Bitcoin Halving
The bitcoin halving is a programmed event, occurring every 210,000 blocks or roughly four years, that cuts the reward miners receive for new blocks in half.
Bitcoin's code releases new coins only as rewards to miners who add blocks to the blockchain. When the network launched in 2009, the reward was 50 bitcoin per block. It fell to 25 in 2012, 12.5 in 2016, 6.25 in 2020 and 3.125 in 2024. Each halving reduces the rate at which new bitcoin enters circulation.
Halvings will continue until the reward becomes too small to divide further, which is expected around the year 2140, when the supply reaches its limit of 21 million coins. After that, miners would be paid only through transaction fees.
Because halvings reduce new supply, many market participants watch them closely, and past halvings were followed within a year or two by large price increases. However, there have only been a few halvings, the timing is known in advance, and many other factors influenced those moves, so past patterns may not repeat.
Halvings also squeeze miners' revenue, which can force less efficient operations to shut down or upgrade.