Searches on Google for the term “Bitcoin Halving” are much more common than they were four years ago. This has led one cryptocurrency analyst to conclude that the top will be much higher than those seen during previous bull markets.
Although Google search volume is up for the term this time around, with less than 150 days before the event, price has yet to start moving. However, previous halvings have only seen major price gains in the period following the event itself.Does Bumper Search Volume for “Bitcoin Halving” Mean the Asset’s Biggest Bull Run is Incoming?
Every four years, the supply of new Bitcoin hitting the market decreases by half. The issuance of the cryptocurrency has been purposely designed to slow over time. Currently, each time a miner adds a new block to the blockchain, they receive the transaction fees included in that block and a reward of 12.5 BTC. Following the halving, in May 2019, adding new blocks will reward just 6.25 BTC. Simple economic theory dictates that this drop in supply will mean that the price will require less demand to increase. Surrounding previous halving events, the Bitcoin price has indeed seen dramatic increases. Investor, entrepreneur, and Bitcoin proponent Alistair Milne believes that the top of any bull run surrounding this halving event will be much higher than those experienced previously. He cites Google search data as the reasoning behind his projections. The previous halving took place in July, 2016. Google searches for the term “Bitcoin halving” in the US did not see any significant increase until less than two months prior to the event itself. In the summer of 2016, there was a large spike in search volume, as you would probably expect. Four years later, Google data shows that search volume is once again growing for the term. However, this time the increase started well over a year before the event itself and is trending upwards. This prompted Milne to conclude that any bull market following the halving “should peak a lot higher too”.Increase in 'Bitcoin halving' started a lot earlier this cycle … should peak a lot higher too Tick tock — Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne)
Despite the search trends clearly being a bullish indicator, Bitcoin price is yet to reflect the rising interest. This is fairly typical of the price action surrounding halving events though. In previous examples, the all-time highs of near $1,200 in 2013 and near $20,000 occurred the year after the event itself.
A popular measure of how Bitcoin’s scarcity impacts its price, the stock-to-flow model, shows that the halving events do indeed have a large impact on the price of Bitcoin. However, it takes a while for Bitcoin’s ever restricting circulation to be felt by the market itself. The model predicts an ongoing and sustained bull run following each event that will see the price return back to a higher point each time. With the increased interest in the halving suggested by Google searches, the next bull market peak could well be much higher than previous runs. The author of the stock-to-flow theory of Bitcoin’s value, analyst Plan B (@100trillionUSD), believes that the next run will see a Bitcoin priced at more than $55,000.
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