Reward Era

Each ~4-year period (210k blocks) between Bitcoin halvings. The block subsidy halves at the end of an era.

A reward era (also called "epoch" by some analysts) is each ~4-year period between halvings during which the block subsidy stays at a fixed value. The full schedule is locked in by protocol math: 210,000 blocks per era, subsidy halving at each transition.

The complete schedule:

Era	Block range	Year (approx)	Subsidy	Notes
1	0 - 209,999	2009-2012	50 BTC	Genesis era; CPU mining at first, GPU miners from 2010
2	210,000 - 419,999	2012-2016	25 BTC	First halving Nov 2012; GPU and early ASIC era
3	420,000 - 629,999	2016-2020	12.5 BTC	Industrial ASIC era; SegWit activates 2017
4	630,000 - 839,999	2020-2024	6.25 BTC	Taproot activates 2021; halvening April 2024
5	840,000 - 1,049,999	2024-2028	3.125 BTC	In force as of October 2026
6	1,050,000 - 1,259,999	2028-2032	1.5625 BTC
7	1,260,000 - 1,469,999	2032-2036	0.78125 BTC
...	...	...	...	...
33	6,720,000 - 6,929,999	~2136-2140	1 satoshi	Last era with any subsidy
34	6,930,000 onward	~2140 onward	0	Subsidy rounds down to zero satoshis

Each transition is mechanically simple: at the start of the era, every node automatically applies the new subsidy. There's no vote, no announcement, no human in the loop. The protocol just enforces the halved value.

Cultural and market features around halvings:

Halving cycles are a popular price story. Each of the four halvings from 2012 to 2024 was followed by a new all-time high, but other big events landed in the same windows, and four cases are too few to show that the halving caused the rise. See the Halvings rabbit hole for the numbers.
Miner capitulation events often follow halvings: marginal miners with high electricity costs become unprofitable overnight and shut down, reducing hash rate temporarily.
Difficulty adjustment rebalances hash rate over the following weeks to restore the 10-minute block target.

Reward era is the structural unit Bitcoin's monetary policy plans in. The protocol's commitment isn't to a fixed annual inflation rate; it's to a known sequence of eras with halving transitions until the asymptote is reached.

Key takeaways

Spans 210k blocks (~4 years), after which the subsidy halves
Helps create Bitcoin's disinflationary issuance model
Each halving forces miners to adjust to a subsidy cut in half

Halvings

Corrected

2026-10-09

Was: The entry called Bitcoin's issuance deflationary, labeled the whole first era as CPU mining, and listed era 33 as the era with zero subsidy.

Now: Issuance is disinflationary, GPU mining began in 2010, and era 33 (blocks 6,720,000 to 6,929,999) still pays 1 satoshi per block. The subsidy is zero from block 6,930,000, in era 34. Details

Sources (4)

Related terms (5)

Published 14 May 2026. Revised 9 October 2026. One correction logged for this page.

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