Bitcoin miners could dump $5B in BTC after halving

There could be a large outflow of Bitcoin from miners in the months following the Bitcoin halving as in previous cycles, according to a market analyst.

Bitcoin miners could potentially liquidate $5 billion worth of BTC after the halving, according to calculations by the head of research at 10x Research, Markus Thielen, in an April 13 analyst note.

“The overhang from this selling could last four to six months, explaining why Bitcoin might go sideways for the next few months — as it has done following past halvings,” he added.

Thielen said that the same could happen again, with crypto markets potentially facing “a significant challenge in a six-month ‘summer’ lull.”

Bitcoin prices remained range bound between $9,000 and $11,500 in the five months that followed the 2020 halving.

This year, the halving will occur around April 20, just six days away, so markets may not see any significant upward trajectory until around October if history rhymes.

Additionally, miners tend to stock up on BTC, “leading to a supply/demand imbalance and a subsequent rally in Bitcoin prices,” leading up to the halving, he said.

This has already occurred, with BTC prices surging 74% in 2024 to reach an all-time high of $73,734 on March 14 before correcting to below $63,000 in mid-April.

Thielen also thinks that altcoins, in particular, could bear the brunt of this situation. Many of them have been falling back heavily over the past week and many remain a long way away from their peaks in 2021.

Thielen postulated that Marathon, the worlds largest Bitcoin miner, has built an inventory “that will likely be gradually sold after the halving to prevent a revenue cliff from occurring.”

As Marathon (currently) produces 28–30 BTC per day, this could result in 133 days of additional supply hitting the market plus the BTC it produces, which would be 14–15 BTC per day after the halving, he said.

The researcher concluded that if all miners have a similar strategy to sell inventory post-halving, “this could result in a maximum of $104 million of BTC selling per day — reversing the supply/demand imbalance that caused BTC to rally pre-halving.”

Last week, Marathon CEO Peter Thiel said that the firms break-even rate would be about $46,000 per BTC to remain profitable after the halving, predicting that there is unlikely to be any significant price movements in the six months that follow the event.