Bitcoin has moved beyond half of its current halving cycle.

Coindesk reported on Monday that the Bitcoin network has passed 50.01 percent of the current halving cycle, with the next halving expected on April 12, 2028.

The current cycle is "Epoch 5," which began in April 2024. A Bitcoin halving occurs once every 210,000 blocks, typically about every 4 years, cutting mining rewards by 50 percent. The current block subsidy is 3.125 BTC per block. Based on an average 10-minute block time, about 450 BTC are newly issued each day.

That issuance pace is maintained through network difficulty adjustments. The Bitcoin network adjusts difficulty every 2,016 blocks to recalibrate if blocks are produced too quickly or too slowly. As a result, once the remaining 104,986 blocks are processed, the network will reach the next halving.

In terms of supply, Bitcoin’s scarcity is becoming more pronounced. Halvings reduce Bitcoin issuance, lowering the inflation rate in a predictable way. Bitcoin’s inflation rate has now fallen below 1 percent. The total issuance cap is fixed at 21 million, and the 20 millionth bitcoin was recently mined. The final 1 million are expected to be mined over the next 114 years.

Price action has diverged somewhat from the effects of reduced supply. Bitcoin has risen about 15 percent since the April 2024 halving. It climbed from about $64,000 to just under $75,000. Over the same period, however, the gain was smaller than in previous halving cycles.

Interim peaks and pullbacks were also large. Bitcoin rose to about $126,000 in October 2025 to set a record high, then fell about 50 percent to about $60,000 in early February 2026. It has since rebounded, but Glassnode data show this cycle has continued to post lower returns than past cycles at the same point after a halving.

That pattern also aligns with market maturation. As Bitcoin adoption expands and its market capitalisation grows, more capital is needed to generate the kind of large gains seen in the past. It suggests not that the halving effect has disappeared, but that price reactions are becoming more gradual than before.

Volatility is also declining as cycles progress. The market is focusing on the continued reduction in Bitcoin supply, but prices are not reacting as sharply as in the past. Coindesk reported that a key point to watch in the latter part of this halving cycle will be the pace at which supply tightening is reflected in prices.