Google searches for Bitcoin’s upcoming halving event have been surging over the last few months, presumably as investors gain interest in the event that will cut the cryptocurrency’s inflation in half.
According to data from Google Trends, interest for the flagship cryptocurrency’s halving has been growing rapidly since mid-2018 and has already surpassed the search interest seen back in 2016, when Bitcoin underwent its second halving event. The trend was first spotted by Arcane Research, which pointed out interest is “approaching levels twice as high” as those seen in 2016.
The search volume for #bitcoin halving keeps accelerating 🚀 and is approaching levels twice as high as those seen around the previous halving in 2016 pic.twitter.com/XsZFDHZZFq
— Arcane Research (@ArcaneResearch) April 5, 2020
Interest for the cryptocurrency’s halving surged earlier this year, as the date of the event approaches. The halving will see Bitcoin’s block rewards drop from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block. Effectively cutting its inflation in half.
Some believe that the halving will lead to a price rise, as historically other halvings events were followed by a bull market. Analysts claim that that as supply drops and demand is either maintained or grows, the cryptocurrency’s value inevitably goes up.
As CryptoGlobe reported Adam Back, co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, recently argued the halving is “quantitative hardening,” at a time in which central banks throughout the world are busy doing massive amounts of quantitative easing (QE) to support the economy, which has been hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
It’s worth noting that some in the cryptocurrency space point out that using the Efficient Market Hypothesis, everyone already knows the halving is going to occur and as such it may already be priced in. This would mean the price of the cryptocurrency won’t move significantly after the block rewards are cut in half.
Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao, for example, has revealed he believes the halving hasn’t yet been priced in, as he believes inflation will reduce at the same time the crypto space will get an influx of new users and investors. Others have claimed that just as the hashrate has been rising because of the halving, so has the price.
Featured image via Pixabay.
