Why Ethereum has no halving
A halving is a rule written into Bitcoin: every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years, the reward for mining a block is cut in half, until the supply approaches 21 million coins [8]. Ethereum was never designed that way. It has no supply cap and no countdown. Its issuance has changed only when the community shipped an upgrade that changed it.
Since the Merge in September 2022, new ETH is paid only to validators who stake ETH to secure the network. The total paid out follows a formula: it grows with the square root of the total amount of ETH staked [6]. So issuance goes up a little when more people stake and down when they leave. A second force works against it: since August 2021, the base fee of every transaction is burned, permanently removing ETH [5]. The supply change you see on any day is issuance minus burn. Our Ethereum supply and burn data page tracks both every month since 2015.
Every ETH issuance cut, with dates and block numbers
These are the real changes to how much new ETH is created. Daily figures before the Merge are the average supply growth in a full calendar year from our supply dataset (built on ultrasound.money data), which includes uncle rewards; there was no burn before London.
| Date | Upgrade | Block | What changed | New ETH per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 30, 2015 | Frontier (launch) | 0 | 5 ETH per block, plus uncle rewards [2] | ~31,000 (2016 average) |
| Oct 16, 2017 | Byzantium (EIP-649) | 4,370,000 | Block reward 5 → 3 ETH (−40%) [2][3] | ~20,400 (2018 average) |
| Feb 28, 2019 | Constantinople (EIP-1234) | 7,280,000 | Block reward 3 → 2 ETH (−33%) [2][4] | ~13,600 (2020 average) |
| Aug 5, 2021 | London (EIP-1559) | 12,965,000 | No issuance cut; the base fee of every transaction is now burned [2][5] | Issuance unchanged; burn starts |
| Sep 15, 2022 | The Merge (Paris) | 15,537,394 | Mining rewards end; only staking issuance remains (~88% cut) [1][2] | ~1,700 (with ~14M ETH staked) |
| Oct 20, 2026 | Today | 26,234,850 | Issuance set by the √(ETH staked) formula, not by a calendar [6][7] | ~2,970 (with 43.76M ETH staked) |
Byzantium and Constantinople cut rewards mainly to offset the delay of the “difficulty bomb” that was meant to push Ethereum toward proof of stake; both EIPs say so directly [3][4]. The full upgrade history, including Dencun, Pectra and Fusaka, is on our Ethereum upgrades timeline.
The Merge: the closest thing to a halving (people call it the “triple halving”)
On September 15, 2022, at block 15,537,394, Ethereum stopped using miners [2]. According to ethereum.org, miners had been issued about 13,000 ETH a day, while stakers on the beacon chain were issued about 1,700 ETH a day with roughly 14 million ETH staked. After the Merge only the staking issuance remained, which cut total new ETH by about 88%, from an annualized 4.61% to 0.52% of supply [1].
A Bitcoin halving cuts new supply by 50%. Three halvings in a row would cut it by 87.5%, which is why some holders nicknamed the Merge the “triple halving.” The nickname fits the size of the cut, but not the mechanism: there is no fourth step coming, and issuance has drifted up since 2022 as staking grew from about 14 million to 43.76 million ETH [7]. Even so, today’s issuance is about 78% below the ~13,500 ETH a day that ultrasound.money estimates proof of work would be issuing now.
Since the Merge, the ETH supply has grown from about 120.52 million to 122.15 million, up about 1.35% in just over four years, or roughly 0.33% a year with the burn included [7]. Supply even fell 0.29% in 2023, when gas fees were high enough for the burn to beat issuance.
How ETH issuance works now: the √(staked) formula
The beacon chain pays a reward per validator that shrinks as the number of validators grows, so total issuance rises with the square root of the amount staked. Ben Edgington’s Upgrading Ethereum book gives the maximum yearly issuance as 940.8659 × √(number of validators) ETH [6]. With 32 ETH per validator, that is about 166.3 × √(ETH staked) per year at perfect participation. Real participation runs a little below 100%, so actual issuance is about 1–2% lower.
| ETH staked | Max new ETH per year | Per day | Issuance yield to stakers | Share of supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14M (Merge, Sep 2022) | 622,300 | 1,704 | 4.45% | 0.51% |
| 20M | 743,800 | 2,036 | 3.72% | 0.61% |
| 30M | 911,000 | 2,494 | 3.04% | 0.75% |
| 43.76M (today) | 1,100,300 | 3,012 | 2.51% | 0.90% |
| 50M | 1,176,100 | 3,220 | 2.35% | 0.96% |
| 60M | 1,288,300 | 3,527 | 2.15% | 1.05% |
| 70M | 1,391,500 | 3,810 | 1.99% | 1.14% |
Two things follow. First, doubling the amount staked raises issuance by only about 41% (√2). Second, the yield per staker falls as staking grows, which is why the staking rate has slid from above 4% to about 2.5% before fees. Our staking APR history shows that decline month by month, measured on-chain. Share of supply uses today’s 122.15 million ETH for every row.
ETH issuance calculator
Change the amount of ETH staked or the daily burn to see how much new ETH the network creates and whether supply grows or shrinks. Defaults are the live figures from Oct 20, 2026: 43.76 million ETH staked, 98.6% effective participation (which matches ultrasound.money’s measured 1.085 million ETH a year), and the 30-day average burn of about 81 ETH a day [7].
New ETH per day
2,970
New ETH per year
1,084,826
Issuance yield to stakers
2.48%
Net supply change per year
+0.86%
ETH supply would grow by about 2,889 ETH a day. It turns deflationary when more than about 2,970 ETH is burned per day. Issuance only; priority tips and MEV paid to stakers are not new ETH and are left out.
Want to know what gas price would make ETH deflationary? The supply page’s deflation calculator works from gas prices instead of a daily burn, and the live gas tracker shows today’s base fee.
Ethereum vs Bitcoin halving: how their supply rules differ
| Bitcoin | Ethereum | |
|---|---|---|
| How new coins are created | Proof-of-work miners earn a block subsidy | Proof-of-stake validators earn issuance |
| Schedule | Halves every 210,000 blocks (~4 years) | No schedule; set by a formula on ETH staked |
| New coins per day (Oct 2026) | ~450 BTC (3.125 × ~144 blocks) | ~2,970 ETH |
| Supply now | ~20.10M BTC | ~122.15M ETH |
| Gross issuance per year | ~0.82% | ~0.89% |
| Burn | None | Base fee burned (~81 ETH/day, 30-day average) |
| Maximum supply | 21M (hard cap) | No cap |
| Next change | Halving at block 1,050,000 | Only if more or less ETH is staked, or a future upgrade changes the formula |
The surprise for most people: right now Bitcoin and Ethereum add new coins at almost the same yearly rate, about 0.8–0.9% of supply. Bitcoin gets there by halving on schedule; Ethereum got there by switching to proof of stake. The difference is the future path. Bitcoin’s rate will keep halving. Ethereum’s will move with staking and the burn, and could turn negative again if fees rise. Bitcoin figures: 3.125 BTC per block, about 144 blocks a day, block height 972,350 and about 20.10 million BTC in circulation on Oct 20, 2026 [9][10].
Bitcoin halving dates, for reference
| Date | Block | Block subsidy |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 28, 2012 | 210,000 | 50 → 25 BTC |
| Jul 9, 2016 | 420,000 | 25 → 12.5 BTC |
| May 11, 2020 | 630,000 | 12.5 → 6.25 BTC |
| Apr 20, 2024 | 840,000 | 6.25 → 3.125 BTC |
| ~Spring 2028 (estimate) | 1,050,000 | 3.125 → 1.5625 BTC |
The 2028 date is our estimate: block 1,050,000 is 77,650 blocks after the October 20, 2026 height, which is about 18 months at 10 minutes a block. Faster blocks would bring it forward. For a side-by-side of how the two assets have performed, see ETH vs BTC returns by year and Ethereum vs Bitcoin explained.
Did Ethereum’s supply cuts move the price?
Bitcoin halvings are famous for being followed by bull markets. Ethereum’s cuts show no such pattern. The table uses Coinbase ETH-USD daily closes from our Ethereum price history dataset, measured from the close on the upgrade day.
| Event | Date | ETH close | 30 days later | 1 year later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Byzantium (5 → 3 ETH) | Oct 16, 2017 | $334 | −0.8% | −38.6% |
| Constantinople (3 → 2 ETH) | Feb 28, 2019 | $134 | +5.7% | +69.1% |
| London (burn starts) | Aug 5, 2021 | $2,829 | +37.4% | −38.6% |
| The Merge (~88% cut) | Sep 15, 2022 | $1,473 | −13.4% | +11.5% |
Two cuts were followed by gains a year later and two by losses of almost 39%. Byzantium came right before the 2018 crash; London and the Merge landed in the 2021–2022 cycle top and bear market. Four events are far too few to draw a rule from, and none of this predicts future prices. If you want to see how deep and long ETH bear markets have been, the drawdown history covers every major fall since 2016. To put numbers on a specific target instead, the ETH price target probability tool estimates the odds of reaching a price by a date from ETH’s volatility, and the ETH millionaire calculator shows how many ETH a $1 million stack takes at any price.
Is another Ethereum supply cut coming?
Not on any schedule. The next upgrade, Glamsterdam, has no mainnet date: ethereum.org lists it as “Expected on mainnet Q4 2026 · Date not yet confirmed” [12]. Its scope, tracked in EIP-7773, centers on enshrined proposer-builder separation and block-level access lists, which change how blocks are built, not how much ETH is issued [13].
Researchers have debated lowering issuance as the share of ETH staked climbs, since a lower reward would slow the growth of staking. Any such change would need its own EIP and a hard fork, and it would show up in the fork’s meta-EIP and on ethereum.org long before activation. We update the upgrades timeline whenever that status changes, and we will update this page too.
Scam warning: “Ethereum halving” giveaways, airdrops and countdown sites are a common bait. There is no event to claim anything for, and no real project will ask you to send ETH or connect your wallet to “double” it. See Scam Watch and check any approvals you signed with the token approval checker.
Frequently asked questions
Does Ethereum have a halving?
No. Ethereum has never had a Bitcoin-style halving and has no halving schedule. New ETH is issued to stakers according to a formula based on how much ETH is staked. Past cuts happened through upgrades: block rewards fell from 5 to 3 ETH in October 2017, from 3 to 2 ETH in February 2019, and mining rewards ended at the Merge on September 15, 2022, which cut issuance by about 88%.
When is the next Ethereum halving?
There is no next Ethereum halving to wait for. As of October 20, 2026, no scheduled upgrade changes ETH issuance. The next upgrade, Glamsterdam, has no mainnet date yet and focuses on block building and scaling. If you saw a "2026" or "2028 Ethereum halving" date, it was most likely confused with the Bitcoin halving, which is expected around spring 2028.
Was the Merge an Ethereum halving?
It is the closest thing Ethereum has had, but it was bigger than a halving. ethereum.org estimates miners received about 13,000 ETH a day before the Merge and stakers about 1,700 ETH a day, so total new ETH issuance fell by about 88% on September 15, 2022. Bitcoin halvings cut new supply by 50%.
How much new ETH is created per day?
About 2,970 ETH a day as of October 20, 2026, or roughly 1.085 million ETH a year, according to ultrasound.money. That is about 0.89% of the 122.15 million ETH supply. The figure rises slowly as more ETH is staked, because issuance grows with the square root of the total staked.
Is ETH deflationary?
Not right now. ETH was deflationary for long stretches in 2022 and 2023, when high gas fees burned more ETH than was issued, and the supply fell 0.29% in 2023. Since the Dencun upgrade moved most activity to cheaper layer 2s, the burn has been small (about 81 ETH a day over the last 30 days), so supply is growing at about 0.86% a year. Since the Merge, supply is up about 1.35% in total.
Can you still mine Ethereum?
No. Mining ETH ended at the Merge on September 15, 2022, when Ethereum switched to proof of stake. GPUs and ASICs can no longer earn ETH. Today new ETH goes to validators who stake ETH. Forks that kept mining, such as EthereumPoW (ETHW), are separate coins and are not ETH.
Does ETH have a max supply like Bitcoin?
No. Bitcoin is capped at 21 million coins. Ethereum has no hard cap; instead, issuance is low (about 0.89% a year gross) and part of every transaction fee is burned. Whether supply grows or shrinks depends on network activity, not on a fixed limit.
Will Ethereum ever cut issuance again?
It could, but nothing is scheduled. Changing how much ETH stakers earn would need an Ethereum upgrade agreed by client teams and the community. Researchers have discussed lowering issuance as staking grows, but as of October 20, 2026 no such change is part of an upcoming hard fork. Our upgrades timeline tracks what is actually scheduled.
Did Ethereum’s past issuance cuts make the price go up?
Not reliably. Using Coinbase daily closes, ETH was down 38.6% a year after Byzantium, up 69.1% a year after Constantinople, down 38.6% a year after London and up 11.5% a year after the Merge. Price moved mostly with the wider crypto market, so a supply cut on its own is not a reason to buy.
Sources
Every source was opened and checked on Oct 20, 2026. Live figures (issuance, burn, ETH staked, supply, Bitcoin height and supply) were read from the linked APIs that day and will drift.
- [1] ethereum.org — How The Merge impacted ETH supply (~13,000 → ~1,700 ETH/day, ~88% cut)
- [2] ethereum.org — Timeline of all Ethereum forks (dates, block numbers, reward changes)
- [3] EIP-649 — Metropolis difficulty bomb delay and block reward reduction (Byzantium, 3 ETH)
- [4] EIP-1234 — Constantinople difficulty bomb delay and block reward adjustment (2 ETH)
- [5] EIP-1559 — Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain (base fee burn)
- [6] Upgrading Ethereum (eth2book) — Issuance: max issuance per year = 940.8659 × √validators
- [7] ultrasound.money — ETH supply, issuance and burn rates (API figures read Oct 20, 2026)
- [8] Bitcoin Wiki — Controlled supply (halving every 210,000 blocks, 21M limit)
- [9] mempool.space — Bitcoin block height (972,350 on Oct 20, 2026)
- [10] Blockchain.com — Total bitcoins in circulation (API)
- [11] ethereum.org — Mining (proof-of-work mining no longer secures Ethereum)
- [12] ethereum.org — Glamsterdam (“Expected on mainnet Q4 2026 · Date not yet confirmed”)
- [13] EIP-7773 — Hardfork meta: Glamsterdam (scope and activation table)
Independent educational guide. Not financial advice. GrowYourEthereum uses no referral or affiliate links on this page. Supply and issuance figures come from public data and the formulas cited above; check the linked sources before relying on a number.