These past weeks have been absolutely crazy with Bitcoin moving at full throttle and causing the crypto market to recover levels from over 2 years ago and surpassing the $2 trillion market capitalization mark.
The Bitcoin halving is the most anticipated event of the year, so let’s get started.
Why is the Bitcoin Halving so important?
The halving is a programmed event in the Bitcoin code that occurs automatically every 210,000 blocks (approximately every 4 years).
Its main objective is to keep inflation under control and ensure that Bitcoin will always be a scarce asset.
If you want to learn more about why the halving is so important and how it works, download our Halving Report.
What happened in previous halvings?
The first miners on the network received 50 BTC for each block. At that time, BTC had no value, and only a few pioneers mined at home with personal computers.
On November 28, 2012, after the first halving, the reward was halved, and miners started receiving 25 BTC per block, while the price jumped from $12.35 to $127 in just 5 days.
The second halving, which occurred in July 2016, caused the price of Bitcoin to double in five months, going from $640 to $1,280.
However, the most impressive performance came during the year following the third halving. Between May 2020 and March 2021, BTC went from $8,700 to over $60,000.
Just a few months later, in November 2021, BTC hit an all-time high (ATH) of $68,000.
However, this halving is different from the previous ones.
For the first time, Bitcoin has surpassed its ATH before the halving, and the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the US has caused demand to skyrocket. It is estimated that, after the halving, demand will be 20 times higher than the number of new BTC created daily.
This means that the 2024 Halving could have an unprecedented effect on the long-term price of Bitcoin.