Bitcoin halving: what it is, dates and price impact
The Bitcoin halving cuts the block reward in half every 210,000 blocks. All halving dates, price before and after, and why the next one lands in April 2028.
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The Bitcoin halving is a pre-programmed event that cuts the block reward paid to miners in half every 210,000 blocks — roughly every four years. There have been four halvings so far, in 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024, taking the reward from 50 BTC down to 3.125 BTC. The next Bitcoin halving is expected around April 12, 2028, when the reward drops to 1.5625 BTC per block.
This guide covers how the halving is written into Bitcoin's code, the dates and numbers for every past halving, what the price did before and after each one, and why the "halving equals rally" story has been getting weaker.
What is the Bitcoin halving?
New bitcoin is created in only one way: the miner who finds a block adds a first transaction that pays them the reward. Satoshi Nakamoto described this in section 6 of the Bitcoin white paper as the incentive that keeps nodes honest, comparing the steady issuance of new coins to gold miners spending resources to add gold to circulation. The same section says the incentive can eventually shift entirely to transaction fees.
The miner's reward has two parts:
- The block subsidy — newly created coins.
- Transaction fees — what users pay to get their transactions into the block.
The halving only touches the subsidy. Fees are set by demand for block space and are unaffected.
How the halving works in Bitcoin Core
The whole rule is a handful of lines in the GetBlockSubsidy function in Bitcoin Core's validation.cpp. The subsidy starts at 50 BTC; the block height is divided by the halving interval, and the subsidy is bit-shifted right by the result, which halves it once per completed interval. The interval itself sits in the network parameters: nSubsidyHalvingInterval = 210000.
Three things follow from that code:
- Halvings are tied to block height, not the calendar. They happen at blocks 210,000, 420,000, 630,000, 840,000 — and next at 1,050,000. The date depends on how fast blocks are found.
- Supply is capped. Summing every subsidy gives 20,999,999.9769 BTC, a hair under 21 million, because each halving rounds down to the satoshi.
- The subsidy ends around 2140. After the 33rd halving (block 6,930,000) the shift returns zero satoshis, and miners will be paid in fees alone.
Why "about every four years"? The network retargets difficulty every 2,016 blocks to keep the average block time at 10 minutes, and 210,000 blocks × 10 minutes ≈ 4 years. When hashrate grows faster than difficulty catches up, blocks arrive a bit early and the halving date drifts forward.
Bitcoin halving dates and history
| # | Date (UTC) | Block | Reward, BTC | Mined by then |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nov 28, 2012 | 210,000 | 50 → 25 | 10.5M (50%) |
| 2 | Jul 9, 2016 | 420,000 | 25 → 12.5 | 15.75M (75%) |
| 3 | May 11, 2020 | 630,000 | 12.5 → 6.25 | 18.375M (87.5%) |
| 4 | Apr 20, 2024 | 840,000 | 6.25 → 3.125 | 19.6875M (93.75%) |
| 5 | ≈ Apr 12, 2028 | 1,050,000 | 3.125 → 1.5625 | 20.67M (98.4%) |
Supply figures match Coin Metrics' open network data. The neat fractions aren't a coincidence: every era issues exactly half of what the previous one did.
Block 840,000 was mined by ViaBTC at 00:09 UTC on April 20, 2024 — still April 19 in the Americas, which is why you'll see both dates quoted.
Bitcoin halving price history
Prices below are daily closes from Coin Metrics; the latest-cycle low comes from our Binance data.
| Halving | Price on the day | 1 year before | 1 year after | Cycle peak | Days to peak | Drawdown after peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | $12.33 | $2.76 | $1,007 (82x) | $1,135, Dec 4, 2013 | 371 | −85% |
| 2016 | $652 | $286 | $2,506 (3.8x) | $19,641, Dec 16, 2017 | 525 | −84% |
| 2020 | $8,592 | $6,943 | $56,612 (6.6x) | $67,542, Nov 8, 2021 | 546 | −77% |
| 2024 | $64,908 | $27,292 | $85,102 (1.3x) | $124,824, Oct 6, 2025 | 534 | −53% (so far) |
What stands out:
- Peaks came 12–18 months after the halving. The last three landed 525, 546 and 534 days later — the basis of the "four-year cycle" idea.
- Each rally is smaller. From halving-day price to cycle peak: 92x, 30x, 7.9x and just 1.9x this cycle.
- Drawdowns are shrinking too. After the 2013, 2017 and 2021 tops, bitcoin fell 77–85%. After the October 2025 top, the lowest daily close so far is $58,625 (June 30, 2026), a 53% drop.
- The run-up now starts earlier. In 2024 bitcoin broke its previous record in March — Coin Metrics shows a $73,082 close on March 13, five weeks before the halving. That had never happened before.
Explainers such as CoinGecko's cite an "average 3,230% gain in the year after a halving," but note themselves that the figure is misleading: it's dominated by 2012, when bitcoin traded at $12.
Does the halving still move bitcoin's price?
The mechanism is simple: the halving shrinks the flow of new coins miners can sell. But that flow matters less every cycle.
- New issuance is already small. The network now issues 450 BTC a day, about 164,000 a year — 0.82% of the 20.1 million coins in circulation. After 2028 that becomes 225 BTC a day, roughly 0.4% a year. At around $83,000, today's issuance is about $37 million a day, roughly 2% of a single day's spot BTC volume on Binance alone ($1.64 billion, per our data).
- The schedule is public. Everyone has known the dates since 2009, and traders try to price in whatever they can ahead of time.
- Demand now matters more than supply. The big new buyer of the 2024 cycle was US spot bitcoin ETFs, which the SEC approved on January 10, 2024, alongside Fed policy and broader risk appetite. The halving is one input among several.
What the halving does to miners
For miners, a halving instantly halves subsidy revenue while power bills stay the same. Operators with expensive electricity and older machines switch off, hashrate can dip, and difficulty adjusts down over the next retarget or two.
The 2024 halving was unusual. The Runes token protocol launched in the very same block, and a minting rush sent fees through the roof: block 840,000 paid 37.63 BTC in fees — 12 times its 3.125 BTC subsidy, or about $2.4 million according to ForkLog. The frenzy faded fast. Coin Metrics shows miners earning 17.8 BTC in fees on May 20, 2024, and just 2.5 BTC on May 20, 2026 versus 475 BTC in subsidy — about 0.5% of revenue.
Hashrate didn't collapse — it grew. Coin Metrics estimated it at 648 EH/s on April 19, 2024, the day before the halving. Today it's 988 EH/s per our data, and difficulty is 132.7 T versus 86.4 T at block 840,000.
Where we are in the halving cycle (October 8, 2026)
As of October 8, 2026, from our Numbers block and mempool.space:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Block height | 970,462 |
| Blocks until the halving | 79,538 |
| Estimated date of the 5th halving | ≈ April 12, 2028 |
| Reward now / after the halving | 3.125 BTC / 1.5625 BTC |
| Circulating supply | 20,095,156 BTC (95.7% of 21M) |
| Bitcoin price | $82,995 |
| Below the $126,080 all-time high | −34% |
| Hashrate | 988 EH/s |
| Fast transaction fee | 2 sat/vB |
It's been 901 days since the April 2024 halving — past the midpoint to the next one. By the classic cycle template, the October 2025 peak landed right in the 12–18 month window, and this year looks like the post-peak correction phase. For the on-chain view, see our guide to Bitcoin cycle indicators: MVRV sits at 1.55, mid-range historically rather than at a top or bottom. Our composite Market Temperature lives in Market Pulse, and the Fractals section overlays today's chart on past cycles.
The April 12, 2028 estimate assumes 10-minute blocks. Recently blocks have been faster — averaging about 9.5 minutes — with a 5.8% difficulty increase expected around October 16. If hashrate keeps climbing, the halving will arrive days or weeks earlier. The block countdown updates on the Bitcoin page and in Numbers.
Common mistakes
- "Price always rallies a year after the halving." Four data points don't make a law, and the effect has shrunk every cycle: 82x in the year after 2012, 1.3x after 2024.
- "The halving reduces the number of bitcoins." It reduces the rate of new issuance. Existing coins are untouched.
- "Miners dump everything right after." Selling depends on their debt, costs and the price. In 2024 hashrate kept rising; there was no mass shutdown.
- "The halving date is fixed." Only block 1,050,000 is fixed. The date moves with hashrate.
- Buying "for the halving" by the calendar. In 2024 the record high came before the event, and the price went sideways afterwards: 182 days later it was $68,358 versus $64,908 on halving day.
FAQ
When is the next Bitcoin halving? At block 1,050,000 — around April 12, 2028, based on the October 8, 2026 estimate. The exact date firms up as the event gets closer.
How many halvings will there be? The subsidy reaches zero after the 33rd halving, around 2140. Total issuance will be 20,999,999.9769 BTC.
Can the halving be cancelled or delayed? Only through a consensus rule change that the network's nodes would have to adopt. The halving is part of the code every full node enforces.
Does the halving affect transaction fees? Not directly. But as the subsidy shrinks, fees have to make up a bigger share of miner revenue over time — otherwise network security leans entirely on price growth.
This is not investment advice.
