CoinShares, a crypto investment advisory firm released a research report discussing various outcome scenarios of the upcoming Bitcoin block reward halving and its impact on the crypto industry. The halving event has brought back the attention on Bitcoin more than ever as it is evident from Google metrics data showing that the searches for the ‘Bitcoin Halving’ term have risen by 4 times that of pre-2016 halving event. Apart from that many other metrics such as the number of non-zero bitcoin wallets, numbers of new users, have peaked significantly as well showing the mammoth interest that the event has generated.

The pre-halving period has also brought back the trend of price predictions among several trade pundits many of whom believe that post halving Bitcoin price would rise to 5-figure mark. While price prediction in the crypto space has never aged well, that does not seem to deter these analysts from putting their bet on Bitcoin. A majority of the crypto-verse is highly bullish about the outcome, however, there are few others who also believe the halving event won’t have any major impact on BTC price.

CoinShares research on such possible outcomes was published on May 4th where the investment advisory firm’s head of research, Christopher Bendiksen discussed five possible outcomes of the event.

The first possible outcome of the halving which was considered by CoinShares was the chances of Halving leading to a Mining death spiral, where it was speculated whether the low cost of Bitcoin post halving would force miners to bailout from the Bitcoin game, which in turn would have a catastrophic impact on the network as no miners mean no transaction confirmation which would completely shut the Bitcoin network down.

However, the research found that the likelihood of such an outcome is zero and it is next to impossible that anything of that magnitude would occur.

The second possible outcome post halving could be that the Bitcoin price follows the stock-to-flow chart and reach new highs. Stock-to-flow chart measures the scarcity of an asset and how the supply-demand scenarios play in. Bitcoin with its 21 million limited supply is only behind Gold in terms of scarcity and the upcoming halving event would make it even scarcer than gold.

The research believes there is a high likelihood of Bitcoin following the stock-to-flow chart which predicts its price to reach near $288k by the end of 2024

The third scenario under consideration was that a majority of the traders have jumped in prior to the bitcoin halving event based on rumors of a possible bull run. The Coinshares analysis suggested that although it is hard to analyze this outcome since it would require hard data on what percentage of trades bought in based on the rumors.

However, traders mostly invest based on retail demands, and thus they concluded that the chances of this scenario playing out are highly unlikely and even if traders sell their assets it wouldn’t be on a scale that it would impact bitcoin’s price.

The fourth scenario under consideration was that the block reward halving would cut down the profits of miners and if the prices don’t pick up they might be forced to sell their holdings leading to falling in Bitcoin price.

The Coinshares research analyzed that miners enjoy Bitcoin prices higher than their ROI breakeven mining costs, can help them in saving coins they get in the mining process, which in turn helps the Bitcoin price as well. However, if the Bitcoin price falls below the ROI breakeven line and is less, miners are not only forced to sell their mined coins but also their reserves which could lead to a decline in Bitcoin price.

CoinShares concluded that the chances of this scenario playing out is quite thin and chances of it even occurring would require a few other factors to play in especially scenario three.

The final possible scenario that might occur is actually, ‘nothing.’ This scenario suggests that Bitcoin halving would not have any impact on its prices i.e bitcoin would move between 1%-5% on both sides, but nothing out of the blue or headlines worthy would follow the Bitcoin halving event.

This scenario is based on the assumption that the supply-demand dynamics would take some time to kick-in but it would not have any impact right after the halving. CoinShares research suggest that the chances of this scenario playing out is highly likely and has been the case in the past event. Where Bitcoin halving in 2016 did not have any impact on BTC price almost for one and a half years before BTC broke into a bull run by the end of 2017

The study concludes saying,

“In our opinion, the likely outcome of the halving is a positive supply-side impact over the mid- to longer-term. The dual mining shakeout from the recent drop plus the halving has accelerated a reinvestment cycle among the lowest cost miners who have been the last ones to make the switch into the most modern generation of mining gear.”

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