BITCOIN HALVING COUNTDOWN
84,030 BLOCKS TO THE NEXT HALVING
Every ten minutes, someone builds a new block, and Bitcoin pays them for it. Today the pay is 3.125 coins. At block 1,050,000 it drops to 1.5625. Half. That is the halving.
- BLOCK RIGHT NOW
- 965,970
- PAY PER BLOCK NOW
- 3.125 BTC
- PAY AFTER THE HALVING
- 1.5625 BTC
- IT HAPPENS AT BLOCK
- 1,050,000
- ROUGHLY WHEN
- April 2028
- HALVINGS SO FAR
- 4
WHAT A HALVING IS
Bitcoin makes new coins in one way only. Whoever builds a block gets paid. That is where every coin came from. There is no other source.
That pay does not stay the same. Every 210,000 blocks it is cut in half. It started at 50 coins in 2009. It is 3.125 today. It keeps halving until there is nothing left to cut.
Nobody presses a button. The rule is written in the software, and tens of thousands of computers each apply it on their own the moment they reach that block. If a miner pays themselves more, every one of those computers throws the block away.
WHY IT IS A NUMBER AND NOT A DATE
Bitcoin does not have a calendar. It counts blocks.
So the halving does not happen on a day. It happens at a number. We know the number: 1,050,000. We do not know the day, and nobody does.
Blocks are supposed to arrive every ten minutes. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Over years it evens out, so you can guess the day. That is what the date above is. A guess. It usually lands a bit early.
Why build it like this? A calendar needs someone you trust to follow it. A number needs nobody.
EVERY ERA, FROM 2009 TO THE LAST COIN
Thirty-four rows, and not one of them is a forecast. Each pay is the one above it divided by two, in whole satoshis, the way the software divides it. The five eras that have opened are dated to the day. The rest are worked out from the block height above at ten minutes a block, so they are given to the month or to the year, for the reason in the section before this one.
| ERA | FIRST BLOCK | PAY PER BLOCK | OPENED |
|---|---|---|---|
| ERA 1 | 0 | 50 BTC | January 3, 2009 |
| ERA 2 | 210,000 | 25 BTC | November 28, 2012 |
| ERA 3 | 420,000 | 12.5 BTC | July 9, 2016 |
| ERA 4 | 630,000 | 6.25 BTC | May 11, 2020 |
| ERA 5 | 840,000 | 3.125 BTC | April 20, 2024 |
| ERA 6 | 1,050,000 | 1.5625 BTC | est. April 2028 |
| ERA 7 | 1,260,000 | 0.78125 BTC | est. April 2032 |
| ERA 8 | 1,470,000 | 0.390625 BTC | est. April 2036 |
| ERA 9 | 1,680,000 | 0.1953125 BTC | est. 2040 |
| ERA 10 | 1,890,000 | 0.09765625 BTC | est. 2044 |
| ERA 11 | 2,100,000 | 0.04882812 BTC | est. 2048 |
| ERA 12 | 2,310,000 | 0.02441406 BTC | est. 2052 |
| ERA 13 | 2,520,000 | 0.01220703 BTC | est. 2056 |
| ERA 14 | 2,730,000 | 0.00610351 BTC | est. 2060 |
| ERA 15 | 2,940,000 | 0.00305175 BTC | est. 2064 |
| ERA 16 | 3,150,000 | 0.00152587 BTC | est. 2068 |
| ERA 17 | 3,360,000 | 0.00076293 BTC | est. 2072 |
| ERA 18 | 3,570,000 | 0.00038146 BTC | est. 2076 |
| ERA 19 | 3,780,000 | 0.00019073 BTC | est. 2080 |
| ERA 20 | 3,990,000 | 0.00009536 BTC | est. 2084 |
| ERA 21 | 4,200,000 | 0.00004768 BTC | est. 2088 |
| ERA 22 | 4,410,000 | 0.00002384 BTC | est. 2092 |
| ERA 23 | 4,620,000 | 0.00001192 BTC | est. 2096 |
| ERA 24 | 4,830,000 | 0.00000596 BTC | est. 2100 |
| ERA 25 | 5,040,000 | 0.00000298 BTC | est. 2104 |
| ERA 26 | 5,250,000 | 0.00000149 BTC | est. 2108 |
| ERA 27 | 5,460,000 | 0.00000074 BTC | est. 2112 |
| ERA 28 | 5,670,000 | 0.00000037 BTC | est. 2116 |
| ERA 29 | 5,880,000 | 0.00000018 BTC | est. 2120 |
| ERA 30 | 6,090,000 | 0.00000009 BTC | est. 2124 |
| ERA 31 | 6,300,000 | 0.00000004 BTC | est. 2128 |
| ERA 32 | 6,510,000 | 0.00000002 BTC | est. 2132 |
| ERA 33 | 6,720,000 | 0.00000001 BTC | est. 2136 |
| ERA 34 | 6,930,000 | NOTHING | est. 2140 |
The pay is counted in whole satoshis, which is why the table stops where it does. Below one satoshi there is nothing left to halve. At block 6,930,000 the pay is zero and all 21,000,000 coins exist. Fees carry on.
QUESTIONS
When is the next Bitcoin halving?
At block 1,050,000. That is 84,030 blocks away, so roughly April 2028. The block number is exact. The date is a guess, because Bitcoin counts blocks and not days.
What does a Bitcoin block pay right now?
3.125 new coins, plus the fees paid by the payments inside that block. Only the new coins halve. The fees are set by the people sending money and follow no schedule.
How many Bitcoin halvings have there been?
4 so far, in 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024. We are in stretch number 5 of the schedule.
How often does the halving happen?
Every 210,000 blocks. At ten minutes a block that is about four years. But it is a count, not a clock: the gap is however long those 210,000 blocks take to arrive.
When will the last bitcoin be made?
At block 6,930,000, around the year 2140. After that the pay is zero and whoever builds a block lives on fees alone.
Can the halving be stopped or changed?
There is nobody to ask. The rule sits in software that tens of thousands of people run on their own computers, and each one checks it. Changing it would mean convincing all of them to run different software instead. The ones who did would no longer be on the same chain.
SEE IT RUNNING
The halving is one of the nine parts of the machine on this site. It is a staircase, and every step is half the one before it. It runs on the same block count as the numbers above.
THE PARTS NEXT TO IT
- SUPPLYWhere coins come from, and why there will only ever be 21 million.
- MININGWho gets that pay, and what the electricity actually buys.
- MINING DIFFICULTYThe rule that keeps blocks near ten minutes, and so sets the pace of this countdown.
SMALL PRINT
This page describes a public network and the rule written into it. It is not financial advice, it quotes no price, and it says nothing about what a halving does or does not do to one. The block height comes from public Bitcoin APIs and may be a few minutes old.