Bitcoin network completes fourth ‘halving’: Know what it means for miners  – Digital

The Bitcoin network on April 19 completed its fourth “halving”. The halving is expected to reduce the rewards earned by miners from 6.25 to 3.125. With insights from Coin Metrics the price of bitcoin has been volatile ahead of the event, and fell about 4 percent this week to trade around $64,100.

Decoding Bitcoin halving

Currently, Bitcoin is trading at under $64,000,  which is about 13 percent off its March 14 all-time high of $73,797.68. Reportedly, the halving itself shouldn’t affect the price of bitcoin in the short term. However, some of the investors are expecting hefty gains in the months ahead, based on the cryptocurrency’s performance after previous halvings. After the 2012, 2016 and 2020 halvings, the bitcoin price ran up about 93x, 30x and 8x, respectively, from its halving day price to its cycle top.

Industry reacts!

“The market so far has seen bitcoin mining stocks as mere BTC proxies, in absence of bitcoin ETFs. The halving would further differentiate the low cost, high-scale consolidating winners vs. rest of smaller miners which may be disadvantaged post-halving,” Gautam Chhugani, analyst, Bernstein, highlighted.

“All else equal, the halving will cut industry revenues in half, triggering a wave of consolidation and business closures, while (hopefully) rationalising the network hashrate and industry capex, which is ultimately good for the remaining operators,” Reginald Smith, analyst, JPMorgan, explained.

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