The Halvings in Review: What Happened After Each One?

What happened after the Bitcoin halvings? After all four halvings the price rose to a new cycle top within 12 to 18 months and then fell by more than half. But each round was clearly weaker than the one before: from halving to top the price became 92 times as high, then 30, 7.9 and most recently only 1.9 times. For miners, every halving was a hard cut, and each time the network came through it without interruption.

Before every halving you read the same story: fewer new bitcoin, so the price goes up. How the halving works technically is explained in The Bitcoin Halving Explained Simply. Whether a fixed four-year cycle lies behind the ups and downs is checked in The Bitcoin Four-Year Cycle: Myth or Pattern?. This article looks at something else: what actually happened in the months after each of the four halvings, to the price and to the miners? And what can you read from that for 2028, and what not?

The four halvings at a glance

All figures are daily closes in US dollars from the site's daily data (Coin Metrics until 10.01.2018, OKX after that). "After 6 months" means: on the same calendar day six months later.

And this is how each cycle continued, from the top to the lowest daily close after it:

The 2026 low is the lowest up to the last day of the data (07.11.2026). It may still be undercut.

The 2012 halving: the leap out of nowhere

At the first halving, bitcoin was a niche project. A bitcoin cost $12.33, and the reward per block fell from 50 to 25 bitcoin. That halved supply growth from about 25 % a year to about 12.5 %. No later halving tightened new supply as much.

What followed was the steepest rise in bitcoin's history. After only six months a bitcoin cost ten times as much. On 04.12.2013, 371 days after the halving, the price closed at $1’135, 92 times the halving price. In between, in April 2013, there was already a first crash of more than half. After the top came the collapse of the Mt. Gox exchange, and by January 2015 the price had fallen 85 %. Even at the low, though, bitcoin still cost 14 times the halving-day price.

For miners, the halving fell into a time of technical upheaval. Mining was done with graphics cards and the first FPGA devices. In early 2013 the first ASIC miners came onto the market, machines that can do only one thing: compute bitcoin hashes. The rising price and the new machines quickly made up for the cut in the reward. Those who kept mining with graphics cards soon fell behind.

The 2016 halving: a long calm, then euphoria

On 09.07.2016 the reward fell to 12.5 bitcoin. Supply then grew by about 4.2 % a year instead of 8.3 %. The price was $652, well below the 2013 high.

Little happened in the first months. Three weeks after the halving the price was 19 % lower, after six months only 39 % higher. The old high of $1’135 fell only in February 2017, 229 days after the halving. Then came the acceleration: in December 2017 bitcoin closed at $19’641, 30 times the halving price. A year of decline followed, down to $3’212 in December 2018, minus 84 %.

For miners, 2016 showed a sequence that repeated afterwards. The network's computing power stalled briefly because older machines were no longer profitable at half the reward. The difficulty adjustment lowered the difficulty, the remaining miners earned more again, and computing power soon kept growing. Large mining farms in China with cheap power and new, more efficient machines dominated the picture.

The 2020 halving: Covid, a flood of money and the first big cycle with professionals

The third halving on 11.05.2020 came two months after the Covid crash of March 2020. The price was $8’559, the reward fell to 6.25 bitcoin, supply growth from about 3.6 % to 1.8 % a year.

This time momentum came faster than in 2016. After six months the price stood at 1.8 times, and at the end of November 2020 above the old 2017 high. After twelve months it was 6.6 times. From August 2020, Strategy, then MicroStrategy, became the first listed company to buy on a large scale, and others followed in 2021. Interest rates were near zero as well. The top came on 08.11.2021 at $67’525, 546 days after the halving, at 7.9 times. By 21.11.2022, shortly after the collapse of the FTX exchange, the price had fallen 77 %.

For miners, 2020 was the sharpest cut. After the halving, computing power fell noticeably as many older machines were switched off. The difficulty dropped in the following adjustments, and for a few weeks blocks came more slowly than every ten minutes. Then everything recovered with the rising price. The bigger shift in 2021 had another cause: China banned mining, and a large part of the computing power moved to the US and other countries. Listed miners such as Marathon Digital grew big in this cycle.

The 2024 halving: ETFs, a small top and a low below the start

The fourth halving on 20.04.2024 was the first before which the price already stood above the previous high. Since January 2024 bitcoin ETFs had been buying in the US, and in March 2024 bitcoin closed at $73’083, seven weeks before the halving. On halving day a bitcoin cost $64’938. The reward fell to 3.125 bitcoin, supply growth from about 1.7 % to 0.8 % a year.

After that, nothing happened for a long time. In September 2024 the price was 17 % below halving day, after six months only 6 % above it. A new high came only in November 2024. The cycle top came on 06.10.2025 at $124’673, 534 days after the halving, but only at 1.9 times. By 30.06.2026 the price had fallen 53 % to $58’628. For the first time in its history, bitcoin stood below the price of the preceding halving day.

For miners, the 2024 halving began with an exception. In halving block 840’000, users paid 37.6 BTC in fees, because a new token protocol launched the same day and many wanted to be first. Soon afterwards fees were low again, and revenue per unit of computing power fell to record lows. The network's computing power still kept growing. The large listed miners responded with new, more efficient machines, mergers and capital from the stock market. Several now rent parts of their sites and power connections to data centres for artificial intelligence. How two of these companies compare is shown in Riot Platforms vs. CleanSpark.

The pattern: weaker every time

Put the four rounds side by side and one thing stands out: the halving had less effect each time.

"Trend" is the site's Power Law trend, the long-term fair value according to the model. Three reasons suggest themselves for why the effect faded:

1. The supply being halved has become tiny. In 2012 an inflow of a quarter of the supply per year was halved, in 2024 one of under 2 %. Compared with daily exchange trading, that hardly matters any more.
2. The market knows the date. The halving is fixed years in advance. On halving day, bitcoin was valued higher each time than at the previous one: in 2012 the price stood below half the trend, in 2024 already 20 % above it. Part of the expected effect was already in the price.
3. The market is bigger and broader. With ETFs, companies and pension funds, interest rates, money supply and stock markets drive the price more strongly. An event on the supply side recedes behind them.

One thing, on the other hand, stayed remarkably stable: the lows. Each time they lay between 0.45 and 0.59 times the trend, close to the Power Law floor. The gap between top and low is shrinking mainly from above.

The chart shows the four cycles on the logarithmic scale. The tops touch the top band, the lows the floor, and both lines slowly converge:

The 2028 halving: what it can bring

The fifth halving comes with block 1’050’000, expected between late March and mid-April 2028. The reward then falls to 1.5625 bitcoin per block. What is certain:

• New supply halves again, from about 450 to about 225 bitcoin a day. Supply growth falls from about 0.8 % to 0.4 % a year.
• Miners lose half their subsidy overnight. Machines with high power use per unit of computing power are switched off, the difficulty adjusts, and the network keeps running. That is how it went four times.
• Fees become more important. With every halving their share of miners' revenue grows. Whether they can carry the network alone in the long run is an open question.

If the pattern of the last cycles holds, the cycle top would come around autumn 2029, and again closer to the trend than in 2025. The site's model gives these values. Converted at the ECB reference rate of 12.11.2026 (€1 = $1.1081 = CHF 0.9232):

This is an extrapolation of the model, not a forecast. On 07.11.2026 the price, at $75’868, stood at 0.70 times the trend. Where the lines lie after 2030 is shown in the Bitcoin forecast by the Power Law.

What 2028 probably won't bring

• No jump by a large multiple. The rises fell from ×92 to ×1.9. If that continues, a top in the low single-digit multiples of the halving price is more likely after 2028, perhaps even none that confirms the pattern.
• No fixed date. Four cases are not statistics. The top came after 371 to 546 days, and in 2024 the old high already fell before the halving.
• No noticeable scarcity overnight. 225 fewer bitcoin a day are about $17 million at the price of early November 2026. On a normal day, bitcoin worth many billions changes hands on exchanges.
• No protection from a bear market. Every cycle so far ended with more than 50 % down. How long these phases lasted and how they ended is shown in All Bitcoin bear markets compared.

What you take away

If you hold bitcoin for many years, you don't need to time a halving. The review shows that the months right after it were often quiet or even weak, and that the biggest gains of each round later disappeared by half or more. A savings plan that buys regularly takes both phases with it. And if you plan partial sales, the distance to the trend is a better guide than a date in the calendar.