Firstly, for anyone reading this and unsure what the bitcoin halving is,
here's an explanation.
It's May 12 your dukeness. There was little talk of the halving coming out of the covid conundrum. It was coming back up in any event. Now that the halving is fast approaching, there has been more consideration of it. However, I don't think that's in any way feverish.
On a more organic basis, towards the end of last month, we reached the latest milestone of in excess of
3 million bitcoin wallet addresses with a balance of more than 0.1 BTC.
This is a concept you're not used to Dukey - it's called Quantitative Tightening - not this Q.E. unlimited social experiment brought to you by the Fed/ECB/BoJ/BoE, etc. Can you tell me please why anyone had to pay taxes all these years when it seems the ECB could have just printed this off?
The notion of an efficient market hypothesis is a fair point. Some believe it's priced in - and some don't. However, you're wrong to single out the bitcoin market for irrationality given what we're seeing right now in the conventional markets. The worst jobs figures ever are released and the market goes up! The conventional markets are the greatest live example of irrationality right now - powered by hopium and magic money.
It's an interesting anecdote Brendan but it betrays a misunderstanding of the bitcoin halving. The halving is Quantitative Tightening. Bitcoin miners expend energy and resources in confirming bitcoin transactions. A reward of 12.5 BTC is provided every ten minutes for the confirmation of blocks of transactions. As of block 630000 (expected to be reached on May 12), that reward is cut in half to 6.25 BTC.
It's a case of reduced supply. If we assume the same demand as pre-halving, reduced supply is likely to induce an upward pressure on price (albeit not immediately afterwards). That's the opposite of the analogy that you present with.
Fill yer boots.
Entirely speculative on my part but I suspect that the steaming mess in the conventional markets has not ended - and will play out over the coming weeks/months.
I thought this was ground we'd already covered but apparently not. Bitcoin crashed hard in those market panic conditions only to recover later. Gold crashed in those market panic conditions only to recover later. People have ran the numbers. Over its 11 year history, bitcoin has largely been uncorrelated with the conventional markets. As it stands today, it is once again, the best performing asset class in 2020 - as it was in 2019 and
as it has been over the course of the last decade.
In a note to clients on Thursday, Chris Wood - Global Head of Equity Strategy with Jefferies (the world's 9th largest investment bank) - wrote this:
"Investors should own both gold & Bitcoin... [BTC] should be a source of diversification... its decentralized nature... [&] fixed supply, makes it a hedge vs central bank manipulated fiat $."
I guess he and his clients are the latest in a long list of 'greater fools'.
I ponder a similar question but yet one that is the antithesis of yours => 'How long will it take for yourself and his Dukeness to get to that Eureka! moment? The one that goes along the lines of an understanding that bitcoin is hard digital money which is divisible, censorship resistant and digital gold (or an uncorrelated asset class in it's own right).