Key Takeaways
Has Bitcoin’s price appreciation kept up with the supply reduction from halvings?
Yes, and then some. Bitcoin’s price growth has outpaced supply reduction across all five halving epochs.
Are miners today earning more or less than miners in 2020?
Current miners earning 3.125 BTC per block [$340,000] already make more than 2020 miners who earned double the Bitcoin.
Bitcoin miners today earn just 3.125 BTC per block—93.75% less than the 50 BTC they received in 2012. Yet they’re richer than ever.
This counterintuitive reality reveals one of Bitcoin’s most fascinating economic features: less BTC has consistently meant more wealth.
The Bitcoin numbers tell the story
Historical data from Unchained shows a clear pattern across Bitcoin’s five halving epochs. Each epoch has ended with block rewards worth more in dollar terms than when it started, despite miners receiving half the BTC midway through.
Epoch 4 [2020-2024] demonstrates this perfectly. Miners started earning 6.25 BTC per block worth $54,000.
They ended the epoch earning the same 6.25 BTC, but worth $398,000—a 637% increase. Bitcoin’s price appreciation completely overwhelmed the supply reduction.
Source: Unchained
The current Epoch 5 continues this trend. Block rewards started at $199,000 [3.125 BTC]. With Bitcoin now trading around $109,000, those same 3.125 BTC blocks are worth approximately $340,000.
We’re only months into a four-year epoch, yet block rewards have already jumped 71%.
This means a miner today earning 3.125 BTC per block makes more money than a 2020 miner who earned double the Bitcoin [6.25 BTC] at Epoch 4’s start.
Why traditional economics gets Bitcoin wrong
Standard scarcity logic suggests cutting supply by 50% should cut revenue by 50%. Bitcoin defies this. Instead, miners who survive the initial halving shock often see revenue increases of 300-600% by epoch’s end.
This creates unique mining economics. When the halving hits, miners face an immediate 50% revenue cut.
However, those who weather the storm typically become more profitable within 12-18 months as BTC’s price adjusts to the new supply dynamics.
Miners are selling despite record rewards
Recent on-chain data adds an intriguing twist. Glassnode shows miners distributed Bitcoin at rates not seen since the FTX collapse throughout September and October 2025.
This heavy selling happened while miners earned the most valuable block rewards in BTC’s history.
Source: Glassnode
Several factors explain this: profit-taking after BTC tested $125,000, operational costs requiring constant hardware upgrades, and publicly-traded mining companies realizing gains for shareholders.
The timing, just before Bitcoin’s correction from $125,000 to current levels, suggests some miners successfully timed a local top.
What comes next
If patterns hold, Epoch 5 could end with block rewards exceeding $1 million per block, even though miners receive just 3.125 BTC. This would require Bitcoin to reach $320,000 or higher by 2028.
The critical question is sustainability. Each halving requires bigger price multiples to maintain the pattern.
Epoch 2 needed a 55x increase, Epoch 3 needed 13.5x, and Epoch 4 needed 7.4x. As BTC’s market cap grows, these multiples become harder to achieve.
However, increasing institutional adoption, potential sovereign treasury purchases, and BTC’s maturing role as a store of value could provide the necessary demand for several more epochs.
The bottom line
While miners earn 93.75% less Bitcoin than in 2012, they’re earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per block.
For fifteen years across five epochs, less has meant more in BTC. Whether this continues depends on BTC’s ability to keep appreciating faster than supply decreases—but so far, the paradox holds strong.