Bitcoin’s price falters just three days ahead of Bitcoin halving

Bitcoin’s price faltered on Saturday to lows of $9,580. The dip follows a strong week—in which the value of a single Bitcoin brushed $10,000 several times—and comes just three days prior to the Bitcoin halving, which is predicted to take place on Tuesday.

The price crash from around $10,000 began as the clock struck midnight. Bitcoin’s price then fell to lows of $9,580. On Saturday afternoon, Bitcoin regained some of its losses when it bounced back to its current price (at the time of writing), $9,704.

The dip undoes Bitcoin’s $10,000 milestone, which has been triumphed by the Bitcoin community as a sign of the coin's complete recovery from Black Thursday.

Bitcoin’s price crashed in the middle of March when the coronavirus pandemic tanked global markets—and took Bitcoin with it. Bitcoin's price fell to lows of $4,100, from highs of close to $9,100 just days earlier. Black Thursday came a month after its highest price this year—$10,457 in the middle of February.

All eyes are on Bitcoin’s price this weekend ahead of the Bitcoin halving, which is slated to take place on Tuesday, or whenever the 630,000th block is mined into existence.

When this happens, the amount of Bitcoin that miners receive for mining new blocks will cut in half. This is due to a piece of monetary policy that’s hardcoded into the Bitcoin protocol. Then, the supply of new Bitcoins will decrease, theoretically inflating demand. Some people think that this will increase the price of Bitcoin—it has done so in the past. 

But the price dip, so close to Bitcoin’s halving, knocks confidence in an asset that’s made a strong recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. 

Other traders may be nonplussed by the dip—they believe that the halving has already been priced into the market, and don’t expect a huge surge, anyway. For them, Bitcoin’s dip this weekend is part of the crazy Bitcoin game.