Network Stories · Early Blocks
The First Halving
- Written by
- The Bitcoin Data Guide editorial team
- Reviewed by
- Protocol review desk
- Dates
- Published 2026-09-21 · Last reviewed 2026-09-21
Fact
At block 210,000 the subsidy fell from 50 to 25 bitcoin, exactly as the schedule specified.
Forecast
What the cut did to the price is a market outcome, not a property of the rule, and is not asserted here.
What the record shows
The subsidy is a function of block height, not of time. For the first 210,000 blocks the reward was 50 bitcoin per block; from block 210,000 it was 25. The change is arithmetic and deterministic, so every node applied it at the same height without any coordination beyond running the same rule.
The boundary was crossed on 28 November 2012. Because the subsidy is set by height, the exact date depends on how quickly the preceding blocks were found, and the network had been running slightly faster than the ten-minute target, so the halving arrived a little earlier than a strict ten-minute average would have placed it.
The cut reduced the rate at which new bitcoin entered circulation, but it did not reduce the total supply, which continued to grow. The supply schedule page sets out the full curve and the epoch each subsidy level defines.
Timeline
- 3 January 2009The chain begins with a 50 bitcoin subsidy per block.
- 28 November 2012Block 210,000 is mined and the subsidy falls to 25 bitcoin.
- 2016The second halving at block 420,000 repeats the rule, confirming the schedule in a second epoch.
What the record does not settle
A halving is often described as an event that changes the market. The rule changed the issuance rate; whether that moved the price is a separate question the block record cannot answer on its own. This page states the schedule and leaves the market claim to the pages that measure it.
The supply schedule holds the full issuance curve, and the halving performance page measures what the price record did around each cut.
Sources
- Bitcoin block explorer — block 210,000
- The block at which the subsidy changed, its timestamp and its coinbase reward.
- Bitcoin Core source — validation.cpp
- The subsidy calculation that halves the reward every 210,000 blocks.