Mining Subsidy

The mining subsidy is the freshly-minted BTC portion of each block's reward. It's distinct from the transaction fees in the block; together, subsidy plus fees make up the block reward that the miner who found the block claims.

The schedule is deterministic and built into the protocol:

Era	Block range	Subsidy per block
Era 1	0 - 209,999	50 BTC
Era 2	210,000 - 419,999	25 BTC
Era 3	420,000 - 629,999	12.5 BTC
Era 4	630,000 - 839,999	6.25 BTC
Era 5	840,000 - 1,049,999	3.125 BTC (current as of 2026)
Era 6	1,050,000 - 1,259,999	1.5625 BTC (next halving ~April 2028)
...	...	...
Era 33+	block ~6,930,000+	0 (full reduction to zero satoshis)

Each era halves the subsidy, hence "halving" or "halvening" (block 210,000 in November 2012 was the first). The integer-truncation arithmetic means the total ever issued is exactly 20,999,999.9769 BTC, slightly under the round-number 21 million (see asymptote).

What this means for the long-term economics:

• Today (2026), the subsidy is 3.125 BTC per block. At ~144 blocks per day, that's ~450 BTC of new supply daily, ~164,250 BTC per year, ~0.83% annual inflation against the ~19.7M circulating.
• After April 2028's halving, subsidy drops to 1.5625 BTC; inflation halves to ~0.4%.
• Around 2140, the subsidy rounds to zero. Miners earn only transaction fees from that point onward.

The subsidy is what bootstrapped Bitcoin's security: high enough rewards to attract massive hash power even before fees became meaningful. The transition from subsidy-dominated revenue to fee-dominated revenue is one of the most discussed open questions in Bitcoin economics, but the math is fixed and not subject to debate.