Bitcoin was down slightly on Saturday morning following the so-called halving, an event that significantly reduced issuance of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
The price of
Bitcoin
fell 1.3% to $63,676 in the past 24 hours, holding above the $60,000 it was trading at earlier this week, amid concerns about inflation and the outlook interest rates as well as concerns about the conflict between Israel and Iran.
The “halving,” a change in Bitcoin’s programmatic monetary policy that was completed late Friday, will limit supply at a time when demand has surged following the approval of new Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds. Before the halving, Bitcoin’s price has already risen more than 50% this year, but remains firmly below its mid-March high near $74,000.
Brian Vendig, president of MJP Wealth Advisors, said that while past events have given Bitcoin prices a boost, he believes that Bitcoin’s price “is currently priced to perfection after a very steep rise up to present this year, and that any price increase resulting from the halving”. the event will likely be muted.
“What makes this current halving event unique is that there are now Bitcoin spot ETFs in the market, which is a dynamic that was not in place during previous halving events Bitcoin, and spot ETFs have certainly increased demand and interest in Bitcoin in recent months,” Vendig added.
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Crypto bulls are hoping that Bitcoin’s halving will be a catalyst for additional gains in the weeks and months to come. After the first three halvings in 2012, 2016 and 2020, Bitcoin experienced strong growth. According to CoinDesk, the last halving in May 2020 took Bitcoin from $9,500 to $65,000 over the next year.
Thomas Perfumo, head of strategy at Kraken, said Bitcoin prices historically peak between 12 and 18 months after a halving, but noted the cryptocurrency had already reached an all-time high less than two years ago. months, “which is earlier than in previous market cycles”. .”
But with Bitcoin prices remaining only 10-15% above the previous all-time high, Perfumo said: “Maybe the market cycle is starting earlier, but history suggests we haven’t either no longer reaches the end of the cycle.
Beyond Bitcoin,
Ether
– the second largest cryptocurrency by market value – fell 1.5% to $3,045. Smaller chips were shuffled like
Solana
fell by 1.8% and
Ripple
gained 3.7%. Memecoins rose slightly with
Dogecoin
up 0.2% and
Shiba Inu
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increasing by 0.3%.
Write to Joe Woelfel at [email protected]