<p>It halves from 50BTC to 25BTC block reward after 210,000 blocks, which at 6 blocks mined per hour by my calculations works out to be in 358 days, which is around <strong>Dec 13th, 2012</strong>.</p>

<p>It's likely that the number of active miners will reduce substantially at that point, but within a relatively short time the difficulty should adjust down so that approx 6 blocks per hour are mined again. In the time it takes this to happen, transactions may take somewhat longer to be processed and confirmed.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-21T09:30:18.017Z
+1 - and isn't it nice to know well in advance when the conditions of your business are going to change so you can start a gentle ramp up of alternatives?
Gary
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-22T01:21:57.310Z
around Dec 13th, 2012: Did not the Mayas predict something like that? :-)
Thilo
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-22T02:39:28.357Z
That's Dec 21st, according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar . Oh, and apparently: "for the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle". I need to start planning my block-reward-halving party!
Highly Irregular
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-21T02:53:52.383Z
2011-12-21T02:53:52.383Z
Highly Irregular
<p>When is the Bitcoin payout for solving a block going to change?  What happens when overnight it is half as profitable to process a block?</p>

<mining-reward><reward-schedule>
When is the Bitcoin payout for solving a block going to change?
shoeless joe
# When is the Bitcoin payout for solving a block going to change?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-12-21)

When is the Bitcoin payout for solving a block going to change? What happens when overnight it is half as profitable to process a block?

**Tags:** mining-reward, reward-schedule


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2011-12-21. Score: 5 | Accepted answer

It halves from 50BTC to 25BTC block reward after 210,000 blocks, which at 6 blocks mined per hour by my calculations works out to be in 358 days, which is around **Dec 13th, 2012**.

It's likely that the number of active miners will reduce substantially at that point, but within a relatively short time the difficulty should adjust down so that approx 6 blocks per hour are mined again. In the time it takes this to happen, transactions may take somewhat longer to be processed and confirmed.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: +1 - and isn't it nice to know well in advance when the conditions of your business are going to change so you can start a gentle ramp up of alternatives?  
> **username_3**: around Dec 13th, 2012: Did not the Mayas predict something like that? :-)  
> **username_1**: That's Dec 21st, according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar . Oh, and apparently: "for the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle". I need to start planning my block-reward-halving party!  

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