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Technology term

Halving

The scheduled 50 percent cut in Bitcoin's block reward, roughly every four years.

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Updated 2026-08-303 min readDefinition
Definition

The scheduled 50 percent cut in Bitcoin's block reward, roughly every four years.

Every 210000 blocks, the reward paid to Bitcoin miners halves. It went from 50 to 25 to 12.5 to 6.25 to 3.125, and will keep halving until issuance ends around 2140.

The halving is the clock crypto cycles are often measured against, though causation is much debated and every cycle has had other drivers too.

In practice

Halvings are fully predictable. Anyone can calculate the exact block years in advance.

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