halfing/halfckening.

But Halving is the most popular term to use here since I experience 2 halving during 2016 and 2020. Halvening is just use on the social media lately.

Actually, there's another one that I've read that describes what shall happen next year and that's, "halfing".
Honestly, all of them works and have the same meaning so whatever you prefer, we're all agreeing of what's being describe. Whether it is halving, halvening or even halfing. It's understandable of what a person is talking about. Formal, informal and maybe soon there will be another term that will be built up having the same meaning, who knows. 
We're all free to use any of those terms.

I'm no native English speaker and I prefer Halving over the other term which looks to me like some artificial word. And I like "hodling" or "to hodl" for its very particular meaning in the community. Halving might be slightly incorrect for the picky language purists, but I don't care (halving in the sense of creating two halfs of something while Bitcoin's halving cuts off half of block subsidy into nothing).

From my understanding these two words has the same meaning but different spelling and terminology. Someone who isn't into the blockchain network will understand halving instantly and what it means. But halvening as said by mk4 is meme-ish and is the right word. As long as we understand what any of these word is,am cool with them.

I wouldn't be surprised if that term was used for the first time by a non-native English speaker.

I have seen that there is also another proposal in this regard btw:

It's just the more 'formal' version simply because "halving" is an actual dictionary word while "halvening" is obviously not lol. Totally unrelated to whitepaper/blockchain terminology.

None. They are two words that mean the same thing.


Good point. I had always used "halving" and didn't know it was the more formal version, although the meaning is the same.

Halving = the more 'formal' term
Halvening = the memefied version

That's pretty much it. Obviously I prefer the latter because of the internet's meme-ish culture.

As long as they arrived at the same meaning what difference does it make? For the longest time people have used the halving word and everyone understood it's meaning. Just like hodl and hold even though the former was as a result of a typo but it represent the message at that time and all crypto community get it.

I prefer ½ ing. I have used it for years. Not sure if I started it or read it.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.12804738

found me in 2015

but someone else did it in 2015.

not sure if I was first.

I think halving is fit better than halvening because the Bitcoin block reward is divided every 4 years and the another divided part is disappeared. If the divided part isn't disappeared, then we can call it halve IMO.

But I'd like to see a better term than halving because halving is too general. It's like holding, but in cryptocurrency we're use hodling term.

This discussion pops up in my brain when I joined this discussion

Nowadays, if I am not wrong, in cryptocurrency communities, people are more favorite to use the term halving than halvening. However, I know both terms have been using many years. It is not about what is right, what is wrong. Technical terms are created by human and we can change it.

Today, in this topic, let's dig into the past, to explore history of these terms: halving and halvening.

I present here based on my Search results with the Bitcointalk search tool. I was not in Bitcointalk in 2011 or earlier so my information can be inaccurate so if you find such inaccuracy, please correct it. I much appreciate your help.

Halving
The term 'halving' is used in 2011, on 2nd July.

When I search with 'halve', it was used one month earlier than 'halving', on 5th June 2011.

Halvening
The 'halvening' term in Bitcointalk is used about one year later, in 2012.

Some articles about those terms but they don't have information about those term origins.

• Terminology. The oldest topic in Bitcointalk about terminology only lists 'halving'
• Coinbase article
• Halving (Coinmarketcap Glossary)
• Bitcoin Halving (Investopedia)
• Bitcoin Glossary of Terms (Bitcoinmagazine)
• What is the halvening