Bitcoin passes halfway point in halving cycle as price gains trail prior cycles
Slower post-halving gains reflect bitcoin’s shift toward a more mature asset.
What to know:
- Bitcoin is more than 50% through its current halving cycle, with issuance at 3.125 btc per block and an inflation rate below 1% as supply trends toward its 21 million cap.
- Bitcoin price performance is more muted this cycle, up around 15% since the April 2024 halving, highlighting diminishing returns as adoption grows and volatility declines.
A halving occurs every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years, and reduces the reward miners receive by 50%.
This process controls bitcoin’s issuance and ensures a predictable decline in its inflation rate (currently under 1%). In the current epoch, the block subsidy is 3.125 BTC per block. With blocks mined on average every 10 minutes, around 450 BTC are issued daily.
This 10 minute schedule is maintained through difficulty adjustments, which occur every 2,016 blocks. The network increases or decreases mining difficulty depending on how quickly blocks are found, keeping issuance consistent.
With approximately 104,986 blocks remaining in this cycle, bitcoin’s supply continues its dependable path toward its fixed cap. Each new epoch further reduces issuance and its inflation rate, reinforcing its long term scarcity.
Bitcoin has a fixed maximum supply of 21,000,000 coins, one of its main characteristics which underpins its scarcity. Recently, the network reached a major milestone as the 20 millionth bitcoin was mined, meaning the final million will take another 114 years to mine.
