Bitcoins is not alone among cryptocurrencies in reducing reward halves every four years. Let me introduce you to three other coins, and explore how historical halvings have impacted their market values.
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The significant events called “halvings” in Bitcoin’s development attract a great deal of interest – this makes perfect sense given Bitcoin’s status as the largest cryptocurrency.
However, we often overlook the fact that certain other digital currencies, some of which are offshoots of Bitcoin with long histories, experience a 50% reduction in their supply every four years as well.
In this section, we will explore the impact on the value of other cryptocurrencies following their halving events by shedding some light on the subject.
Let’s take a brief look back at Bitcoin’s price movement during the 12 months following each previous reward reduction:
| Date of halving | Price on day of halving | Price 12 months later | Change |
| November 28, 2012 | $12.41 | $1,129.37 | +9,000% |
| July 9, 2016 | $650.96 | $2,518.44 | +287% |
| May 11, 2020 | $8,601.80 | $56,704.57 | +559% |
Bitcoin Cash
Using market capitalization as a benchmark, Bitcoin Cash is the next largest cryptocurrency that undergoes periodic halvings.
In 2017, BitcoinsChain (BCH) emerged following a divisive split among miners over the proper management of Bitcoin.
Bitcoins have a limit of 4 megabytes per block, while Bitcoin Cash can accommodate up to 32 megabytes. This expansion aims to enhance transaction capability and lower costs when transferring funds from point A to point B.
Despite the notable disparities between Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), including their market values and circulating supplies, these digital currencies possess a significant similarity: a total issuance of 21 million coins. Approximately 19.6 million coins from each currency are already in circulation.
Bitcoins Cash’s reductions in block rewards align with Bitcoin’s, but the timing for these reductions, or halvings, varies between the two.
| Date of halving | Price on day of halving | Price 12 months later | Change |
| April 8, 2020 | $252.05 | $667.36 | +164% |
| April 4, 2024 | $527.90 | $540.80* (as of April 15, 2024) | +2.5%* (as of April 15, 2024) |
Approximately two weeks before Bitcoin, Bitcoincash (BCH) reduced the number of new coins being introduced daily to 450. The impact on prices in the long term remains uncertain at this point. Previously reported by crypto.news, miners have been selling off their holdings due to unprofitable operations. In the ten days following the most recent halving, miner reserves decreased from 6.22 million to 5.59 million BCH.
According to certain market analysts, such as Wintermute, the selling pressure experienced by Bitcoin Cash (BCH) following its halving may forecast similar trends for Bitcoin (BTC) in the future.
Litecoin
Moving on to other major cryptocurrencies with halvings, let’s talk about Litecoin.
Introduced in 2011, Litecoin (LTC) is one of the initial altcoins that emerged with a mission to address certain limitations of Bitcoin. Among the primary concerns were enabling quicker and more affordable transactions, and mitigating the growing issue of centralization.
Despite sharing the same proof-of-work consensus algorithm as Bitcoin, Litecoin boasts several distinct characteristics. New blocks are generated at a faster rate – approximately every 2.5 minutes instead of Bitcoin’s 10 minutes. Additionally, Litecoin has a larger maximum supply, with a total of 84 million coins that can be mined.
In simpler terms, the halvings for Litecoin’s block rewards don’t happen every 210,000 blocks as before, but instead every 840,000 blocks. So, while there are still four-year intervals between each halving event, the number of blocks in each interval has changed. Currently, miners receive a reward of 6.25 Litecoins per block, which will decrease to 3.125 Litecoins around summer 2027.
| Date of halving | Price on day of halving | Price 12 months later | Change |
| August 25, 2015 | $2.93 | $3.80 | +30% |
| August 5, 2019 | $96.83 | $59.01 | -39% |
| August 2, 2023 | $87.49 | $80.90* (as of April 15, 2024) | -7.5%* (as of April 15, 2024) |
An intriguing observation is that Litecoin’s halvings have not consistently led to a bullish market response. In fact, Litecoin’s standing among the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization has significantly diminished over the past few years. Having been the second largest coin back in January 2014, this altcoin had dropped down to the 18th position by the beginning of 2024.
Bitcoin SV
Why can’t Bitcoiners just get along?
The third cryptocurrency with a halving we’re going to mention is Bitcoin SV (short for “Satoshi’s Vision”.) Despite being 67th in the rankings, BSV declares itself to be “the original Bitcoin blockchain” — and argues its infrastructure has been developed in line with what Bitcoin’s pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, would have wanted.
Bitcoin SV emerged in 2018 following a hard fork from Bitcoin Cash as an endeavor to construct larger blocks, with a capacity of up to 4GB. However, numerous sources indicate that Bitcoin SV has experienced several 51% attacks since then. In a recent development, Coinbase removed Bitcoin SV from its platform this year.
The second halving of Bitcohavana SV (BSV) occurred just a few days ago on April 13. This means that it is challenging to predict how the recent decrease in block rewards will impact prices. We can only look back at one historical occurrence for guidance.
| Date of halving | Price on day of halving | Price 12 months later | Change |
| 10 April, 2020 | $186.52 | $272.71 | +46% |
In simple terms, Bitcoin halvings are the main events that generate significant market buzz and price surges.
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2024-04-15 17:27