Digital Currency Revolution Series: Intricacies of Bitcoin block-Halving, Underlying Price Dynamics And Hedging Analytics

The “block-halving” in cryptocurrency is a pre-programmed fundamental event, scheduled reduction in the inflation rate of an asset’s supply by 50%. 

Bitcoin’s next halving has been its leading narrative from the end of 2019 into the beginning of 2020. This halving, which will take place on tentatively by mid-May 2020, had been a dominant narrative discussed by many in the digital asset space because, all things being equal, a reduction in new supply — combined with consistent demand and pressure on miners would hypothetically lead to positive price movement for BTC.

While the halving dominated early conversations in Q1, mentions of the coronavirus in cryptocurrency publications skyrocketed in early February and significantly eclipsed publicity around Bitcoin’s halving. 

Although the bitcoin price has stabilized and attempting to create upside traction, the minor trend resumes bearish swings as stated in our recent post on failure swings at the stiff resistance, the current price attempts to slide below 21 & 7-DMAs upon failure swings at stiff resistance coupled with shooting stars, more rallies likely only on breakout above stiff resistance. 

But if you consider the broader perspective, from April'16, the BTC has spiked from $414 to the all-time highs of $19k, currently, trading at $ 7k mark, which is still 1,660% rallies. When this is the case with BTC, could we fairly criticise the performance of the pioneer cryptocurrency?

Well, the renowned crypto-exchanges like Bakkt, CME Group and OXEx have reported massive bitcoin options trading on their platforms adding the total to a mammoth $86 million which has been the largest trading since mid-March as per the data shown in Skew.

Needless to speculate anything on trend, and hence, the long hedges were advocated in past as well using CME BTC Futures. It is not prudent to count the chickens before they hatch, if we keep speculating on the next upside target and accumulate fresh bitcoins. Instead, one can certainly uphold the long hedges for now using CME BTC contracts of May deliveries (spot reference: $7,079. levels). Courtesy: eToro & Commerzbank