Bitcoin halvings are pivotal events that cut the block subsidy in half, fundamentally altering miner economics and often triggering shifts in network dynamics and market sentiment. With a year having passed since the fourth Bitcoin halving on April 19, 2024, we can now evaluate its impact across several key metrics — including BTC price, network hashrate, difficulty, transaction fees, hashprice, and ASIC prices. This article compares the year following the 2024 halving to the year after the 2020 halving. We will delve into the following topics.
The Bitcoin Halving Explained
Weaker Price Rally
Incomparable Network Hashrate Growth
4.5 Times the Difficulty Growth
A New Fee Era
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Hashprice Compression
ASIC Miner Prices From Boom to Bottom
The Bitcoin Halving Explained
Bitcoin miners earn revenue from two sources: the block subsidy and transaction fees. The block subsidy has been the primary component of the block reward and is programmed to halve every 210,000 blocks — approximately every four years — in an event known as the Bitcoin halving. This mechanism gradually reduces the rate at which new bitcoins are introduced into circulation and will continue until the maximum supply of 21 million BTC is reached.
When Bitcoin was launched in 2009, the block subsidy started at 50 BTC per block. The first halving in 2012 reduced this to 25 BTC, followed by 12.5 BTC in 2016, and then 6.25 BTC after the 2020 halving. As of the most recent halving which occurred on April 19, 2024, at block height 840,000, the subsidy dropped again to 3.125 BTC per block. By that point, 93.75% of all bitcoins — or 19,687,500 BTC — had already been mined.
In total, Bitcoin will go through 32 halving events, culminating around the year 2140. At that time, the final bitcoin will be mined, and no new supply will be introduced. From that moment on, miner revenue will depend solely on transaction fees. This built-in supply cap is central to Bitcoin’s economic design and reinforces its scarcity, mirroring the properties of a deflationary asset.
Weaker Price Rally
Post-2020 Halving
The 2020 halving saw Bitcoin begin its climb from a much lower base. On May 11, 2020 — the date of the halving — BTC was priced around $8,500. Over the next year, it entered a powerful bull market, eventually peaking at $64,863 in April 2021. This rally was fueled by a wave of institutional adoption (with notable entrants like Tesla and MicroStrategy), the rapid growth of decentralized finance (DeFi), and unprecedented levels of post-pandemic monetary stimulus that injected massive liquidity into global markets. It took Bitcoin 196 days to break its previous all-time high of nearly $20,000 from 2017 — a timeline closely mirroring the 2024 post-halving breakout. One year after the halving, Bitcoin had surged by an astonishing 570%.
Post-2024 Halving
Unlike previous cycles, Bitcoin reached a new all-time high before the halving, largely driven by the approval of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. After the April 2024 halving, it took 201 days for Bitcoin to surpass that high again, eventually breaking above the $100,000 mark. This rally was fueled by more than just the halving itself — steady inflows from the newly launched ETFs, reduced supply issuance, and a wave of renewed optimism following President Trump’s election victory all contributed to a euphoric fourth quarter. One year after the halving, Bitcoin was trading around $85,600, representing a 35% increase from the halving day price.
Incomparable Network Hashrate Growth
Post-2020 Halving
The 2020 halving period was marked by significant hashrate volatility. Immediately following the halving, the network’s hashrate dropped sharply — from 120 EH/s to 90 EH/s within just a few days — as less efficient miners shut down. However, the hashrate quickly began to recover, and one year later, it had climbed to 179 EH/s, representing a 49% increase from pre-halving levels. Shortly after that recovery, China’s mining ban triggered the largest hashrate drop in Bitcoin’s history, prompting a global migration of mining operations. This reshuffling ultimately led to the United States emerging as the dominant force in global Bitcoin hashrate distribution.
Post-2024 Halving
After the 2024 halving, the network experienced a nominal hashrate decline that was more than twice as deep as in 2020. However, in percentage terms, the drop was less severe and had a milder impact. Unlike the sharp, immediate dip seen in 2020, the post-halving decline in 2024 was more gradual, taking over two months to reach a bottom. Despite this dip, the hashrate surged impressively afterward—an additional 227 EH/s was added to the network within a year, more than the entire network hashrate recorded one year after the 2020 halving. This robust growth indicates that miners were well prepared in this cycle, having bolstered their balance sheets, employed financial hedging strategies, and upgraded their fleets with next-generation, energy-efficient machines.
4.5 Times the Difficulty Growth
Post-2020 Halving
Since network hashrate directly influences difficulty adjustments, it’s no surprise that difficulty followed a similar upward trajectory. In the year following the 2020 halving, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty rose from 16.10 trillion to 25.05 trillion — an increase of 8.95 trillion, or roughly 56%.
Post-2024 Halving
When comparing the difficulty adjustments after the 2024 halving to those following the 2020 halving, the percentage increase does not dramatically different. However, it’s important to consider that the starting difficulty level in 2024 was already more than five times higher than in 2020. In nominal terms, the difficulty increased by an amount roughly 4.5 times greater than the total rise seen in the year after the 2020 halving. This highlights the scale of network growth and the level of competition among miners in the current cycle.
A New Fee Era
Post-2020 Halving
After the 2020 Bitcoin halving, rising prices led to increased user activity, which filled the mempool and drove up transaction fees. Traders moved BTC between exchanges to arbitrage price differences, competing for limited block space by paying higher fees. Institutional adoption and retail FOMO added pressure as large on-chain transfers surged. At the time, Lightning Network adoption was minimal and SegWit wasn’t fully utilized, limiting scalability. Together, these factors created congestion and a competitive fee market, causing fees to spike at various occasions.
Post-2024 Halving
The 2024 halving event and the fee activity that followed painted a very different picture from previous cycles. During halving block 840,000, users paid a record-breaking 37.7 BTC in transaction fees—over $2.4 million—driven by demand from the launch of the Runes protocol. However, this spike was short-lived. While the first 100 blocks after the halving still saw elevated fees, median transaction fees dropped by 78% in the following weeks as network activity normalized. Fee levels continued to weaken in the second half of 2024, and the downward trend extended into 2025. By March, average fees per block had fallen to just 0.039 BTC—the lowest level since March 2012.
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Hashprice Compression – Current Hashprice is Just 12% of Its Value Four Years Ago.
ASIC Miner Prices From Boom to Bottom – After the 2020 halving, ASIC hardware prices soared to historic highs. In contrast, the current cycle has seen prices drop to record lows.
