Cryptocurrency
Brace Up for a possible Post-Halving Price of $55,000 per Bitcoin – CNBC’s Joe Kernen
Joe Kernen, popular co-host of CNBC’ Squawk Box, has recently suggested on the show that the king coin could reach $55,000 by next year’s halving. This is one of a few bullish comments Kernen has expressed in recent times.
What Could Push Bitcoin that High?
On Monday the 29th of July, while talking to the episode’s guest – Fairlead Strategies founder and Managing Partner, Katie Stockton – Kernen asked her whether or not she believed that Bitcoin could surge more than 470% and hit $55,000 by next year. One of the reasons Kernen believes this could happen is Bitcoin’s upcoming halving.
Expected to happen by May 2020, the halving will see a reduction in the number of Bitcoins being mined, by exactly half. Miners currently receive 12.5 BTC per block and this number is expected to drop to 6.25 BTC. This was done from Bitcoin’s inception as a way to control inflation for the coin and to also make sure that only 21 million coins will ever be produced. Bitcoin’s halving takes place after every 210,000 blocks which roughly takes four years.
The traditional laws of supply and demand dictate that prices will increase if supply is reduced and demand is still growing. Also, there is usually a recorded increase in Bitcoin’s value after every halving since its inception more than a decade ago. Some analysts already posit that Bitcoin could hit $20,000 before the end of the year and if that happens, then it’s possible that it could be higher than that figure, post-halving.
The Stock to Flow Model
Kernen also mentions the Stock-to-Flow ratio as a possible explanation for a Bitcoin surge. This model tries to make a connection between the number of assets already produced and possible inflation. It posits that Bitcoin has a stock-to-flow ratio of 25, derived from the calculation that at current speed and with halvings, the current amount of produced Bitcoins, about 17.5 million, can only be re-produced after another 25 years.
This ratio, according to the model, is tied to Bitcoin’s value and will rise after the next halving. If this happens as expected, the model proposes that Bitcoin’s market capitalization could hit $1 trillion from the $170 billion where it is. A market cap this high supports a value of $55,000 per Bitcoin.