Bitcoin and chains · 07 / 86 · 3 min
Mining and the halving
New bitcoin is paid to miners who add blocks. About every four years that new supply is cut in half. The cut is not a promise that the price rises.
The bars are new coins per block, not a price. Each cut is about four years. Buyers are not on this chart.
A worked case
A video says the next halving will double the price because it always has. The person buys the week before and pays a spread both ways. The new supply did shrink. Their extra coins were not created by the calendar. They needed a buyer at a higher price, and they still paid the fees.
Who gets the new coins
Miners spend machines and electricity. The subsidy, plus fees from transactions, is how they are paid. When people pay high fees, miners prefer those transactions.
What the halving does not do
A smaller flow of new coins does not force buyers to appear. Sellers, fees, and attention still set the next trade.
Anyone selling you a halving as a sure profit is selling a story. The calendar event is real. The profit is not owed to you.
A calendar for new coins, not for the price
New bitcoin is paid to the miner who adds a block. The payment started at 50 bitcoin a block. The protocol cuts that subsidy in half every 210,000 blocks, which has landed about every four years: 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024, when the subsidy became 3.125. The bitcoin wiki page on controlled supply is the plain schedule. Miners are also paid the fees attached to transactions. As the subsidy shrinks, those fees matter more, and a busy day costs more to get into a block.
A smaller flow of new coins is a fact about supply. It is not a fact about buyers. Each halving has been surrounded by people selling a sure rise, often with a chart of what happened last time and a fee for the course. Last time is not a contract. Sellers, fees, and attention still set the next trade. Anyone who tells you the date itself owes you a profit is using a real calendar as a costume.
Who gets paid is not mysterious. Miners receive the new coins and the fees. Who can change the schedule is the network of nodes that would have to run different software, which is slow and public. Who can stop your hope of a higher price is any seller, including miners selling the coins they were just paid.
Read it yourself
These links are the record. They are not a recommendation, and they are not instructions. A news story or a court paper can still be wrong about a detail. The check does not change because a famous name is in the story.
Apply the check
Open a question. The line is about this topic. It is not a verdict that anything is safe.
Miners, who receive the new coins and the fees.
The protocol, on a schedule. Not a company announcement.
No one can stop the schedule. A seller can still stop your hope of a higher price.
Check yourself
Does the halving guarantee a higher price?
No. It cuts the new supply. It does not create buyers.
After this you can explain who receives new bitcoin, and refuse a halving as a guaranteed rise.