Next bitcoin halving: block 1,050,000 expected in April 2028

Key takeaways

• Block 1,050,000 triggers the fifth halving, cutting the new-bitcoin subsidy from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC per block.
• Bitcoin was at block 973,150 on Oct. 25, 2026 (23:49 UTC, mempool.space), so roughly 76,850 blocks remain, about 534 to 540 days at recent block times.
• Halvings are set by block height, not by the calendar. The interval of 210,000 blocks is written into Bitcoin Core's consensus rules.
• Four halvings have happened so far: Nov. 28, 2012; July 9, 2016; May 11, 2020; and April 20, 2024.
• Transaction fees now make up a tiny share of miner income, so the next cut lands almost entirely on the subsidy that miners rely on.

The next bitcoin halving is due at block 1,050,000, which points to mid-to-late April 2028 at the usual pace of roughly one block every 10 minutes. It will cut the miner subsidy from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC per block.

That date is an estimate, not an appointment. The halving happens when a miner finds the block at that exact height, and nobody can know in advance how quickly the remaining blocks will arrive. This guide explains how the schedule works, lists every past halving with its block data, and shows what the cut means for the miners who secure the network.

When is the next bitcoin halving?

The fifth halving will happen at block height 1,050,000. Counting from block 973,150, mined at 23:49:59 UTC on Oct. 25, 2026, according to the mempool.space block explorer, there are 76,850 blocks left.

Multiplying that by an exact 10-minute target gives about 534 days, which lands around April 11, 2028. Blocks have recently been arriving slightly slower than that on average: halving tracker CoinWarz has measured an average of about 10 minutes 7 seconds over the last 20,160 blocks, and its countdown projects a date around April 20 to 21, 2028. Taken together, mid-to-late April 2028 is the most reasonable window, with a margin of a couple of weeks either way.

The way to know for sure is simple: watch the block height. Any public block explorer shows the latest block, and the halving happens the moment block 1,050,000 is mined. Our guide on how to read on-chain data on mempool.space walks through where to find it.

What is the bitcoin halving?

Every bitcoin block includes one special transaction, the coinbase, that pays the miner who found it. That payment has two parts: newly created bitcoin, called the block subsidy, and the transaction fees paid by users whose transactions are in the block. The halving is the scheduled moment when the subsidy part is cut in half.

In the original white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto described the new coins as an incentive for nodes to support the network and a way to distribute currency without a central issuer. The paper also anticipated the shift that halvings drive: once a set number of coins is in circulation, the incentive can move entirely to transaction fees.

The rule is enforced by every full node. In Bitcoin Core, the reference software, the mainnet parameter nSubsidyHalvingInterval is set to 210,000 blocks. A block that tries to pay its miner more than the allowed subsidy plus fees is rejected by the network, which is why no company, foundation or mining pool can change the schedule on its own.

Why every 210,000 blocks?

Bitcoin targets one block every 10 minutes. At that pace, 210,000 blocks take about 1,458 days, or roughly four years. To hold the 10-minute pace, the network recalculates mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks, about every two weeks.

The adjustment always lags behind reality. When new mining machines switch on faster than difficulty can catch up, blocks come quicker than 10 minutes. That is why past halving gaps were shorter than four years:

• 2012 to 2016: 1,319 days
• 2016 to 2020: 1,402 days
• 2020 to 2024: 1,440 days

The gaps have been getting closer to the 1,458-day ideal as the share of new hashing power added each year has shrunk relative to the size of the network.

The 21 million cap and how halvings create it

Bitcoin's supply limit is not a separate rule. It falls out of the halving schedule. Each era of 210,000 blocks issues half as much bitcoin as the one before, so the total forms a shrinking series: 10.5 million, then 5.25 million, then 2.625 million, and so on. The sum approaches 21 million but, because the smallest unit is one satoshi (0.00000001 BTC) and rounding drops fractions, the true maximum ends up just under 21 million.

After the April 2024 halving, the four completed eras had produced 19,687,500 BTC in scheduled subsidy. Adding 3.125 BTC for each block from 840,000 through 973,150 brings the theoretical total to about 20.1 million BTC, roughly 95.7% of the cap. The real circulating number is slightly lower, because the coins in the genesis block cannot be spent and some early miners claimed less than they were allowed. The subsidy drops to zero after 33 halvings, at block 6,930,000, which on the 10-minute schedule falls around the year 2140.

Every bitcoin halving so far: dates, blocks and rewards

The table below uses block timestamps from mempool.space. Each era lasts 210,000 blocks; the last row is the scheduled next era.

In daily terms, about 144 blocks a day at the current 3.125 BTC subsidy means roughly 450 new bitcoin a day. After the 2028 halving, that falls to about 225 a day, or around 82,000 a year instead of about 164,000.

What halvings mean for bitcoin miners' revenue

For miners, a halving is an overnight 50% cut in the main part of their income, measured in bitcoin. Their costs, mostly electricity and machines, do not halve with it. Miners whose equipment is old or whose power is expensive are the first to feel it, and some switch off machines after each halving until difficulty adjusts or conditions change.

Fees are the other half of the revenue equation, and they vary wildly. The halving blocks themselves show this. Block 210,000 in 2012 carried 13.56 BTC in fees; block 420,000 in 2016 carried 0.58 BTC; block 630,000 in 2020 carried 0.91 BTC. Block 840,000 in 2024, which coincided with the launch of the Runes token protocol, paid 37.63 BTC in fees, more than 12 times its 3.125 BTC subsidy, according to mempool.space data.

That spike was an exception. In the 15 blocks mined between 22:19 and 23:49 UTC on Oct. 25, 2026, fees averaged about 0.0075 BTC per block, roughly 0.24% of the miner's total reward. If fee levels stay that low, the 2028 halving will cut miners' bitcoin-denominated income almost exactly in half.

How that translates into dollars depends on the bitcoin price at the time, which nobody can know in advance. That is also why claims that halvings reliably move the price should be treated with caution. Past cycles had their own triggers, as we explored in our look at the bitcoin midterm cycle and the 2026 July low, and leverage-driven moves can swamp any supply story, as covered in crypto liquidations explained.

Common misunderstandings about the halving

Does the halving cut the amount of bitcoin people hold?

No. Existing coins are untouched. Only the rate at which new coins are created changes.

Does the halving make transactions cheaper or faster?

No. Block size limits and the 10-minute target are unchanged. Fees depend on demand for block space, not on the subsidy.

Can the date be moved?

Not without changing the consensus rules that every node enforces, which would amount to a different network. The block height is fixed; only the calendar date floats.

What it means

The 2028 halving is one of the most predictable events in finance in terms of what will happen, and one of the least predictable in terms of its effects. At block 1,050,000 the new-coin subsidy will drop to 1.5625 BTC, and daily issuance will fall to about 225 BTC. That much is certain.

The open questions are about miners and fees. With fees currently a fraction of a percent of the block reward, the security budget of the network leans heavily on the subsidy that halvings keep shrinking. Whether fee demand grows enough over the coming decades to replace it is one of the long-running debates in bitcoin. For readers, the practical takeaway is to track the block height for timing and to treat any single-cause price narrative around the halving with skepticism. More coverage lives on our Bitcoin topic page.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.