CoinShares: Investors withdraw $126m as crypto confidence wanes
Bitcoin’s halvings get a lot of attention — that’s understandable; it is the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, after all.
But it’s easy to forget that other digital assets, some of which forked directly from Bitcoin a long time ago, also see their supply slashed by 50% every four years.
Here, we’re going to shine a light on the other coins that undergo halvings and examine what’s happened to their value after each event.
Before we do that, here’s a quick refresher on how Bitcoin’s performed in the 12 months after each reduction in block rewards so far:
Bitcoin Cash
Based on market capitalization, the next biggest cryptocurrency with regular halvings is Bitcoin Cash.
BCH was created as the result of a contentious hard fork back in 2017 — basically, a dispute between miners on how Bitcoin should be run.
Whereas Bitcoin has a maximum block size of 4MB, Bitcoin Cash increases this to 32MB. The goal is to increase the capacity for transactions and reduce fees when sending funds from A to B.
While there are some key differences between BTC and BCH (especially when it comes to price and market cap,) there is one thing they share in common: a supply of 21 million. Both also have about 19.6 million coins currently in circulation.
Although Bitcoin Cash is reducing block rewards at the same pace as Bitcoin, its halvings are taking place on a different schedule. Let’s take a look:Date of halvingPrice on day of halvingPrice 12 months laterChangeApril 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)
Source: CoinMarketCap
BCH was about two weeks ahead of BTC in cutting the amount of new coins entering the market every day to 450 — and right now, it’s too early to see what the long-term effect on prices will be. However, as previously reported by crypto.news, we have seen miners offload their holdings in recent months as some take a step back from unprofitable operations. In the 10 days after this latest halving, miner reserves dwindled from 6.22 million to 5.59 million BCH:
BCH miner reserves from April 4-14 | Source: IntoTheBlock
Some analysts, including the algorithmic trading firm Wintermute, believe the selling pressure that BCH has suffered since its halving could serve as a barometer of what’s to come with BTC.
Litecoin
Moving on to other major cryptocurrencies with halvings, let’s talk about Litecoin.
Created back in 2011, making it one of the earliest altcoins ever to exist, LTC was designed to address some of Bitcoin’s shortcomings. Key concerns included making payments faster and cheaper, as well as tackling the creeping threat of centralization.
Although they run on the same proof-of-work consensus algorithm, key attributes on Litecoin have been quadrupled. New blocks are created four times faster — every two-and-a-half minutes compared with Bitcoin’s 10 — and LTC has a maximum supply of 84 million.
This means that while Litcoin’s halvings still occur every four years, they only occur every 840,000 blocks—not 210,000. Miners currently enjoy a block reward of 6.25 LTC, but this is scheduled to tumble to 3.125 LTC some time in the summer of 2027.
Date of halvingPrice on day of halvingPrice 12 months laterChangeAugust 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)
Source: CoinMarketCap
It’s interesting to note that — in Litecoin’s case — halvings haven’t always delivered a surge in bullish activity. LTC’s stature in the rankings of top cryptocurrencies by market cap has also fallen substantially in recent years. While it was the world’s second-largest coin in January 2014, this altcoin had slumped to 18th by the start 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 was created in 2018 as the result of another hard fork, this time from Bitcoin Cash, in an attempt to create even bigger blocks up to 4GB in size. But multiple reports suggest BSV has been prone to a series of 51% attacks over the years — and in another setback for the fledgling cryptocurrency, it was delisted by Coinbase earlier this year.
BSV’s second-ever halving took place in recent days, on April 13, meaning it’s difficult to see how the latest reduction in block rewards will shape prices. In fact, we only have one past event to go off:
Date of halvingPrice on day of halvingPrice 12 months laterChange10 April, 2020$186.52$272.71+46%
Source: CoinMarketCap
Overall, it’s fair to say that — when it comes to market excitement and price momentum — it’s only Bitcoin halvings that steal the show.
