Which leads me to consider the possibility that the halving effect on the Bitcoin market is already priced in.
This is indeed very likely, in other markets if a "seasonal" pattern is found in the past, traders try to anticipate buying (or selling) weeks to months before the pattern occurred in the last occasion.
It was already the case in several cycles that a (relatively weak) rally started already before the halving. This happened in 2016 and also in 2020, and of course 2023. This can be considered pricing in of the halving effect. However, in these years the rally later returned even stronger and led to new heights.
In all years where we saw a "post halving rally", there were however also other effects influencing the price positively:
- 2016-17: new exchanges replacing the MtGox quasi-monopoly, Bitcoin futures and the first Ethereum hype (with the ICO bubble)
- 2020-21: Tesla buys Bitcoin, El Salvador
- 2024-25?: Donald Trump's pro-crypto campaign
All these three events generated FOMO. FOMO normally shows an effect on the demand/supply situation: more new users/investors and generally more impulsive buy orders on the buy side, less profit taking, almost no panic selling and probably also less spending (buying things with Bitcoin) on the sell side. In my opinion, this can have a much stronger effect on the supply/demand equation than the reduced new supply after a halving.
Thus, it's not that easy to attribute the past Bitcoin rallys to a single effect. It is true that there were also good news in bear markets. One example is the start of Lightning in 2018, but it was a bit a "nerd event" and difficult to sell to the general public.
In general I think all past rallys can be explained by a relatively similar pattern where the halving is an element triggering more positive events:
- first, halving anticipation - this stops the crypto winter and leads to a positive sentiment with less fear in general
- second, the halving effect properly - both psychologically and perhaps also a little bit the "real" mining supply shortage
- third, the general public returning to Bitcoin after they see the price increasing for several months,
- fourth, more attention on positive Bitcoin news, after the general public "is back".