Bitcoin recently went through its fourth halving on Saturday, April 20th, at 00:09 UTC. This event happens around every four years, and affects how much Bitcoin miners can earn by adding new blocks to the blockchain. This time, it was during the addition of the 840,000th block.
Contrary to what many might expect, the price of Bitcoin didn’t shoot up or down dramatically. It stayed around $63,700, even though it had dropped below $60,000 the day before and then started to rise again.
Halving events are designed to make it harder to get new Bitcoins, which can push the price up since they become more scarce. Despite this, the price didn’t change much this time. Earlier in the year, Bitcoin’s price did jump from $15,500 to $73,680, likely because people were excited about new Bitcoin ETFs starting in the U.S.
Pseudonymous analyst Plan B, who created the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, shared his thoughts on social media platform X just before the halving. He believes this event would not change the usual pattern. He said, “[In my opinion] this Bitcoin halving will NOT be different. All bitcoin price increase will again be around the halving. Buying 6 [months] before the halving and selling 18 [months] after the halving (green line) will outperform buy [and] hold. BTC [greater than] $100K in 2024. BTC top [greater than] $300K in 2025.”
The analyst repeated his thoughts just hours after the halving, expecting Bitcoin’s price to double in the next six months as insiders and miners adjust, and then potentially quadruple after 12 months as more people rush in.
Happy bitcoin halving! (stock-to-flow doubling):
– in the 6 months before the halving, insiders frontrun it: price 2x
– in the 6 months after the halving, miner revenue adjusts: price 2x
– 6-18m after the halving, the rest of the market rushes to get a piece of the pie: price 4x pic.twitter.com/xkV5fkpVdw— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) April 19, 2024