Commodity Blog

Bitcoin is just three days away from its third halving event, which sees the rewards for mining the world’s largest cryptocurrency halved. The event takes place every four years and many analysts point to considerable price increases in the year following the two previous events as being an indicator of imminent gains in the current market cycle. Speculation around the event continues to grow, with the number of Google searches related to the term having skyrocketed in the past few days and Bitcoin passing $10,000 earlier today and reaching its highest peak since February.

Bitcoin has been the standout market performer, although most cryptocurrencies have seen gains of 2% or more. Monero has added nearly 8% to its price. NEO has gained nearly 6.5% and lesser-known 0x adding a quarter to yesterday’s price. Cryptocurrency’s total market capitalization has also risen, reaching $270 billion, which is its highest level since February 2019. Cryptocurrency market sentiment looks upbeat ahead of the halvening.

#bitcoin could hit $115,212 in Aug 2021 based on the change in the stock-to-flow ratio across each halving.

More details here: https://t.co/fMYDXAT5qy pic.twitter.com/02uCpVoGKN

— Dan Morehead (@dan_pantera) May 5, 2020

Bitcoin has been making steady progress since March 12 when national travel bans and stay-at-home lockdowns were introduced around the world. One of the oft-cited reasons for the growth is the impending Bitcoin halving: an event that occurs every four years, is hardcoded into Bitcoin’s hashrate, and that has been followed by substantial price rises following the two previous events. There has been a lot of media interest in the halving event, although many experts agree that the event may have already been built into current prices. According to Google Trends, the number of people searching for the term “Bitcoin halving” is five times the level it was in 2016 during the last event of this kind.

Another factor that could be helping push Bitcoin price up is the increased interest in cryptocurrency during the lockdown. India overturned a ban on crypto exchanges two months ago and has been in Coronavirus lockdown over the past few weeks. As a result of this, numerous Indian crypto exchanges have reported peak trading volumes, huge increases in newly registered members, and a growth in interest. Wazirx and Zebpay, two of the country’s leading crypto exchanges have reported significant growth during the period since March. Although this increase can easily be attributed to lifting the cryptocurrency ban in the country, no such changes can be responsible for an uptick in Malaysian cryptocurrency activity. The Luno Malaysia exchange has reported a 33% growth in user activity in the past month.

The lifting of India’s ban on cryptocurrency has seen a number of new businesses in the industry. The latest, BitPolo, is a fiat to crypto exchange headquartered in Bangalore. It offers deposits and withdrawals in Rupee and has trading pairs with a number of major currencies including Bitcoin.

Yes, We are going live TODAY (May 6th) at 1PM IST!!! ??

Don't miss to register and start Trading at https://t.co/UltaGJaiUQ with Instant INR deposit and withdrawals in seconds?#IndiaTradeCrypto #CryptoTwitter #CryptoExchange pic.twitter.com/jCIRNr7R5x

— BitPolo Exchange (@bit_polo) May 5, 2020

The number of Bitcoin ATMs installed globally recently reached 7,700, and Coinstar, the company that makes coin-counting machines that are used in supermarkets and other venues around the world, could have a hand in rapidly increasing this number even further. The company partners with CoinMe to offer Bitcoin ATM services. It currently hosts 3,500 CoinMe ATMs, which have seen a 40% growth in transactions since the end of February. Coinstar has announced that it is looking to double the number of CoinMe ATMs it currently has, although no timeline has been given for this potential expansion.

We need more #BitcoinATM! ?

????Upgrade your crypto knowledge: https://t.co/Sv0eMKZvUL#WOTD #WordOfTheDay #Crypto #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #ethereum #coingecko pic.twitter.com/vQ5ZqbTPrd

— CoinGecko (@coingecko) May 7, 2020

Bitcoin (BTC) prices have increased by 5.55% and the world’s largest cryptocurrency is now trading at $9,869.45 while Ethereum (ETH) has added 2.52% to its price: the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization now costs $211.53. Ripple (XRP) is changing hands at $0.217, having added 0.71% to its value. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin SV (BSV) have both increased their price, rising 3.13% and 2.29% to reach $252.74 and $209.18 respectively.

If you have any questions and comments on Bitcoin today, use the form below to reply.