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The next Bitcoin block reward halving event could prove to be a watershed moment for its price, according to data currently circulating around social media.
$10 Million By 2023?
A summary of Bitcoin’s price at the first two block halvings uploaded to Reddit by Telegram news channel What’s On Crypto notes that Bitcoin prices increased by orders of magnitude in each period.
At the first halving on November 28, 2012, BTC/USD traded around $12. By the second, on July 9, 2016, it was $657. The third halving — due in mid-2020 or in 644 days — will see the block reward reduce from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC, while What’s On Crypto suggests ongoing trends could see prices hit a giant $10 million by 2023.
The forecast came using a so-called ‘halving line,’ which demonstrates that between the first and second halvings, prices increased bilaterally — 200 percent per year or 3 times year on year.
‘Price Follows Hashrate’
Bitcoin users who had coins during the second halving will remember that contrary to expectations, the event had little impact on prices or market activity.
“In the months leading up to the last two halving events, we saw bitcoin’s price steadily trend upward, and then power higher following the reward halving,” Bitcoinist reported Blockchain research head Garrick Hileman as saying in May this year. Two years off the 2020 event, Hileman’s comments came as Bitcoin’s network hashrate continued breaking all-time highs.
Halvings can make mining Bitcoin less attractive due to a reduction in block reward size, yet hashrate rarely suffers as a result due to difficulty adjustments. “I do not anticipate a significant change in the total mining hash rate due to the halving, at least not in the short run,” Hileman added.
