As there are limited Bitcoins in circulation, and 80% of have already been mined, costs of mining have been rising.

Cryptocurrencies have again caught the public imagination over the past few months. Indian courts allowed cryptocurrency exchanges, while China launched a digital Yuan. A piece of news that probably skipped attention was Bitcoin halving the price for mining the cryptocurrency. The world’s oldest and most famous cryptocurrency reduced miner’s fees to $6.25. Up until May 11, a miner would get a reward of $12.50 for clearing every few blocks of transactions. As there are limited Bitcoins in circulation, and 80% of have already been mined, costs of mining have been rising.

While lowering fees mean that the cost of mining goes further up, and a lot many people will drop out because it is unfeasible, it shall also ensure platform sustainability. The fees are expected to go to zero by 2140. More importantly, it may push innovations towards blockchain interactions.

At present, the Bitcoin infrastructure can only support 4MB of blocks, which can’t store much information. But if blockchains can be linked—when more people move out of Bitcoin, there will be a rush for platforms like Etherium—ciders will try to integrate technologies. Already, experiments for this kind of interaction are going on across the world. The more significant effect, however, would be for governments, which can link more services to blockchain networks. India needs to enter this race before it heats up.