Moving past Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s appearance at the Nashville Bitcoin conference, the crypto community will likely remember that July 29 marks the 100th day since the Bitcoin blockchain implemented its fourth mining reward halving.
Understanding Bitcoin Mining Reward Halving
The bullish impact of the halving-led slowdown in bitcoin’s (BTC) supply expansion tends to kick in after 100 days, new research by ETC Group shows.
Bitcoin mining reward halving is an inbuilt code that takes effect every four years or after 210,000 blocks are mined on the blockchain. This quadrennial event reduces the reward miners receive for validating transactions by 50 percent. The primary goal is to control the supply of bitcoin and ensure it becomes scarce over time, unlike fiat currencies, which have ever-increasing supply (monetary inflation). Bitcoin’s supply is capped at 21 million, and reward halving helps to manage how fast that limit is hit.
Historical Context and Impact of Previous Halvings
The first halving, implemented in 2012, reduced the per-block reward paid to miners from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. Over the next two halvings, the per-block supply fell to 12.5 BTC and then to 6.25 BTC. The latest halving, implemented on April 20, reduced it further to 3.125 BTC.
The previous halvings paved the way for multi-fold price rallies, with most gains coming after the first 100 days. “Today marks exactly 100 days after the Bitcoin Halving event on April 20. The market tends to have a short memory, but the halving-induced supply deficit should just start taking effect from now on,” Andre Dragosch, head of research at ETC Group, said on X.
Research Insights on Halving Impact
Dragosch reached that conclusion after analyzing performance data before and after the previous three halvings implemented in 2012, 2016, and 2020. The study showed that the mean excess performance – the difference between performance X number of days after the halving and X number of days before halving – increases significantly 100 days after the halving and becomes statistically significant, with “T-values” exceeding 2%.
The T-value is a statistical figure used in hypothesis testing to determine how far the sample mean is from the population mean, which is stabilized by the sample’s variability.
Future Outlook: Will History Repeat Itself?
“The key takeaway is that 100 days after the Halving, the performance difference becomes statistically significant (T-value > 2) and then becomes increasingly significant until around 400 days after the Halving,” Dragosch told CoinDesk.
BTC’s rally tends to accelerate after the 100th day from halving, as shown by ETC Group’s research.
It remains to be seen if history will repeat itself.
