Increased institutional participation recently pushed bitcoin to a level near its record high, less than 50 days before the expected date of the halving. Bitcoin has rallied more than 40% so far this year to roughly $62,600, and is now less than 10% off of its all-time high of $68,990, reached in November 2021.
This run-up is different from bitcoin’s historical pattern before halving, according to Martin Leinweber, digital-asset product strategist at MarketVector Indexes. Historically, bitcoin’s performance has been relatively muted in the two to three months before halving, Leinweber noted.
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin blockchain is more secure now than it has been during previous halvings, according to Adam Swick, chief growth officer at bitcoin-mining company Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. MARA, +4.25% Bitcoin’s total hash rate, or the total computational power securing the blockchain, hit a record high of around 600 million terahashes per second in February, according to data from Blockchain.com.
That helps alleviate some concerns around the security of the Bitcoin blockchain after the halving, as some miners may be forced to go offline when the rewards they get are cut in half, noted Swick.
While halving is generally a boon for bitcoin’s value, the crypto’s price tends to be highly volatile while macroeconomic conditions are uncertain. That may apply in the current climate, as some investors are worried that progress in disinflation may stall, while it remains unclear when the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates
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