Adam Back, one of the pioneers of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, believes that Bitcoin (BTC) will reach $100,000 before the spring 2024 halving. What are his reasons for taking this gamble?
Adam Back bets on $100,000 Bitcoin
With the price of Bitcoin (BTC) locked between $29,000 and $31,000 since the end of June, speculation is rife as to which direction prices will take.
For his part, Adam Back, one of the pioneers of the ecosystem and co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, has lent himself to the game, betting with user @Vikingobitcoin9 that BTC will exceed $100,000 before the next halving. Specifically, he is betting on a maximum deadline of March 31, 2024, while the halving is estimated for April 26.
Thus, the loser of this bet will owe the winner 1 million satoshis, i.e. 0.01 BTC, the equivalent of 1,000 dollars, should the latter reach the targeted value:
the bet is on: i bet bitcoin reaches or exceeds $100k between now and halving (31st Mar 2024) with @vikingobitcoin9 1million sats to the winner. https://t.co/Ij7iPEYjQW pic.twitter.com/PNpAaZvl8F
– Adam Back (@adam3us) August 5, 2023
The origin of this bet lies in an analysis by Adam Back, according to which, given the hashrate’s evolution since the beginning of the year, a $58,000 BTC would be necessary to guarantee miners’ profitability by next spring:
In fact, the hashrate, which symbolizes the computational power deployed to secure the Bitcoin blockchain, has increased by 72.5% since January 1, now standing at nearly 460 exahashes per second.
An increase in hashrate means that more miners are present on the network, or at least that they are deploying more power, which has the effect of increasing competition and, mechanically, the difficulty of mining. Since January, the latter has increased by almost 48%.
While halving will reduce block rewards from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC, these are all elements that will put miners’ profitability under pressure.
As the market has shown so far, halving tends to have a positive effect on the Bitcoin price, marking the start of long bullish phases. So we’ll have to wait a few more months to find out who will win the bet
