Crypto Market Facing ''Six-Month Lull'' With Bitcoin Miners Set To Offload Up To $5 Billion BTC After The Bitcoin Halving, 10X Research Says

Crypto Market Facing ”Six-Month Lull” With Bitcoin Miners Set To Offload Up To $5 Billion BTC After The Bitcoin Halving, 10X Research Says

BySteven Walgenbach

Updated: 15 April 2024

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Bitcoin miners could liquidate $5 billion Bitcoin after the BTC halving event in about five days to push the crypto market into a “six- month summer lull,” says 10X Research.

Bitcoin miners have built substantial inventories of Bitcoin that they will begin offloading after the BTC halving, said head of research Markus Thielen in an Apr. 13 research note.

“That will likely be gradually sold after the halving to prevent a revenue cliff from occurring,” he said, referring in particular to Marathon, the largest Bitcoin miner globally. “Other miners will likely follow a similar strategy to liquidate part of their inventory gradually.”

The overhang from this selling could last four to six months, he said, causing Bitcoin to trade sideways.

Bitcoin miners tend to stock up on the leading crypto in the build up to the halving event so that they can capitalize on plentiful supply, and then capitalize on what previously has been price rallies after the halving when supply is slashed, he said.

Miners Could Dump $104 Million Daily After The Bitcoin Halving

Thielen said that additional supply could flood the market after the halving with Marathon possibly selling between 14-15 BTC per day.

If other miners adopt the same strategy, Thielen says up to $104 million worth of BTC will be sold off every day after the halving event, ”reversing the supply/demand imbalance that caused BTC to rally pre-halving.”

The Bitcoin price has surged 50.6% so far this year to trade at $66,529 as of 5.25 a.m. EST.

#Bitcoin Might Trade Sideways for 6 months As Miners Could Sell $5bn of BTC -> Here is why: https://t.co/gLRgs8yyGg pic.twitter.com/zBLdV95MAl

— 10x Research (@10x_Research) April 13, 2024

Altcoin Rally May Only Happen Later

Altcoins might bear the brunt of the potential BTC selloff, Thielen said.

“Even if there is a correlation between the halving and an altcoin rally, as some predict, historical evidence shows that the rally typically begins almost six months later,” he added.

Weekly chart for the altcoin market cap (Source: TradingView)

The altcoin market dropped over 10% last week, but traders have since resumed buying smaller-capped cryptos. Following a more than 2% increase so far this week, the total market cap for altcoins stood at $1.051 trillion as of 3:00 a.m. EST, according to TradingView data.