Bitcoin’s halving event is now less than 100 blocks away

Bitcoin BTC +4.77% ’s next halving event is now less than 100 blocks away, according to The Block’s Bitcoin Halving Countdown page.

The estimated countdown is based on Bitcoin's average block generation time of 10 minutes, setting a potential time of just after midnight UTC on April 20 (8 p.m. ET today) to reach the halving block height of 840,000, as things stand.

Bitcoin halvings are programmed to occur automatically every 210,000 blocks — roughly every four years. Once a halving event occurs, miners receive 50% fewer bitcoins as a subsidy reward for every block of transactions they mine and add to the blockchain. However, they continue to earn additional transaction fee rewards for each block mined as normal.

There have been three halving events in Bitcoin's history, reducing its block subsidy inflation from 50 BTC to 25 BTC in 2012, then to 12.5 BTC in 2016 and 6.25 BTC at the last halving on May 11, 2020. Bitcoin’s latest halving will see the subsidy reward for miners on the network drop from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block. In the long term, there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in existence.

The halving events will continue until the last bitcoin is expected to be mined around the year 2140. After this, miners will only earn from transaction fees.

What comes next?

On Wednesday, analysts at research and brokerage firm Bernstein said they expect bitcoin to resume its bullish trajectory post-halving, reiterating a target of $150,000 by the end of 2025. On the other hand, Coinify CEO Rikke Staer suggested the halving is a "sell the news" event as less efficient miners may be forced to sell their existing bitcoin holdings, potentially overwhelming demand.

While miner revenues have risen this year amid the increase in bitcoin’s price, it remains to be seen the extent of the impact the halving has on less efficient mining operations and, hence, the overall network metrics following the drop in subsidy.

 

Bitcoin is currently trading for $64,776 — up 6% in the last 24 hours, according to The Block’s price page . Bitcoin briefly fell below $60,000 earlier today amid reports of Israeli missiles hitting a site in Iran but has subsequently rebounded strongly.