Is a Bitcoin Bull Run Starting Soon?
Bitcoin (BTC) is almost one year away from a major event, which may signal the advent of a prolonged rise in the token’s value. In May or April 2024, Bitcoin is anticipated to go through its next “halving,” although the precise date has not been confirmed yet.
What’s more, Bitcoin has been experiencing a rise lately, which people believe is in anticipation of its halving. All this is juxtaposed with the potentiality of a cut in the interest rate of the US Federal Reserve, which is contending with the possibility of hindered growth and the tightening of credit conditions that are mainly a result of woes within the banking industry.
One BTC was valued at around $30,000 yesterday, on April 12, 2023, according to the data collected by CoinGecko. The biggest cryptocurrency in the world is up by over 80% since the beginning of the year.
What is Meant by Bitcoin Halving?
Bitcoin halvings tend to happen every 4 years or at any other time when another 210,000 “blocks” have been integrated into the blockchain. Essentially, this event lowers the mining rewards by half. And the objective here is to decrease the release of new bitcoin units into the cryptocurrency market.
As of now, Bitcoin miners earn 6.25 BTC for every block that is successfully mined. Here, “successfully” implies that their equipment had the appropriate amount of computational power to address the various cryptographic puzzles that safeguard Bitcoin and lower the risk of it being compromised.
Once the Bitcoin halving finally takes place, this mining incentive will be lowered to 3.125 BTC. Cryptocurrency backers state that this can aid in pushing up its price since it directly impacts its scarcity.
The highest number of BTC tokens that will ever be in circulation has been limited to 21 million. This is something that the halving mechanism tries to ensure, which will eventually decrease the mining incentives to $0. For instance, before the previous halving, which occurred in early 2020, the price of the BTC token witnessed an increase of 19% within 12 months, hitting $8,568.88 from $7,191.36, as highlighted by CCData.
Amidst the halving event prior to that, which happened in mid-2016, BTC rallied 142% in comparison to the 12 months before the event, reaching approximately $651 from $269.
Final Thoughts
Bitcoin, like many of its alternatives, experienced an unfortunate turn of events last year, which was mostly defined by the bankruptcies or failures of major firms and projects, from the stablecoin known as TerraUSD to the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. This, coupled with the fact that rising inflation has caused an increase in interest rates within the US and other leading economies, then led to investors fleeing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As a result, the prices of numerous virtual currencies slumped sharply.
Still, while Bitcoin is down by over 50% from its all-time high of November 2021, its current ascent of $30,000 may have finally signaled a change of pace for once, perhaps even a bull run for the token.