Cryptocurrency markets have begun to witness rising trends after about 7 months post challenging bear markets. While altcoins have been making massive gains, we have seen Bitcoin break its all-time price record. With the halving approaching, a senior figure from a popular on-chain analysis firm addresses the current situation, but what are the expectations?
Before Bitcoin’s Halving
The halving set for April 20 will reduce Bitcoin block rewards from 6.25 to 3.125. This means the annual BTC inflation rate will decrease from 1.7% to 0.85%. Each new day will see less BTC mined, meaning fewer assets to sell, which can drive prices up. Although many analysts have warned of a significant drop before the halving, we have not witnessed losses of a worrying scale with 8-9 days to go.
Historically, Bitcoin halving leads to short-term volatility but typically results in an uptrend in the medium to long term. In this cycle, we may see short-term declines after the block reward halving, but if institutional demand remains strong as it has been in the past 7 months, we can expect to witness targets set for new highs quickly.
Vincent Maliepaard and Crypto Predictions
The latest assessment by Vincent Maliepaard, Marketing Director at IntoTheBlock, takes into account previous cycles. According to him, the block reward halvings in 2016 and 2020 tell us about the current times. We saw Bitcoin rise after the last two halvings, fall shortly thereafter, but then break all-time records within months.
An interesting detail is that with each halving, the percentage growth potential of the price seems to weaken. After the first halving, the price increased by 4,802%, but it rose less in subsequent ones.
Maliepaard stated;
“Considering Bitcoin‘s significantly large market value today, achieving the same percentage growth will require a much larger investment, which indicates that future percentage increases will likely continue to diminish. Especially since the approval of Bitcoin ETFs, there is a clear uptrend in the number of large transaction volumes, with transactions over $100,000. As for previous halvings, this metric typically began to rise towards the end of the bull market.
In the months before and after Bitcoin’s halving, investors speculate on the impact of the halving on Bitcoin’s scarcity and price, while market sentiment typically shifts from expectation to optimism.”
