Bitcoin halving countdown

What is halving?

Halving is an event when the Bitcoin block reward for miners is cut in half. It occurs approximately every four years and is usually accompanied by significant changes in the crypto market. The previous halving happened in 2020 when the miners’ reward fell to 6.25 BTC for every block mined, which means we’re already approaching the next event: the 2024 halving will bring the mining reward down to 3.125 BTC.

Those events happen because Satoshi Nakamoto implemented halving into the Bitcoin protocol to happen every 210,000 blocks or roughly every 4 years up to the moment when all the 21 million coins will have been mined. After 32 halvings (presumably in 2140), the emission of Bitcoin will end.

875,946

Current height block

174,054

Blocks until halving

95,323

BTC day price

How does Bitcoin halving work?

Halving is an integral part of the Bitcoin system, which was implemented by Satoshi Nakamoto . You can see a fragment of code that makes Bitcoin halving possible below. It is written in the code that the block reward will be cut in two every 210 000 blocks.

Halvings have already happened three times in the Bitcoin network history: on November 28, 2012, July 9, 2016, and May 11, 2020. At the dawn of the Bitcoin era, miners earned 50 BTC for adding a new block. After the first halving, this number was 25 BTC. After the second one – only 12,5 BTC per block. The third halving on May 2020 reduced the block subsidy to 6.25 BTC.

Why is Bitcoin halving a game-changer?

Bitcoin halving affects both miners and holders of the cryptocurrency. As we explained, for the former, the reward will be reduced by 50%, which means they will get half the compensation for the same job. Here market forces come into play: soaring Bitcoin’s scarcity has a strong influence on the price of Bitcoin. Previous halvings have shown that Bitcoin halving triggers remarkable growth not only in Bitcoin’s price but in the whole cryptocurrency market: in the one-year rise, it has changed the price from $11 to $1,100 after the first halving and from $600 to $20,000 at the peak moment after the second one.

After the third Bitcoin halving in May 2020, the whole crypto market went into overdrive like previous times, although it wasn’t immediately apparent. At that moment, the price of Bitcoin was a little less than $10,000, and it stayed there until the mid-summer of 2020 when it broke through that point. From late July to October, the BTC price was bouncing between $10,000 and $12,000. The fall of 2020 was when the price really took off, hitting $63,000 in April 2021. After the summer lull, when the price went down to around $34,000, there was a second bull run, which resulted in the Bitcoin price hitting an all-time high of almost $69,000 in November 2021.

Since then, the price has been slowly going down. However, in 2023 the trend has reversed, and one of the causes for that is probably the anticipation of the upcoming halving. If the history of halvings repeats itself, we can expect yet another reversal that will cause the price to go down right before the 2024 halving. After that, as some experts claim, we can expect another epic Bitcoin rally, and with it, the whole crypto market being revitalized.

What to expect after 2024 Bitcoin halving?

As we said, quite a few experts still expect Bitcoin to gain lost positions after halving, and more — especially since historically, this is exactly what happened. However, there’s no agreement on the possible price following this event: BTC predictions for 2024 vary wildly. Some specialists are cautious, predicting the price to get just a bit higher than the previous peak, while others see Bitcoin breaking the $100,000 and even $150,000 marks by the end of 2024. Note that the market is quite volatile, so those predictions are not set in stone; moreover, there’s always the possibility of some event disrupting the entire crypto market. But if history is any indication, we’re still due for a bull market soon.

How is the SwapSpace halving countdown timer calculated?

Searching for the exact day when halving is going to befall, you may face certain difficulties. Indeed, the more times you ask, the more variants you get. Why is our timer different from the others? It is based not on the average block mining time, which is commonly cited as 10 minutes, but on live blockchain statistics. This timer may alternate, but still, it is the most precise halving countdown.

Visit our blog for further reading on halving: What will the halving do with the bitcoin price? and What is halving?