The Bitcoin halving's 3 possible scenarios.

[mk4]

Bitcoin's price concerning the halving has really been a very hot topic for the past few weeks, and it's pretty evident due to the number of questions we've been getting here on Bitcointalk concerning bitcoin's price.

So, as if we haven't been getting enough halving topics, here I am, creating another one. I blame the pandemic for me having so much time, I guess. And also hopefully so that we get a lot less redundant "will bitcoin rise after halving?" topics.

So, will bitcoin rise in price? or will it be coming crashing down temporarily? Out of the 3 potential short-term scenarios, what do you think is likely to occur?

Scenario 1: The FOMO event

While most of us here have known for a few months already that the 3rd halving is coming, let's not forget that there are people that aren't paying attention to the industry on the daily. Assuming that news sites(both bitcoin/crypto-related and non bitcoin-crypto related) manage to get their halving articles to get to trending, and when I say trending I mean even the non bitcoin people gets to read them, a huge fomo event might happen.

Along with that, let's not forget that the federal reserve printing a crap ton of money might just add enough fuel to the fomo fire for the price to grow significantly.

Also, the fomo might not only come from the non-bitcoin people. A rise in price after the halving might just give the crypto people enough proof that PlanB's Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow(S2F)[1] model might be actually accurate, hence them also potentially fomo-ing in. You can look at the S2F chart here[2].

Scenario 2: Huge Panic Selling

Since there are a good amount of people betting that the upcoming block halving will boost up bitcoin's price in the short-term, imagine if bitcoin actually drops in price or stays stable days or weeks after the halving. People would potentially be panic selling because the price pump they were expecting didn't happen. Let's not forget, people in this space are very short-term focused.

To add to that, there could potentially be a good number of FUD articles like "bitcoin hashrate dropped by xx%" if bitcoin's price didn't rise, hence some miners might need to turn off their machines.

Scenario 3: The Boring Scenario

While I personally doubt that this will be the scenario that will actually happen as I'm betting on a significant price movement, it's still a possibility. Whereas the number of bitcoin being bought and sold just simply balances out, giving bitcoin only a very small price movement(upside/downside) that it really wouldn't matter that much.


Quick Final Thoughts

It's evident in the past that the past halving events had positive effects on bitcoin's price in the mid-long term. So whatever happens in the short-term, really doesn't matter that much. Though I'd personally probably prefer a drop so we could accumulate more. Thoughts?

[1] https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/bitcoin-stock-to-flow-cross-asset-model-50d260feed12
[2] https://digitalik.net/btc/

[20kevin20]

I think it's quite evident to me which scenario I'd like to see the most. But the little devil sitting on my shoulder somehow tells me it would be pretty interesting to see a completely opposite movement of the price compared to the past halvings. Chances are that The Boring Scenario (reminds me of Musk's flamethrowers) has the highest chance to happen out of all 3 though, but any of the two other scenarios would be very interesting indeed.

I'll probably take some food and sit in front of my TV looking at the charts, but I am aware this could actually be a waste of time. It's not like the chart's going to go absolutely wild once halving is finally in.

[Wind_FURY]

Boring Scenario.

The halving is already priced in, and the "mining-death-spiral after the halving" narrative is also priced in. Although, that doesn't suggest that it won't surge up, or crash down, for other/unknown reasons.

[avikz]

Here are my speculations,

1. Unlikely to happen. People have already burnt their hands once in 2017 due to FOMO. I don't think it will come back again now at least at this price level. However, if we see the price sky-rocketing past 15k, it may happen. But since a lot of people have already experienced this earlier, they will be super cautious this time. But the price increase must happen to keep miners at work.

2. If the price drops post halving, we won't see panic selling at scale. FUD articles were always a problem and it will remains as it is. But the chance of panic selling is grim. Rather, a lot of miner will be forced out of business due to the drop in price. It will be cheaper for them to buy from the market instead of mining bitcoin. It will create issues with the network. Transactions will take longer to confirm as well as it will be expensive just the way we have seen back in 2017. The effect will be disastrous for the entire bitcoin community.

3. Nah! It doesn't make sense at all! Bitcoin is a speculator's heaven. If it stabilizes, speculators/traders will have to find another asset to continue with their day trade. And if it happens, the demand is bound to fall because we haven't yet seen a significant mass adoption of bitcoin in real-world. The stabilizing price will definitely pave its way but that won't happen overnight. Definitely not an ideal scenario.

My thought: As per the basic mathematics, the price of bitcoin must increase. The miners will need that money to stay afloat because mining is a very price sensitive market. If miners are happy, we won't see network congestion or increased fees. But if the miners are moving out of business, the effect will not be great for all of us. We definitely don't want to pay $50 fees in $200 transaction and wait for 2 hours to get it confirmed. Let everyone be happy!  

[The Cryptovator]

Voted for FOMO event. Because we are experiencing FOMO effect on bitcoin price from last week. Most of holders believe bitcoin price will bump for halving occasion. And some people are trying to take advantage of it they are busy to buy bitcoin. That's how current FOMO increasing. Comparatively this year halving is going to different from other years. Because the bitcoin community become more bigger than before. And we will see another new halving after 4 years which would be more surprising for us.

Most probably price would drop after halving FOMO because there will be another FUD after halving. As you mention on the topic regarding panic sell, it would happen immediately after halving, not before the halving IMO. So if you're wondering accumulate then likely you will able to do after halving.

[mk4]

3. Nah! It doesn't make sense at all! Bitcoin is a speculator's heaven. If it stabilizes, speculators/traders will have to find another asset to continue with their day trade. And if it happens, the demand is bound to fall because we haven't yet seen a significant mass adoption of bitcoin in real-world. The stabilizing price will definitely pave its way but that won't happen overnight. Definitely not an ideal scenario.

Of course it doesn't make sense for bitcoin to be stable this early on. The topic is geared towards the short-term(which I put quite heavy emphasis on), whereas bitcoin moving only very little in price is very possible in the span of like 2 weeks and has happened a lot of times already.

[Wind_FURY]

Voted for FOMO event. Because we are experiencing FOMO effect on bitcoin price from last week. Most of holders believe bitcoin price will bump for halving occasion. And some people are trying to take advantage of it they are busy to buy bitcoin. That's how current FOMO increasing. Comparatively this year halving is going to different from other years. Because the bitcoin community become more bigger than before. And we will see another new halving after 4 years which would be more surprising for us.

Wouldn't the "FOMO event" be already priced in? The price-setting entities, actually everyone in Bitcoin, already knew about it four years ago, and have, by now, acted on it.

Most probably price would drop after halving FOMO because there will be another FUD after halving. As you mention on the topic regarding panic sell, it would happen immediately after halving, not before the halving IMO. So if you're wondering accumulate then likely you will able to do after halving.

What would be the FUD? Unknown FUD? What kind of "FUD" would cause a panic?

[freedomno1]

Just came back to lurk after ages to read the sentiment as the Halving approaches
Personally I voted for the boring scenario, realistically I see it being the bull run scenario a significant amount of money has been printed to battle COVID leading to a Cyprus reignition point that caused the last rally.
The potential crisis with the entire economic system has not played out yet and we may also see shifts to the current hegemony that are pro bitcoin and crypto. China just started its blockchain system a few weeks ago so interesting times.
That said these are a bit long term in outlook compared to reality and as it is I don't see it occurring for a while yet.

Bullish, however, is my personal opinion based on the speculation of new money entering into Bitcoin as people search up the Bitcoin halving and to be honest ... with the world in a social distance state the attention this event may attract and the people who are speculating the markets will bring a lot more people into the game.
Just a new influx of money from people who receive cheques and are financially stable enough to invest will cause a rally.
Will they get the accounts settled and prepared by next week well that's the real question after the halving will there be a short term drop on the news and a rally after hard to say kind of fun that way though.

New money is sometimes stupid money though so FOMO can happen  

[Gotumoot]

I would bet that there is a big percentage that this halving could be the Boring Scenario because of the covid effect.
But there is also a possibility of a FOMO because of covid people would try to use crypto to earn online so there could be a batch of fresh money for the market.
But the FOMO would only be for the newbie's not for us who have been in crypto game for long.

[DeathAngel]

There will possibly be a pump above $10,000 in the next week, if that happens then the price will probably have a bit of a dump shortly after the halving. We’ll then slowly see the price rise throughout the rest of 2020 & then see new highs in 2021.

[carter34]

We surely know that it will lead to an increase in the long run but to the scenario of how much it can go down before the rise, is not predictable for me. Therefore it is better for me to hodl until I get to my selling point at $15,000. At that point, I think the initial pump can have a drop.

[Sadlife]

The only scenario that is unlikely to occur is the huge panic selling event. We all know that Bitcoin already capitulated when the huge flash crash occurred when stock market falls due to the corona and we've seen the rise of Bitcoin keyword searches and wallet hodlers and im expecting it would not be a boring event.

[mk4]

Just a new influx of money from people who receive cheques and are financially stable enough to invest will cause a rally.

I've also thought about this too. But this scenario itself, also has an opposing possibilities. While new influx of money can definitely go into the markets due to the stimulus checks, but we could also argue that the last thing that people would own in times off economic uncertainty are volatile assets like bitcoin. Again, it boils down to "no one knows" lmao.

[mahilchii]

There will possibly be a pump above $10,000 in the next week, if that happens then the price will probably have a bit of a dump shortly after the halving. We’ll then slowly see the price rise throughout the rest of 2020 & then see new highs in 2021.

Exactly, BTCs main story will continue only after the Halving right now it's slowly moving up might be because of FOMOs. After Halving there will be a serious panic sell the reason is people don't have enough money as the lockdowns are still in progress in many countries, well if this happens the price of BTC will be affected very badly. And like you said we can expect some positive signs by 2021..

[exstasie]

So "up, down, or sideways?"

This halving is shaping up much like 2016. The May-June 2016 pump felt very similar. There was a very significant dip afterwards.

Going with that theme, in all likelihood there will be a "sell the news" element at play, given the amount of hype we're seeing. My Twitter feed and the Speculation forum have been completely overtaken by it. Mainstream media coverage too.

There are also significantly more leveraged longs now than there were in April, which may provide additional selling pressure if the rally sputters out.

[GreatArkansas]

The only scenario that is unlikely to occur is the huge panic selling event. (...)

I don't think so. Just always remember, in Bitcoin nothing is impossible. Expect the unexpected, for me I am worried because of the panic selling event or in positive side for me is Boring scenario. Huge panic selling event is possible, but for me if this will happen, this is just a short time, like a huge candle wicks.

[mk4]

Going with that theme, in all likelihood there will be a "sell the news" element at play, given the amount of hype we're seeing. My Twitter feed and the Speculation forum have been completely overtaken by it. Mainstream media coverage too.

For sure. The thing that makes things harder in this case is how high can bitcoin actually get due to the hype? While I don't think there will be much upward price movements in the short term, I could definitely be wrong. I thought bitcoin's ceiling was at around 8k in the bull run of 2017 so I don't really trust my crystal ball LOL. One thing's for sure, Bitcoin surprises us from time to time.

[Exolix]

Bitcoin's price concerning the halving has really been a very hot topic for the past few weeks, and it's pretty evident due to the number of questions we've been getting here on Bitcointalk concerning bitcoin's price.

So, as if we haven't been getting enough halving topics, here I am, creating another one. I blame the pandemic for me having so much time, I guess. And also hopefully so that we get a lot less redundant "will bitcoin rise after halving?" topics.

So, will bitcoin rise in price? or will it be coming crashing down temporarily? Out of the 3 potential short-term scenarios, what do you think is likely to occur?

Do these scenarios take into account the pandemic? Well, you know, a new variable has appeared in the equation that matters. Covid- 19 affects the financial, physical, emotional state of bitcoin owners. And is it possible to somehow take this into account?


p.s.voted for The Boring Scenario

[buwaytress]

I love the crowd so far, voted for what turned out to be the majority (7 votes) because yes man, we've had past more impactful halvings already happen and shit didn't go hit the fan (in a good way) until months later.

We's gonna see a lot of yawnfest nothings in the next few weeks at least, if not months.

Definitely not a short-term precursor. @Exolix: even less effect if you do Covid-19 considerations. People will be squeezed for money and jobs. Buying bitcoin last on their mind. Selling it maybe to pay bills.

[ultrloa]

I'm into boring scenario

Since I didn't feel the halving effect for now compare to past few years of halving days since whenever the even close by the price stretching up but for now since there us pandemic the people are now not on investments that's why we see a rough start from the market.