Key Points
- Bitcoin managed to reclaim the $72,000 price level about 11 days ahead of its halving event.
- BTC is up by over 4% in the past 24 hours on CoinMarketCap.
After a rocky start in Q2 2024, Bitcoin managed to recover from a low of approximately $64k. At the moment of writing this article, BTC is trading in the green and the coin is priced a little above $72k, up by over 4% in the past 24 hours on CoinMarketCap.
Bitcoin is 10 days and 22 hours ahead of its halving event, which is scheduled to take place on April 20.
Bitcoin halving is a significant event in the Bitcoin world that occurs roughly every four years. It refers to a pre-programmed event written into the Bitcoin blockchain code that reduces the block reward for miners by 50%.
Halvings in Bitcoin are designed to take place automatically every 210,000 blocks.
This means miners receive fewer BTC for verifying transactions and adding new blocks to the blockchain.
The current reward (as of April 8, 2024) is 6.25 BTC per block. After the halving, it will decrease to 3.125 BTC per block.
Historically, Bitcoin halvings have been linked with important market volatility and significant fluctuations in the cryptocurrency’s price. These events have often preceded substantial bull runs in the Bitcoin market.
Potential impacts of Bitcoin halving
Reduced mining profitability
Since miners receive fewer BTC per block, their overall profitability might decrease. This could lead to some miners leaving the network or becoming more selective about the transactions they process.
Increased transaction fees
If fewer miners are processing transactions, competition could decrease, potentially leading to higher transaction fees for users.
Price volatility
The Bitcoin halving is a highly anticipated event, and it can lead to increased price volatility for Bitcoin in the weeks and months leading up to and after the event. Some analysts believe the halving could trigger a price surge due to its impact on scarcity.
Bitcoin’s latest moves from about $64k to over $72k this month show the high price volatility of the coin’s price ahead of the halving event.
Bitcoin surpasses $72k amidst rising interest in BTC ETFs
The optimistic feeling surrounding Bitcoin’s upcoming halving is mirrored by BTC’s surging price above the important $72k mark and also by the rising interest in Bitcoin ETFs.
Recently, on-chain analytics firm Santiment has noted that the flow of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) is likely to remain high until the upcoming Bitcoin halving event.
The first also observed that the volume of Bitcoin ETFs has not slowed down since the cryptocurrency reached its all-time high in mid-March, and this exemplifies the surging fascination spot BTC ETFs.
Recently, BlackRock updated the list of Authorized Participants (APs) for its spot BTC ETF, IBIT, with important names including Citadel, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Citigroup.
