This week in crypto, the Bitcoin world prepared for Tuesday’s halving of the block reward, and the Libra Association appointed its first CEO. In the real world, countries began to ease measures designed to counteract the spread of the coronavirus pandemic after their citizens cried for freedom. But why live in the real world when you can wallow in cryptopia?
Bitcoin hits $10,000 ahead of Tuesday’s Bitcoin halving
This week, the Bitcoin world prepared for the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which is predicted to take place on Tuesday.
In the Bitcoin halving, the amount of Bitcoin that miners receive for minting new Bitcoin into existence will halve. This occurs roughly every four years and has historically been associated with a price rise.
While non-Bitcoiners sneer with cynicism at the much-hyped event, others are preparing for the halving by buying up lots of Bitcoin and preparing trades. The price even hit $10,000 a few times this week, before a flash crash on Saturday sent prices plummeting by 15%.
Despite that drop, Bitcoin has fully recovered from its March price crash, which saw the price of Bitcoin spiral down alongside global markets as the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown made its impact felt.
New Bitcoin addresses have spiked by almost 50% since the beginning of the year, from 643,000 to close to a million; Bitcoin’s hashrate hit its all-time high ahead of the Bitcoin halving, meaning that miners are working harder than ever; and Bitcoin’s market cap surpassed $170 billion, suggesting that the market is bristling with activity ahead of the halving.
Investors, analysts and pundits are split over whether the halving will increase the price of Bitcoin.
Some told Decrypt that nothing exciting will happen. Simon Peters, a market analyst at trading firm eToro, said that investors who bought in Bitcoin’s dip could start to sell off their Bitcoin, potentially deflating Bitcoin’s price.
“I personally feel there is a 70% chance we’ll see a quick retracement / sell-off just after the halving. [We] may see $7-8k being tested again before pushing higher,” he said.
Aaron Henshaw, CTO of Bison Trails, said that it’s foolish to try and predict the future price of Bitcoin, but that markets have become more efficient, “because there’s more money in them and more sophisticated participants. There are more people and more complex products. So we might not see such an insane run up,” he said. This would mean that the halving wouldn’t budge the price much.
But others told Decrypt that the halving will positively impact Bitcoin’s price. Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange, said that traders on his exchange have been “extremely bullish into the halving,” and that many think that Bitcoin will push past $11,000 before Tuesday.
Sinjin David Jung, managing director of the International Blockchain Monetary Reserve, is equally bullish. “Hell, you have the biggest acts of [quantitative easing] happening in every market and the halving is happening at the same time,” he said. “With most other currencies other than the US dollar taking a beating, we can forget talking about $10k; this is going to be Bitcoin’s convergence of singularity.”
But, even if the halving itself doesn’t cause an increase in price, it’ll certainly bring more users to the space.
So says Binance.US CEO Catherine Coley: “At Binance US, we’ve seen user registration triple over the last several months. Confidence in legacy institutions has been shaken by this unprecedented economic crisis, so major financial players and general consumers are seeing the merit in the financial freedom and opportunity offered by digital assets.
“Personally, while Bitcoin’s price is never predictable, I stay bullish on Bitcoin’s growth as more and more people get involved,” she said.
All eyes will remain squarely on Bitcoin this Tuesday.
Read the full article on Decrypt: