Halving is already priced in. It was priced in as soon as people started thinking that it would lead to an increase.
What then happens, as we approach halving, is that FOMO kicks in and the price rises higher than is warranted.
So then once halving actually occurs, we will likely see a price drop to remove the effect of the FOMO and return us to what would be reasonable just from the halving itself.

Basically, any price rises we are seeing now as a result of people thinking halving will lead to an increase... will be the extent to which the price falls when halving happens.

Of course there are wider market movements on top of this. We've had the CV-19 pullback, and are now seeing a slow recovery from this. In practice it is difficult to determine to what extent the price rises are halving-FOMO, what CV-19 recovery, and what any other reason. But the fact remains that a part of the current rises is FOMO based on something that is already priced in, and there will inevitably be a reversal to compensate for this.

I probably shouldn't give merit just because I agree with your political opinions... but this is also a good resource for those interested in getting involved

Politics is to an extent cyclic. The current system of ever-increasing inequality edges closer to breaking point, with the current pandemic highlighting its weaknesses. I believe that the left will triumph soon.

We have two methods by which we can control and reduce the R₀.
Firstly, through measures such as quarantining and social distancing we reduce the number of contacts an infected person has.
Secondly, through the use of protective equipment, masks, hand washing, disinfecting etc we reduce the likelihood of transmission from the infected person.

But we will probably never know the 'natural' R₀, of how transmissible this thing is without people taking the above precautions. Obviously we've seen exponential growth in confirmed cases, but we have next to no idea about total cases, those with minor symptoms or who are asymptomatic, or indeed those that for whatever reason don't enter the official records. It is likely that there have been orders-of-magnitude more infections than the records state... which does have potentially profound implications for the progression towards herd immunity.

It is certainly important to track the R₀ as much as we can, but charts like the above that compare two 'knowns', in this instance total confirmed infections and new confirmed infections, do help tremendously in measuring the effectiveness of each government's response.

For those who are interested in facts and data (we all are, right?) ... here is the best visualisation I've seen of how different countries compare on the journey of managing the CV-19 pandemic. Obviously we need a log scale for charting what is an exponential phenomenon, but this approach has log scale on both axes, with time implied through animation rather than being charted explicitly. Countries that are achieving success drop away from the common trend line very dramatically. This is quite a skilful approach to data visualisation.
Source is here.

I'm sure this will be true. Population growth and climate change will combine to cause insatiable demands for water, largely from agriculture.

Tensions are already high in other parts of the world, particularly between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Great Renaissance Dam across the Blue Nile. Ethiopia is sometimes called 'Africa's Water Tower' - it is still a poor country, but being the source of the Blue Nile confers a huge strategic advantage and natural wealth.

The constraints and opportunities afforded by natural geography - particularly in relation to water - are often overlooked in this modern technological age. Returning to India for a moment with its growing population, the Himalayan water sources will likely become ever more important. Have you ever wondered why China assigns such importance to Tibet? Both the Yellow River and the Indus find their source in that part of the world. Consider also why Africa, the cradle of civilisation, never advanced as quickly as Europe or the US - navigable rivers play a huge part in development, and compared to other parts of the world African rivers are riddled with disruptive waterfalls, making trade and transport profoundly problematic.

Substitute 'television' for 'video games', and this is a discussion that took place half a century and more ago. The 'new thing' will always be a threat and be seen as a corrupting influence.

Gaming can indeed produce problems such as addiction, and it can manipulate people and extract money unethically through incentivising micro-transactions. It has problems and can be exploited by ruthless companies, yes. But it also offers huge benefits and opportunities. There is some evidence that it improves concentration and co-ordination, as in this study of the performance of surgeons. Multi-player games also offer the opportunity of interacting with and making friends with people around the globe. I won't go into an exhaustive list (there's a few more points here), I'm just saying there are good points as well as bad.

But the games themselves... there is a huge variety, catering for all tastes. There is some tremendous writing, some great educational and artistic content, and a lot of intellectual challenge. Compare it with the best and worst of television. But of course this is gaming, so it's all hugely interactive, too.

Not convinced? Take a look at these few links:

The Witness
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Educational Mode
Kentucky Route Zero
The Talos Principle

...or even just play 10 minutes of Red Dead Redemption 2, and you'll experience a profound immersion in the last days of the Wild West that can't be achieved through text books or TV documentaries, or even by physically visiting tourist-choked Wild West ghost towns.

If an initial offering does not hit its hardcap, then that means there is more supply than there is demand. That is the initial driver towards lower prices. So long as supply exceeds demand, prices will fall. For most initial offerings, this is the reason that prices fall like a stone as soon as the coin hits an exchange. Initial offerings are high risk high reward. If you get in on something good, it will sell out and the excess demand will push prices upwards. We are not in 2017 anymore, when everything hit hardcap and crypto-fever was everywhere. Prices and expectations are more realistic now. It is rare to find that hidden gem that will moon instantly. Of course there will be some slow-burning long-term successes as well, but these are not immune to that initial price drop.

It makes sense that once the spread of the virus is under control in an area that barriers are then established to isolate that area. In practice this is simplest at a national level, because we have national governments. Nations with a federal structure, US for example, can perhaps do so at the state level. In certain cases, and dependent on local geography and politics, these areas can then later be widened, thinking about a single Australia/New Zealand zone for example.

But closing of borders doesn't have to mean no entry, it can - and likely will - just mean quarantining. Any people coming in from an area where the virus is still rampant will need to be quarantined for a period of time (a couple of weeks is I think what China is using) to ensure they are virus-free when they enter. For goods/produce coming in from abroad, there will likely be strict decontamination procedures.

Border closure seems prudent to me. It may cause delays in physical cross-border business, it may severely hamper the transport of perishable goods (especially foodstuffs and certain medicines), and it will likely mean huge reductions in international travel of people, but in the absence of both a vaccine and - crucially - the capability and willingness to administer such a vaccine globally, then border restrictions are an obvious and sound defensive strategy.

So long as some part of the world has the virus, everyone is vulnerable. We all need to work together. Whilst there is always huge opposition to any idea of supranational governance (hello the EU), those concerns now need to be put aside. It has been demonstrated many times that we will not work together out of any sense of moral duty or compassion to less fortunate nations, but we now find ourselves in the strange situation of being compelled to work together out of basic self-interest.

The huge sudden drop earlier this year occurred because COVID-19 hit economies much harder than was anticipated. That was the initial shock. It is this deviation from expectation that causes swift price swings. Ever since then, prices have been recovering slowly but steadily. I expect this pattern to continue. We will remain above 8k and push back to where we were before the pandemic struck, yes. 10k is not an unreasonable expectation. Of course there will be bumps along the way, we may dip below 8k again, but if we do then I suspect that would only be in the very short-term.

The initial shock to the markets was when the lockdowns started. CV-19 had seemed to westerners to be a 'Chinese problem', something that would be limited to other countries as SARS and MERS were. As soon as it took hold in Europe, people started to panic. The markets plummeted. It wasn't the lockdowns that caused this precipitous drop, it was the fact that the lockdowns hadn't been expected and hadn't been factored in. As ever with a sudden big price movement, it didn't simply slow gently to a new minimum, instead it continued to drop sharply until enough people realised that it had fallen too far, and then a recovery started.
Crypto prices have been rising steadily for a month or so. Lockdowns and economic damage are now factored in. As the situation improves and countries around the globe start tentatively to re-open for business, money starts to flow back into stocks and indeed crypto.

I don't think people are buying crypto because they are looking around for investment opportunities, rather it is the money that fled that is starting to come back in. Same for stocks. It makes sense because prices are based on expectation of the future. CV-19 hit the world unexpectedly hard. Now it is a known, its effects are known, and so now price movements better match expectation, are more predictable, and so stocks and crypto become more enticing again.

OP, thanks for including "always do your own research" on the bit about price appreciation!

I have seen a lot of people thinking that halving means a guaranteed price increase, when this is not necessarily the case. When everyone expects something to happen, that means it is almost always priced in beforehand, and when the event itself actually happens, there can even be a small price drop - the maxim 'buy the rumour, sell the news'.

Halving should mean a price increase, and arguably past halving events have led to increases, but the more it happens, the more people anticipate the same happening next time, and so buy up bitcoin ahead of the event, which drives up the price before the halving actually happens.

Maybe this is a good project, maybe not. The problem here is that the OP is posting this from a new account. Maybe this is perfectly legitimate, say someone doesn't want to associate their main account with an altcoin. Or maybe the account is set up just to promote this coin, I don't know. The point is really that if I see a long post from a new account that is talking about an obscure alt, then it just doesn't inspire confidence. I'm not saying anything against the OP or against the coin in this specific instance, I'm just raising a general point.

I think the price increase is due more to the fact that some economies are starting to come out of the first phase of CV-19, and are tentatively re-opening for business. Whatever bitcoin may be eventually, for the moment its performance correlates positively with traditional markets. We saw a huge price drop as the lockdowns took hold across the world and the full impact of CV-19 became apparent. Since then, for the past month or so, we've seen steady upwards price movement in bitcoin and alts. This will likely continue, barring something such as the US re-opening too quickly and suffering a second wave of CV-19 that's worse than the first. In general if countries are cautious and implement gradual phased re-opening whilst maintaining social distancing and implementing contact tracing and testing, then prices should rise.

I don't think in this instance the price rise has anything to do with an exchange. Bitcoin price movement is always bumpy, and this applies even when the trend is consistently upwards - sometimes the price will have little upwards jumps, sometimes not.

Yes, you're right, of course. This is certainly a seller's market. Whoever produces the vaccine can make whatever demands they like, and countries will just say yes to all of them, legal immunity naturally being the first condition. I take back my point, I'm wrong, they will surely be legally immune everywhere.

I'd dispute that. There has been a bit of scandal about care home deaths in Sweden.

This is a valid point. No-one knows how many people have had the virus with mild symptoms or even asymptomatically. This just won't be known unless antibody tests are done on the whole population, which given the shortage of equipment seems extremely unlikely. We can look at countries such as Germany that have done a lot of testing, and yes, the mortality rates there do seem lower. Perhaps countries are over-reacting somewhat now, as overcompensation for the fact that they under-reacted initially. Difficult to know without sufficient data.

The thing is though, we are not just waiting for a vaccine, the main immediate purpose of the social distancing is to 'flatten the curve' of new infections in order that health services aren't overwhelmed. I do take your point though; there is no guarantee that a vaccine can be produced.

This is a concern, yes. There is huge pressure to get a vaccine out quickly, and different countries are racing one another... which does tend to result in shortcuts being taken.

I think legal accountability is a different issue. Likely to vary by country.

There are two ways out of this: wait for the vaccine, or achieve herd immunity.

Countries and companies are racing to achieve a vaccine. Partly out of financial self-interest, I'm sure, as the dollar rewards will be huge. But this remains the ideal solution from the perspective of saving human lives - which surely is the most important consideration. The problems are that it will take a long time to ensure that any potential vaccine is both safe and effective, and also that demand will surely outstrip supply (at least initially) by orders of magnitude, potentially leading to unrest. No doubt the country in which the vaccine is produced will demand that they get it first, then richer countries will throw money at it to jump the queue, and poorer countries will suffer disproportionately. The other problem of course is that some form of social distancing will need to remain in place until the vaccine is available, certainly for months, possibly longer.

The other option is herd immunity. This involves letting people die in order that the economy doesn't suffer too much. There is obviously a huge moral issue here. The fact that this is being seriously considered as an option is indicative of the fact that western countries value people largely in terms of their economic contribution. Workers are seen as valuable, but then as soon as they hit retirement age they are seen as a burden on society. Whether you agree with this or not (I really don't), that is how western societies work. Dollar is king.

Two options, both with problems, but I would argue that waiting for a vaccine is morally preferable to re-opening the economy and letting people die herd immunity.

If you want to join a signature campaign, then it is a good idea to make sure that the posts-per-week requirement is a reasonable number. No matter whether your intention is to write only high-quality posts, if a campaign wants you to make say 50 posts per week, but you only have maybe an hour a day on the forum, that means about 7 posts per hour... in which case it is impossible to keep the quality high. Look at what they want, and make sure it is achievable. Also try as much as you can to make sure that it is a good project, don't just join whatever claims to offer the most $$$ - if their project fails, then their coin and so the reward will be worthless.

Always remember that there are people involved! Speculation is the largest contributor to price movements.
So if you have a situation - such as bitcoin halving - where everyone expects the price to increase, this  expectation in itself pushes prices upwards, because everyone wants to own something that will increase in value. The effect of this is that any price increase is largely or indeed entirely priced in prior to the event actually occurring. In fact, what we often see is that this expectation of increase is overly optimistic, and has the effect of pushing the prices higher than the event itself might merit. Which in turn leads, perhaps counterintuitively, to a price drop when the event actually occurs.
Of course there is a lot of guesswork involved in predicting crypto price movements. Just don't forget the above is a possibility!

Yes, it varies wildly depending on your country.

I am in the UK, and I have paid tax on crypto assets. Here, it is treated as capital gains, and crypto-to-crypto trades are taxable, not just crypto-to-fiat (guidance here), and there is a threshold below which you pay nothing. Personally I paid tax for my first year in crypto, after which I was fully aware of the tax implications and have kept my dealings since then well below the threshold.

I would reiterate the advice above: pay your taxes! Blockchains are (generally) immutable and transparent; your history is there for all to see. As soon as you withdraw to fiat or verify yourself on an exchange, your identity is tied to your crypto dealings. Of course there are mixers and other ways around this, but it's up to you if you want to worry about the tax man catching up with you in say 10 years' time...

I am happy to give basic advice to anyone in the UK - probably PM me as I may miss a response here. But in general, if you have concerns or are unsure of anything it is best to consult a professional. There are accountants out there who deal with crypto gains.