When is bitcoin halving? What historical past says about the way it could influence BTC’s worth.
Printed: Feb. 16, 2024 at 2:02 p.m. ET
Traders are carefully watching bitcoin’s upcoming halving, which is predicted to occur in April, as historical past has proven the cryptocurrency normally sees important worth appreciation within the wake of halvings.
The biggest crypto BTCUSD has gained greater than 20% to this point this 12 months to round $52,000, constructing on a 150% acquire in 2023, in response to CoinDesk knowledge. It’s nonetheless off about 25% from its all-time excessive of $68,990, hit in 2021.
Nevertheless,…
Traders are carefully watching bitcoin’s upcoming halving, which is predicted to occur in April, as historical past has proven the cryptocurrency normally sees important worth appreciation within the wake of halvings.
The biggest crypto
BTCUSD
has gained greater than 20% to this point this 12 months to round $52,000, constructing on a 150% acquire in 2023, in response to CoinDesk knowledge. It’s nonetheless off about 25% from its all-time excessive of $68,990, hit in 2021.
Nevertheless, some analysts predict the following bitcoin halving to ship the crypto to a brand new all-time excessive.
Halving is a mechanism written within the blockchain’s algorithm to manage the availability of bitcoin, which has a cap of 21 million. At halvings, the reward for bitcoin mining is minimize in half, that means that miners will obtain 50% fewer bitcoins for verifying transactions.
Halvings are scheduled to occur after each 210,000 blocks are mined, or about each 4 years, till the utmost provide of 21 million bitcoins are all launched.
The following halving is estimated to occur on April 19, although the precise time is topic to alter, in response to bitcoin funding platform Swan Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s block reward is predicted to be minimize from 6.25 to three.125 bitcoins within the subsequent halving.
Bitcoin has gone by way of three halvings in its historical past, and has rallied within the months after every halving.
The primary halving occurred on Nov. 28, 2012, when bitcoin traded at round $12. It rose to $964 a 12 months later, in response to knowledge from Swan Bitcoin.
Bitcoin traded at round $640 when the second halving occurred on July 9, 2016, in response to CoinDesk and Dow Jones Market Knowledge. It rose 40% within the six months after the occasion and had logged a 296% acquire one 12 months later. Bitcoin reached a cyclical peak of $19,752 on Dec. 17, 2017.
When bitcoin had its third halving on Could 11, 2020, the crypto traded at round $8,750. It gained 79.7% within the six months after the halving and had risen 547.7% one 12 months after the occasion. On Nov. 10, 2021, bitcoin hit its all-time excessive at $68,990.90.