# Bitcoin after the halving: 2020 and 2024 backtested

> Did buying BTC at the halving pay? A year after 2020: +554.04%, top 2.5% of start days. After 2024: +30.45%, below the median. Two cases, no pattern.

Research · Janorium · Published 2026-10-20  
Web page: https://janorium.com/articles/bitcoin-after-halving-2020-2024-backtest

Buying bitcoin the day after the halving and holding for a year returned +554.04% after the 2020 halving and +30.45% after the 2024 one. Against every start day from 2020 to 2025, the year after the 2020 halving beat 97.5% of them and the year after the 2024 one only 45.2% — two halvings, two very different outcomes, and no pattern to lean on.

The halving — the block every four years when the bitcoin mining reward is cut in half — is one of the most quoted reasons for
a bitcoin rally. This platform's data covers two of them, 2020 and 2024. Buying right after each and holding for six,
twelve or eighteen months gave one exceptional result and one ordinary one.

## The halving dates

- **Block 630,000, 2020-05-11 19:23 UTC** — reward from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC.[^1]
- **Block 840,000, 2024-04-20 00:09 UTC** — reward from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC.[^2]
- The halving before them, **block 420,000 on 2016-07-09**,[^3] cannot be tested here: Binance spot candles on this
  platform start on 2017-08-17, a year later. The one before that, in 2012, predates Binance altogether.

## Data and method

- **Backtests:** Binance spot BTCUSDT, daily candles, the strategy "Lump sum: buy once, hold" (#35, also used in
  [DCA or lump sum](https://janorium.com/articles/dca-vs-lump-sum-btc-eth-backtest)). It buys with 9,880 USDT of a 10,000 USDT account at
  the first daily open after the halving day — 2020-05-12 and 2024-04-21 (the 2024 block came nine minutes after the
  April 20 open, so that open was still before the halving) — and sells at the daily close six, twelve and eighteen
  months later. Fee 0.1% and slippage 0.05% on each side, no leverage. Six runs, #698–#703.
- **Baseline:** the same trade from every start day 2020-01-01 → 2025-12-31 whose window ends by 2026-10-19: buy at the
  next day's open, sell at the close 6, 12 or 18 months later, computed from the daily candles without fees. That is
  2,192 six-month windows, 2,119 twelve-month and 1,936 eighteen-month. The halving windows are placed in this spread by
  their own price move, also without fees.

## Results

| Halving | Hold      | Backtest        | Max drawdown | BTC price move | Beat, all start days | Beat, start days in the same year |
| ------- | --------- | --------------- | -----------: | -------------: | -------------------: | --------------------------------: |
| 2020    | 6 months  | +81.77% (#698)  |       17.41% |        +83.18% |                86.2% |                             40.4% |
| 2020    | 12 months | +554.04% (#699) |       25.12% |       +561.88% |                97.5% |                             85.8% |
| 2020    | 18 months | +647.42% (#700) |       53.07% |       +656.53% |                98.6% |                             92.3% |
| 2024    | 6 months  | +5.92% (#701)   |       24.24% |         +6.30% |                38.1% |                             19.7% |
| 2024    | 12 months | +30.45% (#702)  |       27.91% |        +31.16% |                45.2% |                             24.0% |
| 2024    | 18 months | +68.96% (#703)  |       27.91% |        +70.20% |                48.9% |                             73.2% |

"Beat" is the share of start days whose window of the same length did worse. A run shows slightly less than the price
move: fees and 120 USDT left in cash.

### 2020: an exceptional year to own bitcoin

**Backtest: [Lump sum: buy once, hold](https://janorium.com/backtests/698)**  
BTCUSDT · 1d · Spot · 2020-05-11 → 2020-11-11

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +81.77% | 17.41% | 2.63 | 100.0% | 1 |

*BTC after the 2020 halving, 6 months: +81.77%*

**Backtest: [Lump sum: buy once, hold](https://janorium.com/backtests/699)**  
BTCUSDT · 1d · Spot · 2020-05-11 → 2021-05-11

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +554.04% | 25.12% | 3.12 | 100.0% | 1 |

*BTC after the 2020 halving, 12 months: +554.04%*

**Backtest: [Lump sum: buy once, hold](https://janorium.com/backtests/700)**  
BTCUSDT · 1d · Spot · 2020-05-11 → 2021-11-11

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +647.42% | 53.07% | 2.21 | 100.0% | 1 |

*BTC after the 2020 halving, 18 months: +647.42% — through a 53.07% drawdown*

### 2024: an ordinary one

**Backtest: [Lump sum: buy once, hold](https://janorium.com/backtests/701)**  
BTCUSDT · 1d · Spot · 2024-04-20 → 2024-10-20

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +5.92% | 24.24% | 0.48 | 100.0% | 1 |

*BTC after the 2024 halving, 6 months: +5.92%*

**Backtest: [Lump sum: buy once, hold](https://janorium.com/backtests/702)**  
BTCUSDT · 1d · Spot · 2024-04-20 → 2025-04-20

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +30.45% | 27.91% | 0.78 | 100.0% | 1 |

*BTC after the 2024 halving, 12 months: +30.45%*

**Backtest: [Lump sum: buy once, hold](https://janorium.com/backtests/703)**  
BTCUSDT · 1d · Spot · 2024-04-20 → 2025-10-20

| Return | Max drawdown | Sharpe | Win rate | Trades |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +68.96% | 27.91% | 1.00 | 100.0% | 1 |

*BTC after the 2024 halving, 18 months: +68.96%*

## Against random start dates

For context, here is what holding bitcoin from an arbitrary day of 2020–2025 did:

| Hold      | Windows |  Median | 10th percentile | 90th percentile | Ended higher   |
| --------- | ------: | ------: | --------------: | --------------: | -------------- |
| 6 months  |   2,192 | +21.35% |         -41.13% |        +110.32% | 1,438 of 2,192 |
| 12 months |   2,119 | +49.55% |         -45.08% |        +301.97% | 1,295 of 2,119 |
| 18 months |   1,936 | +74.98% |         -51.43% |        +324.59% | 1,282 of 1,936 |

The 2020 halving windows sit at the top of this spread. But look at the last column of the results table: against the
other start days of 2020 alone, the six months after the halving beat only 40.4% of them. The median six-month window
starting anywhere in 2020 made +101.2%, the median twelve-month window +322.8% — March 2020's crash bottom was in that
year, and so was the start of the 2020–2021 bull run. 2020 was a great year to buy bitcoin on almost any day; the
halving day was one of those days.

The 2024 halving windows landed below the median of all start days on every horizon, and on six and twelve months they
trailed most other 2024 start days too — 80.3% and 76.0% of them did better. Only the eighteen-month window beat most of its own year: it
ended on 2025-10-20, two weeks after the highest daily close in this data (2025-10-06) and about 11% below it.

> **Two halvings are not a pattern**
>
> - **Two cases.** One very good result and one ordinary result is all this data holds, and the 2016 halving is outside
>   it. No statistic on two points tells a halving effect from a coincidence.
> - **The windows overlap.** Neighbouring start days share almost the whole window, so the 2,000-odd windows are a
>   handful of market phases, not 2,000 independent tests; read the percentiles as "where in 2020–2025 this landed", not
>   as probabilities.
> - **The date is public years in advance.** Anyone could buy before a halving, so whatever it does to supply, the price
>   had every chance to reflect it before the day. A backtest cannot separate the halving from everything else that
>   happened in 2020 or 2024.
> - **Spot, no leverage, fees included;** a different exit day — say, at a cycle high — would change the numbers a lot.

## Conclusion

- Buying the day after the 2020 halving and holding for 12 months returned +554.04%; after the 2024 halving, +30.45%.
- 2020's windows were in the top few percent of 2020–2025, but mostly because 2020 itself was an exceptional year to
  buy — the six months after the halving were below the median of that year's start days.
- 2024's windows were ordinary: below the median of all start days on every horizon.
- Two halvings cannot establish a pattern, and the third one in history is outside this data.

How these runs are built: [how to backtest a crypto strategy](https://janorium.com/guides/how-to-backtest-a-crypto-strategy). How to read
the cards: [backtest metrics explained](https://janorium.com/guides/backtest-metrics-explained). Another calendar story checked against
chance: [Uptober](https://janorium.com/articles/uptober-bitcoin-october-seasonality).

[^1]: Block 630,000 on mempool.space (timestamp 2020-05-11 19:23:43 UTC, checked 2026-10-20): https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000024bead8df69990852c202db0e0097c1a12ea637d7e96d

[^2]: Block 840,000 on mempool.space (timestamp 2024-04-20 00:09:27 UTC, checked 2026-10-20): https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000320283a032748cef8227873ff4872689bf23f1cda83a5

[^3]: Block 420,000 on mempool.space (timestamp 2016-07-09 16:46:13 UTC, checked 2026-10-20): https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000002cce816c0ab2c5c269cb081896b7dcb34b8422d6b74ffa1