Short answer: bitcoin halving dates and history come down to four events so far. The block reward fell from 50 to 25 BTC at block 210,000 on 28 November 2012. It fell to 12.5 BTC at block 420,000 on 9 July 2016, then to 6.25 BTC at block 630,000 on 11 May 2020. The fourth cut, to 3.125 BTC, landed at block 840,000 on 19 or 20 April 2024, depending on your time zone. The fifth is expected around 2028 at block 1,050,000 and will take the reward to 1.5625 BTC. Every cut is written into the code and arrives after 210,000 blocks, roughly four years apart.
This page is for traders who hold or trade BTC as a CFD and want the dates straight and the mechanism plain. Watching bitcoin halve its own issuance is interesting; trading it well is a separate skill, so no prices or returns are quoted here.
What a halving actually does to the bitcoin network
Cryptocurrency mining adds a new block to the chain about every ten minutes. The miner who wins that block collects the transaction fees inside it plus a fixed block reward of newly created bitcoins. The halving cuts that fixed reward in half and changes nothing else. Blocks keep arriving at the same pace, and every existing coin stays where it is.
The rule is coded into the protocol, not decided by a committee. After every 210,000 blocks the subsidy halves, until it rounds down to zero somewhere near the year 2140. That is how the 21 million cap is enforced. Blockchain technology makes the schedule public, so there is scarcely any ambiguity about the block height, only about the calendar date.
The result is a supply reduction that happens overnight. On the day before the 2024 cut, mining issued roughly 900 new BTC a day. The day after, roughly 450, with no change in demand required.
The four halvings so far: dates, blocks and rewards
| Cut | Block height | Calendar date | Subsidy before | Subsidy after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First | 210,000 | 28 November 2012 | 50 BTC | 25 BTC |
| Second | 420,000 | 9 July 2016 | 25 BTC | 12.5 BTC |
| Third | 630,000 | 11 May 2020 | 12.5 BTC | 6.25 BTC |
| Fourth | 840,000 | 19 to 20 April 2024 | 6.25 BTC | 3.125 BTC |
| Fifth (expected) | 1,050,000 | around 2028 | 3.125 BTC | 1.5625 BTC |
Three details in that table deserve a closer look.
- The gaps are not tidy four-year blocks. The first was roughly three years and seven months; later gaps ran closer to four years, because hashrate grew faster than difficulty could catch up.
- The 2024 cut straddled a date line. Block 840,000 was mined late on 19 April in the Americas and in the first hour of 20 April in UTC, a Friday night into a Saturday.
- Each cut removes fewer coins than the one before. Going from 50 to 25 BTC took 25 coins a block off the market; going from 6.25 to 3.125 took about 3.
When the next halving lands, and the ones after it
The fifth cut is expected around 2028 at block 1,050,000. Anyone quoting an exact day is guessing, because the date depends on how fast blocks arrive between here and there. At a punctual ten minutes a block, 210,000 blocks take 1,458 days, just under four years. If hashrate keeps growing, the date moves earlier. If growth decelerates, it slips later. Treat any countdown as an estimate with a window of weeks, not a fixed appointment.
After 2028 the pattern repeats: block 1,260,000 around 2032, then 1,470,000 around 2036. By the 2032 cut, roughly 98 percent of all bitcoins will already exist. The last cut, decades away, takes the subsidy to zero, and each halving moves the bitcoin network a step closer to paying miners with fees alone.
Market implications: how price behaved around past halvings
Blunt version first: nothing dramatic happens on the day. In all four cases the event itself passed with unremarkable price action, often a jittery few sessions and then business as usual. The interesting behaviour sat months on either side.
- Before the cut, price mostly drifted or ground higher through the preceding year, with a crowded rush of attention in the final weeks.
- Around the cut, the market was skittish and lumpy for a few weeks, with sharp moves in both directions that resolved nothing.
- After the cut, in the three cycles that have fully played out, the largest advance arrived twelve to eighteen months later. Each then gave way to a deep and disorderly decline.
Two caveats carry more weight than the pattern. Four events is a tiny sample, and the market of 2012 has little in common with the crowded, institutional cryptocurrency market of the fourth cycle. Each cycle's advance has also been less lopsided than the last, as the supply reduction shrinks against a far larger float. Past cycles are a description, not a forecast.
Attention also concentrates on bitcoin into the event and broadens afterwards, which is why traders watch bitcoin dominance alongside the calendar. Market trends across the sector seldom line up with the block count.
Impact on miners and mining profitability
The impact on miners is immediate and unforgiving. Their revenue in BTC per block halves at a fixed height. Their electricity bill, hosting contract and hardware depreciation stay exactly where they were.
Take a humble worked example. A miner earns 100 units of revenue a month and pays 70 in costs, for a 30 unit margin. The cut halves revenue to 50 overnight. Costs are still 70. The operation loses 20 units a month unless something gives. Three things usually do:
- Weaker machines switch off. Hashrate dips, and the next difficulty adjustment, every 2,016 blocks or roughly two weeks, eases the target for the survivors.
- Older hardware gets replaced. Stubbornly running a stale machine after a cut is how small operators squander their remaining margin.
- Price does the heavy lifting. If BTC rises enough in the following months, the same 3.125 BTC covers the bill again. If not, hashrate stays patchy.
Mining profitability therefore goes through a precarious stretch after each cut, and energy per coin tends to fall as the most expensive power goes offline first. Miners are the only participants who cannot ignore the halving, and their selling adds a quiet, lumpy supply pressure of its own.
Risks, caveats and common mistakes around a halving
- Trading the date. The block count is precise; the calendar is not. Positions timed to a countdown clock are brittle by design.
- Assuming the day matters. The event is known years in advance, and expecting price to move violently at the block height is the most common beginner error.
- Confusing four samples with a law. Cycle analysis is useful context and a thankless forecasting tool.
- Forgetting the costs. Spreads on crypto CFDs widen during jittery sessions, so the cost of entering and exiting around the event can quietly eat a large slice of any move.
A halving checklist for a CFD trader
The cut is a scheduled change in conditions, not a signal. A practical checklist:
- Write the plan before the event window starts, and keep it the same bitcoin trading strategy you run all year.
- Fix risk per trade. On a 10,000 account risking 1 percent, you can lose 100 per trade. If you widen the stop from 500 to 1,000 points to survive the noise, the position must halve.
- Check the calendar. The 2024 cut landed on a Friday night, so the rules on trading crypto over the weekend matter more than usual.
- Review afterwards. Compare what you expected with what printed, and write down what the next cycle should change.
Halving volatility inside a prop-firm evaluation
Prop-firm limits are static and the market is not. A jittery halving week can chew through a daily loss limit in a single clumsy session. A run of small overnight losses can erode the total drawdown without one bad trade. The sizing arithmetic above answers both.
Pivex removes some of the pressure to trade the event at all. There is no time limit and no minimum number of trading days, so you are never forced to be active in a week you would rather sit out. The daily loss limit resets each day and the total drawdown is static rather than trailing, which makes the maths easy to plan before the cut. Weekend holding is allowed, and BTC, ETH and SOL trade as CFDs on Match-Trader. A position opened before a Friday-night halving need not close because the calendar turned. The built-in assistant on Pivex tracks your limits as you go, which helps in exactly the session where traders stop counting. Results vary.
Regulators treat bitcoin as a commodity, and the CFTC glossary of trading terms is a plain reference for the contract and margin vocabulary that appears around every halving cycle.
The honest next step is ordinary: put the five block heights in your notes and set an alert a few months ahead of the 2028 window. Spend the time until then proving your plan on unremarkable weeks. If you want it tested against fixed limits, Pivex offers a one-step evaluation with a refundable one-time fee and no clock.
Related guides: bitcoin trading strategy and what is bitcoin dominance.
Before participating, review Pivex's current program rules and decide whether a simulated proprietary trading evaluation fits your experience and risk limits. Participation does not guarantee a reward, income, or any particular trading result.