A Bitcoin halving takes place roughly every four years, with the next one taking place in 2024.
The Bitcoin protocol is designed to halve every exactly 210,000 blocks. Since it usually takes about 10 minutes to mine a new block, around 144 are being mined per day, or more than 4,300 per month.
It is currently just under 800,000 blocks mined, so another 40,000 are still required to get to the next one. In less than ten months, block number 840,000 should be reached, which will trigger the fourth halving.
Estimated Date of the Next Bitcoin Halving
Actually, 10 minutes don’t always go by between blocks. Mining a block means randomly searching for an alphanumeric string, called a hash, that validates it, and this search has unpredictable times, since it is done randomly.
However, it is possible to ensure that more or less, on average, it takes about 10 minutes to find it, and this causes the so-called block-time to always stay close to 10 minutes.
For example, in May it was almost always slightly below this threshold, while in June it was often slightly above it. In early 2023, though, the block time was almost always less than 10 minutes, and this slightly shortened the estimate for the next halving date.
The above means that the estimate of the date of the next halving is not precise, even knowing with certainty that it will take place precisely in block number 840,000.
Based on these estimates, block 840,000 should be mined between April and May 2024, perhaps late April or early May, when the fourth halving would be triggered.
Bitcoin: Previous Halvings and Expectation of the Next one in 2024
Although the first block was mined on January 3, 2009, the 210,000th block that triggered the first halving was mined on November 28, 2012, or 1,425 days later, or just under 3 years and 11 months.
The second cycle saw an even lower block time, because block 420,000 was mined on July 9, 2016, exactly 1,319 days later, which corresponds to just over three years and seven months.
Even during the third cycle, the overall average block time was less than 10 minutes, so much so that block 630,000 was mined on May 11, 2020, after exactly 1,402 days (just under three years and 10 months).
It is possible that it will take less than the theoretical 1,458 days this time as well, so it is almost certain that block 840,000 will be mined before May 11, 2024.
Price Impact
The halving itself does not have a direct impact on the price of Bitcoin. However, it does reduce the selling pressure on the miners, and this usually reduces the selling pressure a bit overall as well.
This was more evident in the past, when a lot of BTC was mined, but as the impact subsides, it becomes less and less. So far all three halves have been followed by an actual speculative bubble, which inflated the following year (2013, 2017, and 2021).
The bubble always bursts the following year, but in no case did the BTC price fall below the previous halving value after the bubble burst. The 2022 low was $15,500, or just under double the May 2020 price.
By Marina Meza
