🪙 Bitcoin Halving Countdown & Reward Schedule
Track the exact countdown to the next Bitcoin Halving event, remaining block height, historical mining rewards, and programmatic inflation reduction schedule.
Bitcoin Halving Schedule & Inflation History
| Event | Date | Block Height | Reward per Block |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis / Launch | Jan 2009 | 0 | 50.0 BTC |
| 1st Halving | Nov 2012 | 210,000 | 25.0 BTC |
| 2nd Halving | Jul 2016 | 420,000 | 12.5 BTC |
| 3rd Halving | May 2020 | 630,000 | 6.25 BTC |
| 4th Halving | Apr 2024 | 840,000 | 3.125 BTC |
| 5th Halving (Upcoming) | Apr 2028 (Est) | 1,050,000 | 1.5625 BTC |
What Bitcoin Halving Countdown & Reward Schedule Does
Bitcoin cuts its block subsidy in half every 210,000 blocks. This page counts the blocks remaining to the fifth halving at block 1,050,000, converts that to a rough number of days at the protocol's ten-minute target, and shows the full reward schedule behind it.
The block height here is estimated, not live. It runs forward from a height verified on 11 September 2026 against two independent sources — mempool.space and blockchain.info, which both returned 966,461 — at ten minutes per block. Competing trackers read the chain directly and are exact; this one drifts, which is why the height is an editable field. Paste today's figure from any block explorer and the countdown becomes exact too.
That drift is worth understanding rather than apologizing for, because it is the reason every halving countdown on the internet shows a slightly different date. Ten minutes is a target the protocol steers toward, not a measurement, and how far actual block times sit from it is what separates one site's estimate from another's.
How to Use Bitcoin Halving Countdown & Reward Schedule
- View the live estimated day and block countdown to the upcoming halving
- Review the historical block reward schedule from Genesis to the present
Formula Used by Bitcoin Halving Countdown & Reward Schedule
Blocks remaining and time to the halving
blocks = 1,050,000 − current height; days ≈ blocks × 10 ÷ 1,440
- 1,050,000
- The fifth halving height. Halvings occur every 210,000 blocks: 210,000, 420,000, 630,000, 840,000, 1,050,000
- 10
- The protocol's target minutes per block
- 1,440
- Minutes in a day
Worked example
The verified anchor height of 966,461 on 11 September 2026.
- Blocks: 1,050,000 − 966,461 = 83,539
- Minutes: 83,539 × 10 = 835,390
- Days: 835,390 ÷ 1,440 = 580.1
Result: 580 days at exactly ten minutes a block. Live trackers on the same day projected 17 April 2028, which is 584 days out — the difference is four days of accumulated block time over eighteen months.
What the disagreement between countdowns actually measures
implied average block time = days to the projected date × 1,440 ÷ blocks remaining
- implied average
- The minutes per block a site is assuming, backed out of the date it publishes
Worked example
A projection of 17 April 2028 against 83,539 blocks remaining from 11 September 2026.
- Days between the two dates: 584
- 584 × 1,440 = 840,960 minutes
- 840,960 ÷ 83,539 = 10.067
Result: 10.067 minutes per block. Sites projecting a later date are assuming blocks are running slightly slow; a site using a flat ten minutes lands about four days earlier. Neither is a mistake — it is a forecast of hash rate, dressed as a countdown.
Total supply, and why it is not 21 million
total = Σ 210,000 × 50 ÷ 2ⁿ for n = 0…32, in satoshis
- n
- Halving epoch. The subsidy is computed in satoshis with integer division, so it reaches zero after 33 epochs
Worked example
Summing every epoch's issuance at 210,000 blocks each.
- Epoch 0: 210,000 × 50 = 10,500,000 BTC
- Epoch 1: 210,000 × 25 = 5,250,000 BTC
- Epoch 2: 210,000 × 12.5 = 2,625,000 BTC
- Each subsequent epoch halves again until the subsidy rounds to zero
Result: 20,999,999.9976 BTC — not 21 million. The shortfall is an artefact of integer satoshi arithmetic in the subsidy function, and it is the number the network will actually stop at.
The Halving Schedule
Every 210,000 blocks. Dates before 2026 are historical; the fifth is a projection.
| Event | Block height | Subsidy after | Approx. date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis | 0 | 50 BTC | January 2009 |
| 1st halving | 210,000 | 25 BTC | November 2012 |
| 2nd halving | 420,000 | 12.5 BTC | July 2016 |
| 3rd halving | 630,000 | 6.25 BTC | May 2020 |
| 4th halving | 840,000 | 3.125 BTC | April 2024 |
| 5th halving | 1,050,000 | 1.5625 BTC | Projected April 2028 |
What the Fifth Halving Does to Issuance
Computed at 52,596 blocks a year (144 a day at the ten-minute target) against a circulating supply of 20,082,690 BTC issued by block 966,461.
| Before the halving | After the halving | |
|---|---|---|
| Block subsidy | 3.125 BTC | 1.5625 BTC |
| New BTC per day | 450 | 225 |
| New BTC per year | 164,363 | 82,181 |
| Annual issuance as % of supply | 0.818% | 0.409% |
Why Estimates Differ
The same 83,539 blocks, projected at different average block times. This is the entire spread between competing countdowns.
| Average block time | Days remaining | Implied halving date from 11 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 9.50 minutes | 551.1 | 15 March 2028 |
| 9.75 minutes | 565.6 | 29 March 2028 |
| 10.00 minutes (protocol target) | 580.1 | 13 April 2028 |
| 10.067 minutes (what live trackers implied) | 584.0 | 17 April 2028 |
| 10.25 minutes | 594.6 | 27 April 2028 |
How to Read Your Result
The ten-minute block is a target, not a clock
Bitcoin adjusts its difficulty every 2,016 blocks — roughly a fortnight — so that blocks arrive about every ten minutes on average. Between adjustments, block times float with how much hash rate is actually mining: more hash rate than the difficulty assumes and blocks come faster, less and they come slower. A countdown is therefore a forecast of mining capacity eighteen months out, which is why the honest form of the answer is a range of dates rather than a ticking second hand.
The halving is scheduled by height, not by date
Nothing in the protocol knows what day it is. The subsidy changes when the chain reaches block 1,050,000 and not before, so every published date is derived. This is also why "every four years" is an approximation: four years is what 210,000 blocks takes if blocks average ten minutes, and the actual intervals have run slightly short of that in most epochs.
What halves is the subsidy, not the whole reward
Miners are paid the block subsidy plus the transaction fees in the block. Only the subsidy halves. As the subsidy shrinks toward zero across the remaining epochs, fees are designed to become the entire incentive to mine — which is the long-run question the halving schedule poses and does not answer. In a quiet fee market a halving cuts miner revenue nearly in half; in a congested one it does not.
A countdown is not a price forecast
Google's own related questions for this term ask whether Bitcoin goes up after a halving. The supply effect is real and precisely known — annual issuance drops from 0.818% to 0.409% of circulating supply — but it is also known to every participant years in advance, which is the textbook definition of information already available to the market. Four prior halvings is a sample of four, with each one confounded by an entirely different macroeconomic backdrop. This page counts blocks; it makes no claim about price.
Limitations & Accuracy Notes
- The block height is estimated from a dated anchor at ten minutes a block, not read live from the chain. It drifts, and every other halving tracker is exact where this is approximate — paste the live height from a block explorer for an exact count.
- No live clock. The figure is a day count rather than a ticking countdown, and it does not refresh by itself.
- The projected date assumes the protocol target holds for the entire remaining period. Sustained hash rate growth pulls the halving earlier; a decline pushes it later, and neither is predictable eighteen months out.
- Circulating supply figures are theoretical issuance by height. They do not subtract provably lost coins, the unspendable genesis block subsidy, or the several blocks whose miners claimed less than the full subsidy.
- Fifth halving only. There is no selector for later epochs, and no fee-revenue or miner-economics modeling of any kind.
- No price, market cap, hash rate or difficulty data. This counts blocks and computes issuance; everything else is out of scope.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Bitcoin Halving?
Why is the halving economically significant?
How often does the halving happen?
Why is the countdown an estimate?
What does halving actually change?
When does issuance stop entirely?
Is this investment advice?
References & Further Reading
- Bitcoin Core — Controlled supply and the subsidy function — GetBlockSubsidy implements the halving: the subsidy is right-shifted once per 210,000 blocks and reaches zero after 64 shifts, using integer satoshi arithmetic — the reason the cap is 20,999,999.9976 rather than 21,000,000
- Bitcoin.org — Bitcoin halving — Reference explanation of the halving schedule and its role in the issuance curve
- mempool.space — Block explorer — Live block height, used to verify this page's anchor at 966,461 on 11 September 2026, and the place to read the current height to paste in