Every 210,000 blocks — roughly every four years — the reward for mining a block is cut in half. No vote, no announcement, no exceptions. It's the machine that enforces the 21 million cap, ticking in public.
Next halving · block 1,050,000 · reward 3.125 → 1.5625 BTC
Why it matters
Anyone can claim their coin has a supply limit. Bitcoin demonstrates its limit, in public, every ten minutes: the only way new coins are created is the block reward, and the reward halves on a schedule written into the rules every node enforces. 50 became 25 in 2012. 25 became 12.5 in 2016. And so on, thirty-three times total, until the reward rounds to zero around 2140 and the 21 millionth coin — minus the lost ones — is all there will ever be.
It's also the metronome of the famous four-year cycle: every halving so far has preceded a major bull run — and whether that's cause, calendar, or coincidence is one of the better arguments in Bitcoin.
The schedule
| Halving | Block | Date | Reward after |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | 0 | Jan 3, 2009 | 50 BTC |
| 1st | 210,000 | Nov 28, 2012 | 25 BTC |
| 2nd | 420,000 | Jul 9, 2016 | 12.5 BTC |
| 3rd | 630,000 | May 11, 2020 | 6.25 BTC |
| 4th | 840,000 | Apr 20, 2024 | 3.125 BTC |
| 5th (next) | 1,050,000 | ~Apr 2028 (est.) | 1.5625 BTC |
| 6th | 1,260,000 | ~2032 | 0.78125 BTC |
| 7th | 1,470,000 | ~2036 | 0.390625 BTC |
| … | … | … | … |
| 33rd (last) | 6,930,000 | ~2140 | 0 — fees only |
Dates beyond the next halving are estimates at ~10 minutes per block. The clock above uses the live block height when available.