We're going to assume you already know what halving is, and have seen at least some the hype surrounding the upcoming halving of BTC.
For the few who haven't, the shortest explanation we can give so you know the basics is: As you know, mining a cryptocurrency will earn you some of that cryptocurrency. Halving is when miners pay gets cut in half. Token creators plan this from day one to occur in the future as a way to keep the coin scarce when millions of their coins total supply has already been released. The idea is, the more coins that are already floating around the market, the harder it should be to earn free coins by mining.
There's a several reasons why people believe this will trigger an increase in a coin's price.
First, it has in the past. In the case of Bitcoin, halving has happened before, and each time was followed by a price increase. When Bitcoin launched, 50 BTC per block was given out to miners. Halving has occurred every 4 years since then, and the next halving will bring it down from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC.
Second, many miners sell immediately. Especially the large mining operations, these are big companies with investors who want to see quarterly profits like any other company. They tend to immediately sell the coins they mine. But halving has already caused some to sell less and HODL more as they became harder to get. More coins off the market increases the value of those on it.
Lastly, simply the concept of scarcity. The market knowing less coins are being created every day, means any dilution that may have caused now happens at a rate half of what it was before.
But Bitcoin isn't the only one coming up this year, so we thought it would be worth taking a look at the other potential chances to profit from coins that will be going though the halving process.
The Big One - Bitcoin...
Bitcoin's halving is expected May 12, 2020. Expect to see prices rise before this, as many people plan to load up their bags weeks/months ahead of this date. What will happen on this date is a mystery, the market is so different than it was the last time, I don't like looking back at anything from 2016 as a way to predict what will happen in 2020.
There's a lot more people in it, but among them is a lot more looking for a quick profit. Will the halving date simply be when they plan to dump? Or, will they want to horde/HODL their coins believing the value will continue to climb, especially now that it's become more scarce?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Both of the other Bitcoins too...
Everyone has an opinion when it comes to Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) and the miners are no exception.
Currently, most miners for these coins already work for a loss, that's how you know they're die-hard believers, they're betting it all on the token's value increasing in the future.
Regardless, all you need to know is - both have halvings coming sometime in April 2020.|
Zcash Follows in Bitcoin's footsteps...
Just like BTC, there will only be 21 million coins ever created.
The current reward for miners is also the same - 12.5, and will be reducing to 6.25 ZEC.
The block that will trigger the halving will come sometime in October 2020.
Ethereum Classic...
Not to be confused with ETH, Ethereum Classic (ETC) does basically the same thing, but calls it a tithing. In ETC's case, the mining reward is reduced by 20% every 5 million blocks.
At the time of publishing, they're on block 9,949,107 - block 10,000,000 will bring about the tithing and will hit sometime in 2020.
Dash, but don't get too excited.
Just including this to be complete, but I wouldn't expect a huge price increase here... a slight one perhaps.
Dash decreases mining rewards by 7.14% every 210240 blocks.
It's on block 1,234,495 as of publishing this article, with the halving coming on block 1,261,440 - so, very soon.
In Closing...
My strategy (insert standard 'don't blame me, do your own research' disclaimer here) is to watch how BCH and BSV perform in their halvings, since they come first. Then assume Bitcoin will do whatever they do but on an even larger scale, then assume Zcash will react similar to BTC.
In other words, be positioned for the best case scenario, but have those stop-losses ready just in case of the worst.
What's your predictions for the 2020 halvings? Tweet us @TheCryptoPress
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Author: Ross Davis
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News Desk
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