The Bitcoin halving, what it does to miners, and what our test of the cycle found
A halving changes what miners are paid, and some traders turn that into a calendar. We tested the calendar on past data.
What a halving is
Bitcoin miners run the computers that confirm transactions and add new blocks to the chain. For each block they add, the network pays them a fixed reward in newly created bitcoin. This is the block reward, and it is the main way new bitcoin enters circulation.
Roughly every four years, that reward is cut in half. That is a halving. The most recent one was on 20 April 2024, when the reward fell from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block. The two before it in our data were on 11 May 2020 and 9 July 2016.
For a miner, a halving is a pay cut that arrives on a known date. The same machines and the same electricity bills now earn half as many coins per block. Miners with higher costs may switch off, and the rest have to earn more from fees or hope the coin's price rises to cover the gap. That is the miner's side of it.
Why people treat it as a timing rule
New supply is a simple story. If fewer new coins arrive each day and demand stays the same, the price should rise. So a common idea is to hold crypto for a set stretch after each halving and stay out the rest of the time.
The trouble is the sample. There have been very few halvings. A pattern drawn from three events can easily be a coincidence, and the halving date is public, so any effect on supply may already be reflected in the price.
What we tested
We turned the idea into a fixed rule and ran it on past data:
- Hold every crypto in the test for 18 months after each halving (2016-07-09, 2020-05-11, 2024-04-20), and be flat otherwise.
- 18 crypto pairs, from 2017-08-18 to 2025-03-14, about 7.6 years.
- Trading costs of 0.10% to 0.17% per side.
- Benchmark: an equal-weight long position in the same assets, rebalanced daily, with no costs.
What we found
On the raw number, the rule finished ahead: +35.9 percentage points a year against the benchmark, across 39 completed trades.
That number did not hold up as evidence. The unadjusted p-value was 0.188, which means a result this good would turn up by luck about 19 times in 100. After the correction we apply for testing many rules at once (Benjamini-Hochberg), the adjusted q-value was 1.000. The result is not significant, and it did not pass the luck check.
The sample is the main limit. Only three halvings sit inside the data, and the first holding window starts before the price history does, so only part of it is tested. The trades are bunched into three stretches of time, and crypto pairs often move together, so 39 trades are not 39 independent tests. A big gap on a handful of episodes tells us little about whether the calendar itself matters.
This is an in-sample backtest on past data, not a promise, and it says nothing about any future halving or price.
Read the full test
The rule, the settings and the numbers are on the Bitcoin halving cycle test. It sits alongside every other rule we have tested on the evidence page, including the ones that failed.
About Tickfloor
What is Tickfloor?
Tickfloor is a stock and crypto indicator for beginner and self-directed traders: it scores any stock or coin out of 10 from ten common chart checks, and publishes every backtest behind the method, the failed ones too. So far that is 1,342 strategies tested, and 0 passed the luck check.
Is Tickfloor free?
Yes, to start. You get 3 free scores a day with a free account. No card. The example read, the evidence and results pages, the glossary and the first two course lessons need no account at all. Paid passes unlock the rest and are listed on the pricing page.
How is Tickfloor different from other indicator sites?
Tickfloor shows its own test record next to the score, failures included: 1,342 strategies in 77 families against a benchmark that pays no costs. 265 finished ahead on the raw number and 0 of 1,774 tests were left once luck was allowed for. The score describes what a chart shows today. It is not a tip or a prediction.
General information, not personal advice. Tickfloor does not hold a financial services licence.