Bitcoin is 75% to halving, here’s how previous cycles compare
The current Bitcoin cycle is now 75% headed for the next halving. Here’s what previous cycles looked like at similar stages in the timeline.
Current Bitcoin halving cycle has reached the 75% milestone
The “halving” refers to a periodic event where the cryptocurrency’s block rewards are permanently halved. The “block rewards” are what miners receive as compensation for mining blocks on the network.
The BTC that these chain validators receive in these rewards is the only way to introduce fresh coins into the asset’s circulating supply, meaning that the block rewards can be considered equivalent to BTC’s “production”.
The reason the halving exists as a concept is to limit the supply of the cryptocurrency and make it more scarce over time since fewer and fewer coins are produced for each halving.
Since the halving has these far-reaching consequences for the supply-demand dynamics of the asset, such an event has historically had an impact on the cryptocurrency’s price. More specifically, as the supply has tightened after that, the value of BTC has observed a bullish trend.
Halves occur after every 210,000 blocks or roughly every four years. Because of this periodicity and their important place in the market, these events serve as a popular way to define the start and end points of a BTC cycle.
An analyst at Twitter has put together a chart showing the state of the current Bitcoin cycle, as well as how it compares to previous ones at similar stages.
The different halving cycles of the original cryptocurrency | Source: Santiment on Twitter
As you can see in the graph above, Bitcoin bull runs have historically occurred after halving events, which shows how powerful the narrative around them has been.
From the chart, it is visible that the latest BTC halving cycle is currently around 75% done, which means the miners have mined around 157,500 blocks in this cycle so far.
While the trends that the last two cycles followed after similar milestones were hit were different between the two, they still observed bullish momentum for at least some time after this point.
As for the 2012 cycle, the asset’s price continued to climb past the 75% mark, building up to the next bull run. The 2016 cycle reached this milestone while the price was in the middle of the April 2019 rally.
The price continued to rise for some time after the mark was hit, but eventually the rally hit the top and the cryptocurrency fell after that. The proper build-up to the bull run didn’t happen until the halving in 2020 took place (by which time a new cycle had started).
The April 2019 rally shares many similarities with the current one in terms of various indicators on the chain, so it is interesting that their positions in the timelines of the respective cycles are also quite similar.
It now remains to be seen where the current rally goes from here and whether the pattern of bullish momentum after the 75% milestone will hold true in this cycle as well.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $29,100, up 1% in the past week.
BTC has surged today | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image from Dmitry Demidko at Unsplash.com, Charts from TradingView.com, Santiment.net
