In recent months, bitcoin miners are capitalizing on their extractions, significantly reducing the balance of BTC in their wallets in preparation for the long-awaited halving.

This event, tentatively scheduled for April 19, 2024, will halve for the fourth time in the history of the cryptographic protocol, the rewards for block validation for miners effectively reducing their income. 

The same trend is also observable in the balance sheets of exchanges, where fewer and fewer bitcoins are being held in a downtrend that has been ongoing since 2020.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is buying everything the market has to offer at a rate more than 10 times faster than the times of creating new coins.

Let’s see all the details below.

Bitcoin miners’ wallet balance at minimum since July 2021: many sales waiting for the halving

Miners are selling their bitcoins in anticipation of the fourth halving in the history of the protocol, which will halve the rewards of cryptographic mining from the current 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.

This is not at all a novelty: it is well known that miners periodically prepare to liquidate what they have produced.

This does not mean that they do not believe in the future appreciation of the currency, but rather they are somehow “obliged” to capitalize part of the profit to pay some fixed and variable expenses that they incur in their business, such as electricity, new hardware, rent, employees, etc.

If we look at the graph “Bitcoin: Balance In Miner Wallets” offered by the on-chain analysis company Glassnode, we can easily see how this trend is clearly descending over the years.

After reaching a peak in 2012, when Bitcoin and mining were still a nerd hobby, miners have consistently decreased the amount of BTC in their wallets, going from over 2.5 million coins to the current 1.8 million units.

However, in recent months this trend has seen a strong acceleration, with the numbers dropping drastically from November 2023 until today.

The April halving that will halve the amount of BTC that can be extracted in each block will simultaneously increase production costs, definitely influencing the willingness of industry professionals to make some cash to prepare for the following months after the update.

However, we also need to consider the price action of Bitcoin in the middle of this year, which unexpectedly performed much better compared to previous cycles, in which there are usually no significant increases in the pre-halving phases.

This time, however, Bitcoin is at risk of reaching new highs before the well-known quadrennial event, shaking up all the cards on the table.

Miners most likely took advantage of this situation, selling about 18,000 BTC from November to date, for a current value of over 1.12 billion dollars.

In detail, according to Glassnode data, since the second half of October, the balance of bitcoin on miners’ wallets has decreased from 1.83 million coins to the current 1.812 million, with a decrease of 8,426 BTC (530 million dollars) since January. 

On this matter, we can report what was recently stated by FRNT Financial, a well-known cryptographic platform based in Toronto, which notes this widespread behavior among those involved in cryptocurrency mining:

“Miners could also be inclined to sell to better position themselves ahead of the halving. This could result in the purchase of more efficient mining equipment due to the new economies that the halving will bring.”

Another explanation for the fact that miners are liquidating much of their stocks can be found in the difficulties encountered by operators in southwest China, where a dry season has been ongoing since October, resulting in higher extraction costs (the cooling of hardware alone represents a significant cost).

At the moment, China represents about 20% of the total hashrate on the Bitcoin network, so potentially the sales of Chinese miners have an impact on the numbers of the entire market.

Even here FRNT Financial contributes on the topic, citing:

“It is known that miners in some Chinese regions bring additional hardware online during the rainy season, when hydroelectric power becomes abundant. Presumably, miners could sell during the dry season to counteract the inactivity of mining hardware.”

BTC balance on cryptocurrency exchanges decreasing since 2020: supply shock incoming?

The same trend recorded in miner wallets can be observed on the centralized exchanges, which see a constant decrease in their bitcoin reserves.

Nevertheless, while miners tend to increase the volume of liquidations in the pre-halving phases, in the case of CEX sales continue without particular stop phases for 4 years now.

Until mid-2020, in fact, thanks to the rise of these platforms as simple solutions for trading and for custody of crypto assets, the balance of BTC on exchanges has skyrocketed, exceeding even the threshold of 3 million coins.

From that moment on, however, in the cryptographic space we have witnessed a trend of emptying coins from centralized exchanges, often ending up in the hands of a few individual holders who rarely move their own resources

In a short time, the liquid reserves in BTC of these entities have dropped below the threshold of 2.3 million units and are at risk of falling even further, causing a supply shock in the price of the crypto.

More and more retail, private companies, and institutions want to buy Bitcoin but if the trend were to remain in the coming months, it will probably be difficult to satisfy the large amount of demand that usually comes in the months after halving, causing a surge in prices.

ETF spot on Wall Street play an important role in this context being the main responsible for the huge purchases recorded since the beginning of the year.

Think that currently the various BlackRock, Fidelity, Ark and company generate daily inflows of bitcoin into their funds 10 times greater than the amount of coins created daily by miners.

However, these entities generally do not make spot purchases, both because of the negative effect on their average purchase price and because it is efficient as a practice: their reference markets are usually the OTC desk and direct contacts with miners and large holders.

Lately, however, a “problem” is emerging for Fund Managers who need to buy Bitcoin for their clients. 

The OTC desks, from which they buy large amounts of crypto every day, have reached the minimum balance levels of the last 6 years and are running out of their stocks, leaving the spot markets as the last resort to carry out operations.

#Bitcoin probability of reaching $61K is high given the supply constraint on the OTC desk.

OTC desk supply is at its lowest level in 6 years which will push to buy $BTC at the public exchange.

Institutions are here for real folks! pic.twitter.com/eV4hsZOKSW

— Mikybull Crypto (@MikybullCrypto) February 28, 2024

If in the coming months Wall Street were to pour into the various markets of Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini, we could expect a hot price action for bitcoin, driven by a supply shock that would send prices skyrocketing.

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seat belts.

On Thursday, the creators of the Immutable X-powered non-fungible token (NFT) game Gods Unchained announced that the game is now accessible on mobile devices. The Gods Unchained application has made its debut on both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store across the globe. God’s Unchained Launches Mobile Application The popular play-to-earn strategy card […] Source: Bitcoin.com

The post Gods Unchained Goes Mobile: Play-to-Earn NFT Game Launches on Google Play and Apple App Store appeared first on Crypto Breaking News.

With the current week at its end, it has demonstrated exciting moves in the cryptocurrency sphere, which have seen Bitcoin (BTC) get closer to its all-time high (ATH) from November 2021, and investors are wondering which assets could help them turn a profit in the next week.
In this context, Finbold has identified several such lucrative crypto opportunities that could increase their price by 900% next week and enable their holders to make an investment of as little as $10 that could easily turn into $100 in the week starting on March 4.
#1 Cardano (ADA)
One of the obvious choices is Cardano (ADA), which may not be moving as fast as the others but is getting closer to an important price at $0.70 that could act as a trigger for its explosive move upward, in combination with a bullish flag pattern on its weekly chart and a surge in its crypto wallet creation.

For now, Cardano is trading at the price of $0.6969, recording an increase of 8.42% in the last 24 hours, gaining 18.44% across the previous seven days, and adding up to the monthly advance of 34.38%, as per the most recent data for the native token of the popular blockchain and crypto project.

#2 Litecoin (LTC)
Meanwhile, Litecoin (LTC), a Scrypt Proof-of-Work (PoW) P2P protocol based on Bitcoin, has previously demonstrated the capacity to follow the flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) asset’s lead when it comes to price, which, in addition to chart patterns hinting at a bull rally, means that more advances could be in store following the successful week.

At press time, Litecoin was changing hands at $83.13, which suggests an increase of 10.48% on the day, in addition to racing 19.32% over the past week and accumulating a gain of 22.17% on its monthly chart, according to the recent information on February 29.

#3 Shiba Inu (SHIB)
In the meantime, a massive surge for the meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) looks inevitable as its blockchain Shibarium recently surpassed the 3.4 million total blocks, currently counting over 1.3 million wallet addresses and nearing the transaction count of 400 million, alongside innovations in its ecosystem.

Presently, Shiba Inu is trading at the price of $0.0000142987, which represents a 28.48% gain in the last 24 hours alone, while making a positive movement of 48.67% in the last seven days, adding up to the 55.17% advance accumulated in the past month.

#4 Verasity (VRA)
Finally, the native token of the decentralized video content platform for publishers and advertisers, Verasity (VRA), has recently closed above the trendline at $0.009, which has initiated a rally that could easily surpass the next obstacle at $0.022 and continue further up.

At the moment, the price of Verasity’s native token stands at $0.0102, indicating an increase of an impressive 23.69% on the day, adding up to the even more significant advance of 49.55% on its weekly chart and gaining a staggering 92.83% over the past month.

Conclusion
All things considered, the above crypto assets might present an ideal opportunity to turn $10 into $100 next week. However, precisely predicting the future movements of any asset is difficult, which is why it is important to carry out one’s own research and weigh the risks before investing.
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