Bitcoin Fees Spiked to $2.4 Million at Halving Block

Bitcoin fourth halving event has officially arrived as the network reached block height 840,000 at 00:09 UTC on April 20.

The quadrennial event set by bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto has slashed the number of bitcoin that will be issued each block in the next four years to 3.125 BTC.

According to data from Mempool.space, Block 839,999 was mined by SBI Crypto and the halving block was mined ViaBTC.

Most notably, the halving block saw a significant fee spike to 37.6 BTC, worth $2.4 million as of writing. The total reward of the halving block was 40.75 BTC.

Before the halving, bitcoin’s network hashrate continued setting new records above 640 EH/s, causing the mining difficulty to reach an all-time high near 87 trillion. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s price dropped from over $70,000 weeks ago to around $64,000 as of writing.

The network’s transaction fees, on the other hand, appear to be already elevated over the past 24 hours, which accounted for 12.3% of the block rewards even before the halving, according to data from Hashrate Index.

Hence, with the reduction of block subsidies, bitcoin’s transaction fees are expected to make up over 25% of the block rewards immediately post-halving.

As of block height 840,000, 94% of bitcoin’s total supply has been mined.