On May 12, 2020, the reward for bitcoin miners will be halved for the third time in its history–the reward decreasing to 6.25 BTC per block. Roughly every 3.5-4 years, after 210,000 blocks are mined, the bitcoin reward decreases by 50%. When Bitcoin first appeared in January 2009, the mining reward was 50 BTC, then cut in half to 25 BTC in 2012, and again in 2017 to 12.5 BTC. This means that on May 12th, the issuance of new coins will be 6.25 BTC every 7-10 minutes when a miner verifies the next block of transactions.