Bitcoin halving 2028: what it means for mining income
The 2028 Bitcoin halving, expected around April 2028, cuts the block subsidy in half, and this post explains what that does to mining income and to any 24-month hashrate plan that runs across it.
Published by Minevana · October 14, 2026 · 8 min read
The short answer
A Bitcoin halving cuts the new-coin reward for mining a block in half, every 210,000 blocks. The next one, at block 1,050,000, is expected around April 2028 and lowers the subsidy from 3.125 to 1.5625 BTC. At the same difficulty, each TH/s then mines half as much new bitcoin. A 24-month plan activated in October 2026 would likely spend its final six months or so after the cut.
What is a Bitcoin halving?
When a miner finds a valid Bitcoin block, it collects a reward made of two parts. The block subsidy is brand-new bitcoin. The transaction fees are paid by the users whose transactions are in that block. The halving affects only the subsidy.
Bitcoin's code cuts the subsidy in half every 210,000 blocks. Blocks arrive about every 10 minutes, so this works out to roughly once every four years. No company or vote decides it. Every node enforces the same rule, which is why the total supply stays just under 21 million coins.
On average, mining rewards are proportional to your share of the network's total hashrate, the computing power working on Bitcoin. A halving does not change your share. It halves the pool of new coins that your share is taken from.
Bitcoin halving dates and block rewards
| Event | Block height | Date | Subsidy per block |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | 0 | 3 Jan 2009 | 50 BTC |
| 1st halving | 210,000 | 28 Nov 2012 | 25 BTC |
| 2nd halving | 420,000 | 9 Jul 2016 | 12.5 BTC |
| 3rd halving | 630,000 | 11 May 2020 | 6.25 BTC |
| 4th halving | 840,000 | 20 Apr 2024 | 3.125 BTC |
| 5th halving (next) | 1,050,000 | Estimated April 2028 | 1.5625 BTC |
Past dates are recorded on-chain. The 2028 date is a projection made from the block height in October 2026 and can still move.
When is the next Bitcoin halving, and why is the date only an estimate?
The halving is set by block height, not by the calendar. It happens at block 1,050,000 on whatever day that block is mined.
On 11 October 2026 the chain reached block 970,911, leaving 79,089 blocks to go. At exactly 10 minutes per block that is about 549 days, which points to around 12 April 2028.
Blocks don't arrive on a timetable, though. Finding one is partly luck, and the network resets its difficulty only once every 2,016 blocks, about every two weeks. When new machines join faster than difficulty can catch up, blocks come a little quicker than every 10 minutes. When miners switch off, they come slower. From the April 2024 halving to 11 October 2026, blocks averaged about 9.95 minutes. At that pace the date moves to around 9 April 2028. On 14 October 2026 the countdown site CoinWarz projected 13 April 2028.
So the honest answer is early to mid April 2028, and it could land a few weeks either side of that. Check a live block explorer as the date gets closer.
What happened to miners after past halvings?
Past halvings have followed a broadly similar pattern. The details depended on the bitcoin price and on fees at the time.
- 2020 (block 630,000): In the days after the cut, daily miner revenue fell about 44%, from $16.1 million to $9.0 million, by The Block's estimate. Network hashrate dropped roughly 16%, from about 122 to 102 EH/s. The Block reported that older machines such as the Antminer S9 had become unprofitable, while newer models such as the Antminer S17 and Whatsminer M30S still made money.
- Difficulty adjusted afterwards: Difficulty changes only once every 2,016 blocks. In 2020 the halving fell partway through one of those periods, and Luxor said it would take two adjustments for difficulty to reflect the smaller network. As difficulty came down, each remaining unit of hashrate earned a little more of the smaller reward.
- 2024 (block 840,000): The halving block itself carried 37.67 BTC in fees, about 12 times its 3.125 BTC subsidy, because users rushed to use the Runes token protocol, which launched at that block. The rush faded within weeks. Hashprice, which is what a unit of hashrate earns per day, hit a then-record low of $44.43 per PH/s per day on 1 May 2024 and ended Q2 2024 down 56%. Hashrate slipped about 8% from its late-May peak by mid-July.
- The general pattern: income per unit of hashrate drops sharply, the least efficient machines switch off, difficulty adjusts, and the miners with cheap power and efficient hardware keep going. How long the pain lasted depended mostly on the price and fees around the event, and nobody can schedule those.
- Halvings are not the only force: in August 2026, with no halving in between, the monthly average hashprice was $34.63 per PH/s per day, according to Hashrate Index. That is below the 2024 post-halving daily low of $44.43.
What the halving does to 1 TH/s: a dated snapshot
This is network math, not a forecast and not what any provider pays. It shows how much new bitcoin the network's subsidy works out to per TH/s per day at three points in time. 1 BTC = 100,000,000 sats. Rising difficulty cut the figure by about a third between April 2024 and October 2026 even though there was no halving in that period.
| Moment | Difficulty | Subsidy per block | New BTC per TH/s per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Halving block, 20 Apr 2024 (block 840,000) | 86.4 T | 3.125 BTC | about 73 sats |
| 11 Oct 2026 (block 970,911) | 132.7 T | 3.125 BTC | about 47 sats |
| After the 2028 halving, if difficulty stayed at 132.7 T | 132.7 T | 1.5625 BTC | about 24 sats |
Formula: subsidy × 86,400 seconds × 10^12 ÷ (difficulty × 2^32). Subsidy only: it leaves out fees (0.70% of block rewards in August 2026), electricity, pool charges and any operator charges. Difficulty changes every 2,016 blocks, so these numbers go out of date quickly. This is general network math, not what a Minevana plan pays.
Why transaction fees matter more after each halving
Fees are the part of the reward that a halving leaves alone. Right now they are small. In August 2026, fees averaged 0.02218 BTC per block. That was 0.70% of total block rewards and the fourteenth month in a row below 1%, according to Hashrate Index. The Block put fees at about 7% of miner revenue during the 2024 boom in on-chain activity such as Ordinals and Runes.
Each halving doubles the weight of the same fees. If fees stayed at their August 2026 level, they would make up about 1.4% of block rewards after the 2028 cut instead of 0.70%. The subsidy would still provide almost all of the reward.
In the long run, this shift is part of the design. The Bitcoin whitepaper says the incentive for miners can move entirely to fees once a set number of coins has been issued, and the last fraction of new bitcoin is expected around 2140. Until then, fees are unpredictable. They can spike for a few blocks, as they did at the 2024 halving, or stay near multi-year lows for more than a year.
What the halving means for a 24-month hashrate plan
Any 24-month plan activated between about April 2026 and the halving itself will run across it. A plan activated in October 2026 would run until October 2028: roughly 18 months under the current 3.125 BTC subsidy, then about six months under 1.5625 BTC.
For many plans the clock starts at activation, not at payment. Each Minevana plan runs 24 months from activation. Activation happens after the operator checks your payment on-chain by hand, and there is no published turnaround time. A later activation puts slightly more of the term after the halving.
Here is the general mechanism. If a plan's output is tied to the network's block rewards, the bitcoin it produces per TH/s falls by about half at the halving, all else equal. Difficulty can ease once weaker machines leave, but in 2020 and 2024 hashrate fell by far less than half, so most of the cut remained.
Fees and the bitcoin price can move either way. Some buyers expect the price to rise after a halving because new supply shrinks. Nobody can promise that, and everyone knows the date of the cut years in advance.
For Minevana in particular, how your share is calculated and whether any fee is deducted have not been published. That means we cannot tell you exactly how the halving will affect a Minevana plan. Payouts are sent when you request them, to the payout wallet saved on your account, on no fixed schedule, and each one is recorded with an on-chain transaction hash (how payouts work). Mining income varies, and you can get back less than you paid.
How to model a plan that crosses the halving
- 1
Write down the real term
Start from the activation date, not the payment date, and add 24 months.
- 2
Split the term at the halving
Use early to mid April 2028 as the dividing line. Count everything before it at 3.125 BTC per block and everything after it at 1.5625 BTC.
- 3
Model each part separately
The mining calculator uses today's 3.125 BTC subsidy, so use it as it is for the months before the halving. For the months after, halve its estimated BTC per day, or enter double the network hashrate, which has the same effect. Difficulty rose about 54% between April 2024 and October 2026, so also test a higher network hashrate. Try a flat price and a lower price as well as a higher one.
- 4
Leave out fee spikes
Treat the fees in the 2024 halving block as a one-off. Use something close to the recent level, which was under 1% of block rewards in every month from July 2025 to August 2026.
- 5
Remember what is missing
Any estimate for a Minevana plan is incomplete, because the share calculation and any fee have not been published. If your numbers only work when the price goes up, you are betting on price, not on mining.