The Bitcoin Halving is just around the corner. Only 6 days left and we are making history again. It is BTC's third halving and everyone is excited to see how the price will respond. To get a feel for what Bitcoin is doing and what effects bitcoin halving can have on the BTC course, let's take a closer look at the current hash rate, Google search queries and the price trends of the last two halvings.
Bitcoin Halving - Hashrate hits new all-time high
Bitcoin halving is an important event in the BTC economy. The block rewards are halved every 210,000 blocks (approx. 4 years). This means that the reward for finding a block is reduced and sustainably. Miners are currently getting 12.5 BTC for a block found. After halving only 6.25 BTC. This is a huge cut for the miners and ultimately for the range of new bitcoins.
This is also one of the possible explanations why the Bitcoin hashrate reached a new all-time high two days ago. Miners are currently using every means to find as many blocks as possible before bitcoin halving. Because every block found currently brings twice as much as a block after halving.
This sharp increase in hash rate means miners can find the blocks faster than every 10 minutes. As a result, the Bitcoin Halving Countdown pages sometimes differ enormously.
The difficulty determines how difficult it is to find a block. Depending on the hash rate, the difficulty is adjusted up or down every two weeks to ensure an average block time of 10 minutes. The last Difficulty adjustment took place today. The next one is expected to take place on May 19, 7-8 days after the halving.
So we don't have to worry about network security. If many miners jump off the halving themselves, the difficulty adjusts downwards and the remaining miners can mine more profitably again. This in turn attracts new miners. An eternal cycle that is based on game theory approaches and has been working without problems for 11 years.
Google search queries give us more evidence
For most people, however, the question of the possible price movement is much more exciting. If we look at the current search queries for "Bitcoin Halving" on Google, we see a very clear picture:
The search queries have currently reached their all-time high. Never before have so many people been interested in bitcoin halving. But what about the BTC price? Are the seekers buying too? Let's look at the search queries for "Buy Bitcoin":
We can clearly see that the interest in buying Bitcoin has increased slightly, but is relatively low compared to the end of 2017. What information should we derive from it?
Either many who are already invested in Bitcoin are looking for information about halving or newbies who are dealing with this topic for the first time. This is a good sign, because it increases the understanding of halving, what Bitcoin is there for and what potential is hidden behind it. This is a bullish signal in the long run.