On 20 April 2024, at block 840,000, Bitcoin’s miner subsidy dropped from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC per block. That is the fourth time the schedule has done this. The 2020 halving already has a guide on this site; this page is news for the 2024 clock, not a rewrite of that explainer.
What is new around the event is not the maths. US spot bitcoin ETPs had been trading since January. A lot of the world’s bitcoin chat now happens in brokerage apps and issuer tweets. The subsidy does not care.
What happened
Every 210,000 blocks, the protocol cuts the new-coin reward. Fees remain a separate line. Miners still compete. Hashrate does not get a vote. If someone sold you a countdown as a guaranteed bull market, they sold you a story about previous cycles, not a function in the code.
Why it matters
Issuance falling is a real supply fact. Demand is still people and machines bidding. ETPs can change who is allowed to bid in a retirement account; they do not change the block reward. If you hold coins, you did not need to “upgrade” anything. If a site asked you to convert BTC because of the halving, it was a scam with a calendar.
For the mechanism in slower language, see the 2020 halving guide. For the wrapper, see how buying crypto actually works.
What happens next
Miner margins, fee spikes if blocks fill, and a month of charts with vertical lines on them. We will not forecast the print. Nothing here is an instruction to buy, sell, or hold bitcoin.
