Bitcoin's Meteoric Price Rise, Slowing Supply Increase

Upon looking at the all-time chart for Bitcoin, it appears ultra bullish.

This year has seen Bitcoin's fourth halving, where the block mining reward is cut in half. In April, the reward dropped from 6.25 BTC per block to 3.125 BTC per block. The next halving will occur on block number 1,050,000 which is estimated to be sometime in the first part of 2028. The rate of new Bitcoins being mined is slowing.

Now, I'm sure everyone has seen the charts that illustrate the price appreciation following each halving event. In case you haven't, it looks something like this:

As you can see, some halvings see larger price surges than others. But all end up higher than before the event. So, it would stand to reason that we should all be expecting yet another surge in Bitcoin price, right? A new all-time high must surely be right around the corner. Well, as you can see from the chart above, each halving sees an ultimately lower surge in price. The first halving in 2012 saw the largest price increase 900 days following the event, the 2016 halving saw the second highest price increase 900 days after, and the halving in 2020 saw a lower price increase than 2016 -- all in terms of percentage gain.

So how is Bitcoin performing since the April 2024 halving? Let's take a look at a chart again:

Immediately following the halving, the price of Bitcoin hovered around the $66k mark before descending toward $56k, almost in a "sell the news" type of way. The price has since recovered from the nosedive it took in the two week period following the halving and is basing nicely around the $68k level. The $4k increase from April 20's morning price of about $64k puts the gain since the halving at about 6% -- not a meteoric jump, but still a very respectable appreciation. In short, "so far so good" and "steady as she goes." Hal Finney once said he believed the price of one Bitcoin could reach a million dollars. That too is yet to be seen. But I would say at least another new all-time high seems pretty likely sometime in 2024, if history is any indicator.

If I had to make a bold prediction, I would say that 85k Bitcoin in 2024 seems more likely than not. Good thing I'm not in the business of impersonating Nostradamus. HODL.