Expectations after Bitcoin completes the fourth-ever halving event

Bitcoin (BTC) has completed its fourth-ever halving event after reaching its 840,000th block. Consequently, Bitcoin miners will receive 3.125 BTC per mined block, down from the previous 6.25 BTC.

Bitcoin halving is a programmed process in the Bitcoin protocol that occurs every 210,000 blocks mined, approximately every four years. The last three halvings occurred in 2012, 2016, and 2020, resulting in significant reductions in mining rewards over time. The first Bitcoin halving took place in 2012, reducing the reward for mining a block from 50 to 25 BTC.

There hasn’t been a major drop or rise in the price of Bitcoin following the halving event, but investors are highly optimistic about the coming months based on the coin’s performance after previous halvings.

The 2012 halving resulted in a 93x increase while the 2016 and 2020 events resulted in 30x and 8x, respectively.

The main reason for the Bitcoin halving is to control the supply of Bitcoin and prevent too much from being created too quickly. This helps maintain its value over time. The system will continue until roughly 2140 when all Bitcoin is mined.

Commenting on the event, billionaire investor Tim Draper believes that the halving is going to help push Bitcoin’s price up to “$250,000 or more,” a forecast he has consistently proclaimed since 2022.

“The simple reason that Bitcoin price goes up after the halving is that the supply goes down, and with continued upward pressure on demand, the price goes up naturally in a free market,” he said.

Herbert Sim also known as Bitcoin Man is also bullish pointing to the recent approval of the Bitcoin ETF in Hong Kong as another growth factor for Bitcoin.

As expected not everyone is as optimistic. Speaking to CNBC, JPMorgan analyst, Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, said he expects the near-term bitcoin price to fall after the halving, citing overbought conditions and prices that are still above the cryptocurrency’s comparison to gold when adjusted for volatility.

At the time of writing this, BTC was trading at 65,082 representing a 2.16% increase over the last 5 days.