Bitcoin’s 3rd halving is exactly 26 days away from the present day and over the past few days, reports have been circulating that the search volume for ‘Bitcoin halving’ is booming. The spike in search volume should not surprise anyone in the community considering this particular halving is taking place under financial conditions uncharted by the largest digital asset.
The block rewards were going to get reduced down to 6.25 BTC from 12.5 BTC and many speculated whether the BTC network will be able to cope at the current price valuation.
With search volumes for ‘Bitcoin halving’ spiking above its previous high of 2016, it is imperative to factor in the different reasons for why it might have surged over the past few days. The event could not have been the sole reason.
BCH and BSV Halving
It can be speculated that the halving event of BCH and BSV may have turned some of the attention towards Bitcoin’s halving. Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV did not exhibit a fruitful period post-halving. It was quite the opposite. The hash rate and difficulty for both the tokens suffered a massive fall and network vulnerability issues started creeping in.
The BTC community may have kept track of this development and to understand how a reduction in BTC block rewards could affect their network, users may have flocked in to comprehend the halving event in a better way.
PlanB’s Prediction
Discussions about the Bitcoin halving have been going on since 2019 and one of the narratives that picked up significant tractions was PlanB’s Stock-to-Flow model for Bitcoin.
The anonymous creator of the prediction model believed that Bitcoin’s valuation is inevitably going to increase with time as the supply decreases in the chain. His model included the characteristics of scarcity and deflation and the main argument which got everyone’s attention is his forecast based on the S2F.
PlanB predicted that after Bitcoin’s third halving, Bitcoin will cross the $100,000 mark and even though a specific time was not pinpointed, he believed it would happen between 2020-2023. That particular time window is very broad but the fact Bitcoin has followed the S2F over the years may have got the user’s attention.
The idea of Bitcoin crossing $100,000 by the end of 2020 or even by the start of 2021 seems quite impossible but Bitcoin jumped from under $1k to $20k in 2017, so optimism could be high in some BTC enthusiasts.
The Global Financial Meltdown and Halving’s Impact
Although Bitcoin has recovered tremendously since the crash on 13th March, it was not completely out of the crosshairs. Many believed that the traditional stock market may foresee another bottom in the charts and despite breaking correlation over the past month, Bitcoin could still be vulnerable.
Historically, Bitcoin has always undergone a minor dip after the halving for the first couple of months. If another market collapse collectively takes place with BTC’s halving, the implications could be even worse and Bitcoin’s recent low of $3800 might not stick around.
Therefore, the narratives and speculation surrounding the Bitcoin halving are immense at the moment, as the event has become a lot more than just a slash of miner’s block rewards.