The fourth and final Bitcoin Halving event has been completed. The block reward for miners has officially reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block
At 07:10 AM on April 20, 2024 (Vietnam time), Bitcoin completed its fourth Halving event at block 840,000, mined by the ViaBTC mining pool.
Despite the block reward being halved from 6.25 BTC to just 3.125 BTC, block 840,000 still recorded over 37 BTC in transaction fees paid to miners, worth over $2.4 million USD. This indicates a significant portion of the community willing to have their transactions included in this historic block, possibly to catch the trend of the Runes Protocol.
Halving is Bitcoin's deflationary mechanism, designed to halve the amount of new coins generated as block rewards after every 120,000 blocks, approximately every 4 years. It is designed to ensure the prolonged production of Bitcoin, with the total maximum supply capped at 21 million BTC by the year 2140.
Since Bitcoin's inception in 2009, it has undergone three Halving events in 2012, 2016, and 2020.
With this recent Halving, the block reward has reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Halving events will continue until the last Bitcoin is expected to be mined around 2140. After that, miners will only earn from transaction fees.
The next Halving event is projected to occur approximately between February and April 2028.
The current situation seems somewhat different. Thanks to the momentum from ETF funds after the SEC officially gave the green light to the Bitcoin spot ETF in January 2024, the price of BTC has surged dramatically in the following months. BTC has broken the previous season's ATH and set a new ATH for this bull season at over $73,000 in March.
Therefore, it's challenging to predict how the price of the king coin will fluctuate after this Halving. Especially given the backdrop of geopolitical tensions worldwide, which can easily impact the group of risk assets.
In my personal view, the likelihood is that the price of BTC will undergo a significant correction in May (possibly down to $52k - 55k), given slightly unfavorable macroeconomic news (the Fed seems hawkish). BTC has been rising for 7 consecutive months, so a correction is reasonable for a prolonged bull run. And the "Sell in May" trend holds true for most years, in all financial markets. Thus, in my opinion, cashing out a portion of your portfolio during this time is prudent.