What is the Bitcoin halving?
Definition · Bitcoin halving
The point every 210,000 blocks where the block subsidy, the new bitcoin a miner gets for each block, is cut in half. It’s a consensus rule: every node checks it, and a block that pays itself more is rejected.
Nobody schedules it or switches it on. When a miner builds block 1,050,000, the rule simply allows half as much new bitcoin as the block before. Here’s the whole rule:
The whitepaper describes the idea: new coins pay miners at first, and once enough are in circulation, transaction fees take over. The exact numbers are in the code and summed up on the Bitcoin Wiki’s controlled supply page. For how blocks get found in the first place, see proof of work and the complete mining guide.
When is the next Bitcoin halving?
At block 1,050,000, which is 81,162 blocks after block 968,838. At 10 minutes per block, that lands around .
The date can drift by weeks. Blocks arrive faster when hashrate grows between two difficulty adjustments, and slower when it drops. Try it:
What if blocks come faster?
Average time per block from now on
10.0 min
Estimated halving date
About 564 days away.
Blocks left: 81,162. Difficulty resets every 2,016 blocks to pull the average back toward 10 minutes, so long runs far from it are rare.
The height itself is exact. When the block at 1,050,000 is found, the halving has happened, whatever the calendar says.
When were the past Bitcoin halvings?
Every halving so far, and the next one
Genesis block
block 0
50 BTC per block
Halving 1
block 210,000
25 BTC per block
Halving 2
block 420,000
12.5 BTC per block
Halving 3
block 630,000
6.25 BTC per block
Halving 4
block 840,000
3.125 BTC per block
Halving 5
Around
block 1,050,000
1.5625 BTC per block
| Halving | Block | Date | BTC per block |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 210,000 | 50 → 25 | |
| 2nd | 420,000 | 25 → 12.5 | |
| 3rd | 630,000 | 12.5 → 6.25 | |
| 4th | 840,000 | 6.25 → 3.125 |
Every era so far ran shorter than the four years that 10-minute blocks would take. Hashrate kept growing, and between difficulty adjustments that makes blocks arrive a little faster than the target.
How close is Bitcoin to 21 million?
Closer than most people think. Half of all bitcoin was issued in the first four years. By the rule alone, this much exists at block 968,838:
20.090M
BTC issued so far
from the live height
95.67%
of 21 million
0.910M
BTC still to come
over about 114 years
~2140
last new satoshi
block 6,929,999
Each halving adds half as much as the one before, so the curve flattens fast. After the halving at block 1,470,000, around 2036, more than 99% will exist. The final total is 20,999,999.9769 BTC, because the subsidy is counted in whole satoshis and the fractions round down. Some coins are lost for good, so the number anyone can spend is lower still. Scrub the staircase in the hero to see any era.
What does the halving do to miners?
It cuts the new-coin part of their income in half, overnight. A miner’s revenue per block is the subsidy plus fees, so how hard the halving hits depends on how big fees are:
Revenue lost at a halving, by fee share
Fees 0% of revenue
Fees 5% of revenue
Fees 10% of revenue
Fees 20% of revenue
Fees 35% of revenue
- Subsidy lost at the halving
- Subsidy kept
- Fees, unchanged
Revenue per unit of hashrate (often called hashprice) falls by half the subsidy’s share of it. With fees at 5% of revenue, that’s a 47.5% cut. Machines that were just breaking even start losing money, and some get switched off. If enough do, blocks slow down until the next difficulty adjustment lowers the bar, and the miners still running each get a bigger slice.
0.00045148BTC
per PH/s per day, today
live, estimate
0.00022717BTC
per PH/s per day, right after
estimate, if nothing else moves
1003 EH/s
network hashrate
live, updated hourly
3.145 BTC
block reward the app uses
subsidy plus average fees, live
Fees swing a lot from block to block, and you can watch them on mempool.space. Whether mining still pays after 2028 comes down to power price and machine efficiency. The profit calculator and is Bitcoin mining profitable? let you run the numbers.
What does the halving do to CloudMineCrypto rewards?
The ways to earn don’t change. What changes is the estimate per plan, which goes down, because the estimate comes from this formula and the block reward is one of its inputs.
When the subsidy halves, the block reward drops by about half, and so does the estimated BTC for the same plan. The app did exactly this at the 2024 halving: the block reward it uses went from 6.27 to 3.145 BTC. If the network hashrate falls after the halving, each plan’s share grows back a little. Nobody can say by how much.
Your plan, before and after
Live inputs, estimate, before boosts
Today
3.145 BTC per block
0.0000000006930BTC
After the halving
1.5825 BTC per block
0.0000000003487BTC
Estimated reward per 8-hour free plan: about 50% lower if nothing else changes.
Holds today’s network hashrate and the app’s average fee allowance fixed. In reality both move, and rewards are estimates that aren’t guaranteed.
Everything else stays the same: you mine for free with the free plan, ads, games, offers and daily check-ins, there’s no hardware or power bill, and you withdraw to your own wallet over Lightning, Bitcoin on-chain or BNB Smart Chain. Paid plans remain an optional add-on for more speed. Live estimates per plan are in the earnings guide and on the plans page, and the reward rules spell out how rewards work. Terms apply.
Does the Bitcoin price go up after a halving?
We don’t make price predictions, and you should be wary of anyone who does. A halving cuts how much new bitcoin comes out each day. What people pay for it depends on demand, which no rule in the code controls.
Four halvings is a very small sample, and each one happened in a very different market.
Frequently asked questions
When is the next Bitcoin halving?
At block 1,050,000, expected around spring 2028. The exact day depends on how fast blocks arrive until then, so every date you see is an estimate. The countdown on this page follows the live block height.
What is the Bitcoin halving?
A rule in Bitcoin’s code that cuts the new bitcoin paid per block in half every 210,000 blocks, about every four years. It’s why the total supply approaches 21 million but never passes it.
How many Bitcoin halvings have there been?
Four: 28 November 2012 (block 210,000), 9 July 2016 (block 420,000), 11 May 2020 (block 630,000) and 20 April 2024 (block 840,000).
What will the block reward be after the 2028 halving?
The subsidy drops from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC per block. Miners still collect the fees of the transactions in their block on top of that.
When will the last bitcoin be mined?
The subsidy keeps halving until it rounds down to zero at block 6,930,000, around the year 2140. Issuance then stops at 20,999,999.9769 BTC, a hair under 21 million.
Does the halving lower CloudMineCrypto rewards?
Yes. The block reward is an input of the reward formula, so when it halves, the estimated reward for the same plan drops by about half, unless the network hashrate falls. The ways to earn stay the same: you still mine for free with the free plan, ads, games, offers and daily check-ins, and paid plans stay an optional add-on. Rewards are estimates and aren’t guaranteed.
Does the Bitcoin price go up after a halving?
We don’t make price predictions. The halving cuts new supply on a fixed schedule, but the price depends on demand, and no rule controls that.
Sources and further reading
- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (the whitepaper) · Satoshi Nakamoto, 2008
- Controlled supply: the halving schedule · Bitcoin Wiki
- Block chain guide: block headers, proof of work, coinbase · Bitcoin developer documentation
- Mining dashboard: hashrate, difficulty, pools · mempool.space
- Mempool and fee rates · mempool.space
Live figures on this page (network hashrate, block reward, BTC price) come from the CloudMineCrypto API, refreshed hourly, and are labelled where they appear. This guide is educational and not financial advice. CloudMineCrypto is not an investment product; rewards in the app are estimates and aren’t guaranteed.
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