Bitcoin: The Halvening Cometh – Forbes

HONG KONG, HONG KONG - NOVEMBER 9: As a visual representation of the digital Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin ... [+] with US Dollar on November 9, 2017 in Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin, have seen unprecedented growth in 2017. (Photo by studioEAST/Getty Images)

Bitcoin remains a controversial asset with most people either believing it as doomed to be valueless or set to be worth $1 million a coin. As such it is probably a fair bet to say it will do neither.

Here is the state of play:

The Bitcoin chart as the 'halvening' approaches

This is what happened last time:

Here's what happened to the Bitcoin price after the last 'halvening'

The idea is that the price will go up because the supply of new coins will halve, so on an even keel basis there will be the same demand but less supply. The increase of bitcoin supply will half but interestingly it will also fall below the recent rate of U.S. dollar inflation. So the thinking goes: supply of new bitcoin down + supply of bitcoin less than U.S. dollars (substantially less since the recent titanic stimulus packages) + ever increasingspread of acceptance = significant price rise.

Doomsters say that miners will flee as they can no longer make money mining and the blockchain will seize up. However, every two weeks the mining difficulty retargets to take that into account, so this scenario simply wont happen and in the end transaction costs would make up for any drop in new coin rewards if the situation became difficult. A $6 per transaction fee would fill the gap, which is super pricey, but not when large transactions are at stake.

The halvening wont break bitcoin, but will it be the beginning of the next leg up?

I think so.

Will it catapult bitcoin to $100,000 a coin? It could happen but I want to believe because I have a pile of bitcoins.

The key factor will be the shape of the developing coronavirus recession. The outcome of these huge stimulus packages are impossible to predict. Not only is their effect utterly unpredictable but even their scale is uncertain. Bitcoin (BTC) is just a tiny sideshow to all these goliath moves.

The only outcome that would hurt BTC is deflationary depression and with trillions of cash being helicoptered in to bailout everyone, at least the deflationary part seems hard to imagine.

What isnt so hard to imagine is something the ex-Federal Reserve Chairman brought up: Hysteresis. Thats not the electrical thing, its the political type. Hysteresis is what Marxists use to explain away the fact that their fabulous theories never seem to be adopted or work. Its a shock to the system that is needed to create the momentum for a sudden and irreversible change. That Ben Benenke should bring up the prospect for that is enough to make your ears burn. Bitcoin $1 million is totally ridiculous but then.

A Zimbabwe one hundred trillion dollar note

Whether hysteresis would mean a trillion dollar bill or something else entirely, it wont do bitcoin any harm.

Love it or hate it, in times of hysteresis a bitcoin wallet would be a prized possession. Even without the halvening, bitcoin looks good as a haven/flight asset in very uncertain times.

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Clem Chambers is the CEO of private investors websiteADVFN.com and author of 101 Ways to Pick Stock Market Winners and Trading Cryptocurrencies: A Beginners Guide.

Chambers won Journalist of the Year in the Business Market Commentary category in the State Street U.K. Institutional Press Awards in 2018.

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Bitcoin: The Halvening Cometh - Forbes