Bitcoin Enters The Final 80,000 Blocks Before Its Halving

The Bitcoin network is now less than 80000 blocks away from its fifth halving, expected around April 2028. This milestone will halve the subsidy paid to miners, from 3.125 to 1.5625 bitcoin per block, but its exact date will continue to evolve with the network’s production pace.

The Bitcoin 2028 halving will occur at block 1050000

The blockchain had surpassed block 970100 on October 6. There were therefore about 79900 blocks left before the next halving, which will trigger automatically at block 1050000.

The date is not directly included in the protocol. It results from an estimation based on an average interval close to ten minutes between two blocks. The main benchmarks are now as follows:

• Current height : approximately 970100 blocks ;
• Next halving height: 1050000 ;
• Blocks remaining to be produced: nearly 79900 ;
• Estimated date: around April 13 or 14, 2028 ;
• Current subsidy: 3.125 BTC per block;
• Future subsidy: 1.5625 BTC per block.

Only the height 1050000 is certain. The April 2028 deadline may move forward or backward by several days depending on the available computing power and the speed at which miners find new blocks.

Bitcoin adjusts its difficulty every 2016 blocks in order to gradually bring the average interval back to ten minutes. This mechanism stabilizes issuance in the long term, without imposing an exact duration per block.

The Bitcoin 2028 halving will reduce issuance to 225 BTC per day

With an average of 144 blocks produced daily, miners currently receive approximately 450 new bitcoins per day. After the halving, this issuance will drop to nearly 225 BTC.

Annual creation will thus pass from about 164,250 to 82,125 bitcoins. At the time of the halving, the circulating supply could reach approximately 20.34 million BTC. The annual emission rate will then fall around 0.4%.

These calculations only concern the protocol subsidy. Miners will also continue to receive the fees paid by users to include their transactions in the blocks. Their total revenue will therefore not automatically be divided exactly by two.

The reduction will nevertheless strongly affect their economics. At constant price and fees, each unit of computing power will generate fewer bitcoins. Operators who have older equipment or expensive electricity could become unprofitable.

Some miners could then temporarily stop their machines. The difficulty would eventually adjust downward to maintain network operation, as it has after previous halvings.

Miners will receive less than one bitcoin per block starting 2032

The 2028 halving will open the last period during which the subsidy exceeds one bitcoin per block. At the next event, planned around 2032, it will drop from 1.5625 to 0.78125 BTC.

This mechanism dates back to Bitcoin’s original rules. The subsidy halves every 210,000 blocks, roughly once every four years. It was 50 BTC at the network launch in 2009.

It dropped to 25 BTC in 2012, then to 12.5 BTC in 2016 and to 6.25 BTC in 2020. The fourth halving, which took place at block 840,000 in April 2024, brought it to its current level of 3.125 BTC.

Successive reductions gradually bring the supply closer to the 21 million bitcoin ceiling. However, the last fractions should only be issued around 2140, as each halving produces an exponential decrease without immediately reaching zero.

As the subsidy decreases, transaction fees will have to make up an increasing share of miners’ income. The viability of this model will therefore depend on network use, bitcoin price, and demand for available block space.

The Countdown Does Not Guarantee Any Bitcoin Price Increase

Some investors also follow the so-called “T-500” threshold, which corresponds to the 500 days before the halving. This period is expected to start around the end of November 2026 if the current estimate holds.

Advocates of this model point out that the four previous studied windows ended with a higher price 500 days after the halving. “The average describes a small sample, it does not constitute a forecast,” the site popularizing this indicator however acknowledges.

The halving indeed reduces the creation of new bitcoins. However, it does not mechanically cause a price increase. Demand, liquidity, interest rates, ETF flows, and holder behavior also play roles.

Markets can also anticipate the event long before its trigger. The consequences of the 2028 halving will thus depend less on the countdown itself than on the balance between the new reduced supply and real demand.