Bitcoin price pushed back above $9,500 today, recovering most of its losses following the weekend flash crash. Investors are hoping the cryptocurrency will continue with a push towards $10,000 resistance. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization is also up, following the Federal Reserve’s warning of poor economic growth and as figures suggest that more investors are storing their cryptocurrency away from exchanges.
Bitcoin experienced a
The halving event takes place every four years and is hardcoded into Bitcoin’s blockchain. It is often referred to as quantitative hardening by Bitcoin proponents, and it means that the rewards for mining coins are halved. This helps to curb the increase in supply of Bitcoin, of which there will only ever be 21 million produced. It doesn’t halt the supply of the coin, but it does limit the rate at which the finite supply increases, which is expected to push price upwards according to the supply/demand model. However, many traders believe that this has already been factored into prices and so, despite the fact that the two previous halving events have led to significant increases in the proceeding 12 months, there is debate over whether the same boom will occur this time around.
The halving certainly has an impact on miners, who are responsible for verifying transactions via a series of algorithms performed by their mining computers. Some mining companies were already struggling to mine profitably since the emergence of the Coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent price crash in March. Early figures suggest that the hash rate, which is the speed at which a transaction is verified, has dropped since the halving. Whereas the hash rate was approximately 8 minutes leading up to the event, it was clocked at 11 minutes following the event. This signifies that fewer miners are operating at the current price.
While miners do suffer, there are benefits to the mining fee being halved. Some old mining machines will become unprofitable, and these are notorious for demanding large volumes of electricity. Newer machines use less electricity to perform the same tasks, which means that Bitcoin mining will place less burden on our overall electricity usage as
The Bitcoin Halving was momentous, I'm still soaking it all in. It's incredible to think of just how much a crazy band of believers accomplished in the last 4 years. The most exciting part? We're just beginning…
— Tyler Winklevoss (@tylerwinklevoss) May 12, 2020
Since the halving, data suggests that more investors are moving their holdings away from exchanges, too. More than $200 million in cryptocurrency has been moved away from exchanges in the days since the halving, possibly suggesting that investors are holding their currency in the hope of a
At 16:50 GMT, Bitcoin (BTC) prices had risen by 6.19% to trade at $9,638.03 while Ethereum (ETH) had added 2.73% to its price and now costs $201.70. Ripple (XRP), which was briefly overtaken by Tether as the world’s
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