What Has Happened Since The Bitcoin Halving?
By: Adam Faz
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin, Software Development, Technology

What Has Happened Since The Bitcoin Halving?

By Adam Faz on The Capital

The Bitcoin network experienced its third halving event on May 11, 2020. The price of the cryptocurrency at the time circled around $8,500 USD. Since that very moment, the market has seen the price go up as high as $11,000 USD and at the time of this writing, it sits at $9,700.

Each time a Bitcoin halving event has occurred, it seems to have eventually had a positive effect on the price. That’s why even the most novice investor who is still developing their initial interest in all things Bitcoin is primed and ready to get into the market. The idea of turning a quick profit, even for someone who doesn’t necessarily believe in the future of decentralized finance, is just too enticing to pass up at this point. That’s why more and more people are flocking to Bitcoin merchants in Canada looking to throw their hats in the ring.

Related: Top 5 Reasons to Buy Bitcoin in 2020

All of that being said, there is so much more to this third Bitcoin halving event than just the appreciation of Bitcoin’s price. It’s another opportunity to get the brand name in the public eye and increase adoption (which certainly helps drive the price). It also causes veterans to rebalance their portfolios and pay attention to the movers and shakers that are shaping the future of digital currencies and blockchain technology.

In order to understand the true impact of this third halving event, it’s important to consider everything going on in the news since that time. Consider this a retrospective and consider this third halving event another milestone along the way to the mass adoption of a truly democratized financial system.

How the Bitcoin Halving Event Affects Price

It’s certainly true that the price of Bitcoin eventually goes up after each halving event. The world now has three of them to compare to each other, so it’s not just hearsay. However, as with any form of investment in a free market, the price movement of Bitcoin is seldom linear. It goes up and down, sometimes skyrockets, and other times it plummets. At the present moment, the market is living through a bullish trend, but that can flip at any moment. Just as this is being written, the price moved from $10,100-$8,600 in 15 minutes on BitMex, one of the largest exchanges in the world by trading volume.

While this current bullish trend is unlikely to continue past $13,700, where there is a big band of resistance among traders, the long term trend is set to move well beyond the all-time high $20,000 mark Bitcoin surpassed at the end of 2017.

What’s important to know though is that where miners used to earn 12.5 bitcoins every time a reward was paid out, they will now earn 6.25 bitcoins on their payouts. This is important for two reasons. Number one, it decreases the new circulating supply of bitcoins, making those already in circulation more valuable. Secondly, it makes mining Bitcoin profitable, which forces smaller miners to sell their hardware to bigger mining pools, effectively centralizing both profits and the power to control consensus over the decision-making that affects the Bitcoin network, which is supposed to be democratic in nature.

Protests and Pandemics

Protests are currently breaking out all over the United States in light of the death of 46-year-old George Floyd in Hennepin County, Minneapolis. While most protesters are staging peaceful rallies, some are engaging in violence, vandalism, and looting causing business owners already reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic to stay away from their places of work, and more importantly, endure the financial losses caused by shutdowns, curfews, and vandalism.

Both the protests, the coronavirus pandemic, and the seemingly endless printing of money and provisions for stimulus packages devaluing fiat currency might just be part of the driving force that sends the price of Bitcoin up in the long run.

That’s an important point to consider because when the price crashed back in early March as the pandemic first began to strike fear in the hearts of investors, the drop happened fast and violently. Yet now, it seems that more and more retail investors are seeing the true value of putting their money into something that isn’t controlled by a government. Aside from the current goings-on in the United States and across the globe, a few key developments within the actual blockchain technology and cryptocurrency space are worth noting.

Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones Adds Bitcoin to Portfolio

Paul Tudor Jones’ name may not roll off of the tongue quite like Warren Buffet’s, but just like the Oracle from Omaha, Jones is one of the most respected investors on Wall Street. Jones is on the record in saying that the current state of the Bitcoin network and the market sentiment around it resembles what it was like to invest in gold in the 1970s. In a letter to his investors, Jones specifically stated, “The best profit-maximizing strategy is to own the fastest horse… If I am forced to forecast, it will be Bitcoin.”

The fact that he’s investing is music to the ears of the average Bitcoin enthusiast who is playing with significantly less money as they wait for institutional level investing to take digital currencies to a whole new level, with Bitcoin leading the rising tide.

Goldman Sachs Bashes Bitcoin in Report to Investors

Just because it appears Mr. Jones is going bullish on Bitcoin, it doesn’t mean that all of his fellow institutional level investors are joining the parade. One investing firm certainly opposing Jones’ view is Goldman Sachs.

In an advisory call to clients on May 27, the company walked investors through a slideshow presentation clearly stating that digital currencies are not an asset class. Leaders on the call went on to say that something cannot be considered an appreciating asset just because another person is willing to pay more for it. The presentation ended with investors pointing out the Bitcoin has a long history of being used for illicit purposes, like the sale of guns and drugs.

The investor meetings certainly hit a chord with Crypto Twitter, billionaire and crypto exchange owner Cameron Winklevoss tweeting about some of the regulatory hurdles Bitcoin has jumped over in the last five years. Clearly the market is listening to him.

J.P. Morgan Chase Accepts Bitcoin Businesses

With the Bitcoin Price running up towards an all-time high in September 2017, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon denounced that Bitcoin had any value, saying that its price run up was worse than the tulip bubble in the 1600s. It’s not just the fact that the bank is now accepting Bitcoin businesses as customers that’s impressive. It’s the names of those businesses that really matter. Gemini and Coinbase, two of the largest Bitcoin exchanges in the world.

With that recent announcement coming down the pipeline, what purists have been hoping for a long time now is finally happening. Major institutions with big-time pull financially are finally hedging their bets and investing in digital currencies.

Elon Musk Teaches J.K Rowling about Bitcoin

In a bit of lighter news, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of books, and Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla Motors, engaged in a Twitter conversation which saw the literary billionaire get a lesson or two about Bitcoin from one of the world’s most insightful technological minds. While it was a great playful exchange and ultimately gave the brand name of Bitcoin a fair number of mentions and retweets, Musk went on to admit that he only owns 0.25 BTC at the moment. Apparently, while Rich investors like Paul Tudor Jones are starting to recommend Bitcoin to their clients, others like Musk appear to be in the game just for fun.

As for Rowling, she was fortunate enough to not only receive tips from Musk, she got tips from all kinds of Twitter accounts extolling the virtues of the blockchain and hungry to teach her all about it. Of course, there were certainly detractors bashing the Bitcoin bandwagon as well. Some trolls will do anything to get exposure.

How to Buy a Bitcoin in Canada

Given there are so many promising things happening in the digital currency space amid all the turmoil surrounding the globe right now, more and more investors are starting to ask themselves, “How can I buy Bitcoin in Canada.” It’s a question people are often dying to know the answer to when the price is rising, especially at a time like this.

The best option for all of those people is of course to use a crypto exchange in Canada. That way there is no need to convert money into a different national currency before going digital.