Bitcoin crosses halfway mark in halving cycle as price trails earlier cycles

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Bitcoin crosses halfway mark in halving cycle

Highlights

Bitcoin has reached 50.01% of the current halving cycle, with the next halving expected on April 12, 2028.
Miner rewards now stand at 3.125 BTC per block, while new issuance is about 450 BTC per day.
Since the 2024 halving, Bitcoin has risen by only about 15%, a much weaker performance than in previous cycles.

Halfway through the cycle, without the old euphoria

According to CoinDesk, citing mempool.space, Bitcoin has reached 50.01% of the current halving cycle. This phase, known as Epoch 5, began after the April 2024 halving and will run until 2028. Historically, these cycles have shaped the rhythm of supply in the market: every 210,000 blocks, the reward paid to miners is cut in half, reducing the pace at which new coins enter circulation.

This time, however, the market response has been more subdued than in earlier years. Bitcoin is currently trading at about $75,679, compared with around $64,969 at the time of the April 2024 halving. Even though BTC climbed above $125,000 in October 2025, the overall gain from the halving level remains modest by historical standards. Fidelity noted as early as last year that, at the 25% mark of this cycle, Bitcoin was already posting much weaker gains than after the 2016 and 2020 halvings, when the price had risen by several hundred percent at a comparable stage.

Supply is tightening on schedule

Miners now receive 3.125 BTC per block, down from 6.25 BTC before the 2024 halving. With blocks mined roughly every 10 minutes, the network is issuing about 450 BTC per day. That pace is maintained automatically: mining difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks to keep issuance stable regardless of changes in hash rate.

This mechanism keeps making Bitcoin supply more restrictive. More than 95% of all bitcoins have already been mined, and in March the network passed the 20 million BTC mark out of the maximum possible 21 million. Against that backdrop, annual supply inflation has dropped below 1%, reinforcing Bitcoins scarcity as a defining feature.

A new market rhythm

The main takeaway from the current cycle is that Bitcoin appears to be maturing as an asset. The larger its market capitalization and the broader its institutional adoption, the more capital is needed to move the price sharply.

Fidelity has argued directly that the market is becoming more saturated, while volatility and halving-driven returns are gradually declining.

That does not reduce the importance of the halving itself, but it does change its effect: the event still tightens supply, yet it is less and less likely to trigger the kind of immediate and extreme rallies seen in earlier years.

As previously covered, Bitcoin nears $75,000 amid hopes for U.S.-Iran deal.

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