“a risk of temporary ‘sell the news’ exists”

While this event will take place next week on the Bitcoin blockchain, Alexandre Baradez, analyst at IG France, calls on investors to be cautious.

Is the bitcoin halving already priced into the current bitcoin price? This is the question posed by Alexandre Baradez, head of market analysis at IG France, in a note published this Friday.

As a reminder, halving takes place approximately every four years, more precisely every 210,000 blocks validated on the Bitcoin blockchain. This is a halving of the number of bitcoins issued to the market as rewards for miners (who validate transactions on the blockchain). From an economic point of view, this consists of a halving of the issuance of new bitcoins. (see our ‘ALL TO UNDERSTAND’ on this subject)

The event will take place around April 20, the resulting limitation of supply (or rather new issues of bitcoins) “could push prices up if demand remains strong”, points out Alexandre Baradez. But haven’t investors already integrated this event into the price of bitcoin, which reached a new historic threshold above $73,750 in mid-March?

“Surprise effect”

“The deluge of analyzes on specialized sites or more mainstream media for months has already enabled those who wanted to position themselves ahead of the event to do so,” considers Alexandre Baradez.

“There is normally no particular surprise effect when a theme is known very well in advance and the trend in bitcoin prices has already been very bullish for months. We could even consider that a There is a temporary risk of ‘selling the news’,” he explains.

“Sell the news” here refers to the financial adage “buy the rumor, sell the news” (you must buy a stock at the time of the rumor and resell it when the information is confirmed).

A return to around $50,000-60,000?

While bitcoin has benefited from a favorable context in recent months: (arrival of spot bitcoin ETFs, use as a safe haven in certain conflict zones, decisions by central banks, etc.), the asset could well be exposed to less favorable events taking it away from the $100,000 mark, considers the expert.

“The question of the level of American rates or even the dollar, more broadly of monetary policy, are among these subjects, as well as regulatory questions,” he indicates. “From a technical point of view, a return to the zone between $50,000 and $60,000 seems possible,” he concludes.