At least 70% of Bitcoin mining machines may be shut down in Q4 2020

With the Bitcoin reward halving expected in less than 320 days, it is unclear what will happen between Bitcoin miners and the price of Bitcoin. However, since Bitcoin mining rewards are likely to decrease, miners may end up shutting down their Bitcoin mining machines in anticipation of losses. At least that’s according to leading crypto analyst and Bitcoin supporter Tone Vays.
The Bitcoin reward halving event is hard-coded into Bitcoin's protocol. According to Satoshi Nakamoto's thinking, the general idea is to continue to check inflation, slowly but surely allowing miners in the network to transition from a profitable model of obtaining block rewards to a more reliable and regular model of obtaining transaction or network fees as Bitcoin is widely adopted around the world. Therefore, next year's halving event will reduce miners from the current 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block, effectively cutting the daily BTC output.

Cryptocurrency analyst Tone Vays noted: “Technically, everything is in play, and it seems unlikely that Bitcoin will fall to $5,000 by the end of 2020. The worst case scenario is: the price falls to $50,000, and then after 70% of miners shut down due to negative revenue growth, the Bitcoin price falls, but then it comes back to life!”

Bitcoin’s blood-sucking effect on altcoins will intensify
But that’s not all. Tone predicts that the halving will help Bitcoin consolidate its position as the king of cryptocurrencies. In this case, the competition’s attention will shift to high-throughput networks such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin, among others. Bitcoin’s advantage in this case is not in its role as a medium of exchange, but as a store of value, a secure and truly decentralized settlement layer. According to Tone, “They will never be a store of value and will depreciate against BTC.”
Even so, as expected, opinions vary. For example, Twitter user Expsycho believes that the halving will have the opposite effect and is convinced that the current rally is in anticipation of next year’s Bitcoin halving. He believes that the second halving is already “priced in” because Bitcoin will only gradually begin to collapse.
But what happened with the previous halving?
While this is Bitcoin’s third halving since its creation in 2009, it is difficult to predict what will happen, as has been the case with similar events in the past.
For example, at Bitcoin’s first halving in November 2012, the price reacted positively, surging to highs of $1,000. Unfortunately, the effects were felt a year later when prices corrected. Bitcoin rebounded after the second halving in 2016, then tanked in a correction. Towards the tail end of 2017 — fueled in part by ICO mania fueled by the tokenization capabilities of smart contract platforms such as Ethereum — Bitcoin prices surged to $20,000. Last year, perhaps amid government meddling and a cold reception, prices fell sharply to $3,200.
From this trend, it is clear that prices do not only fluctuate because of on-chain factors. The crypto space is maturing, so there is a chain of events that can either contract or drive prices higher. Ahead of next year’s much-anticipated Bitcoin halving, the crypto space is maturing and involving regulators.
Garrick Hileman, co-founder of Mosaic, said:
“Crypto markets tend to be very active and as we get closer to the next halving, the price of Bitcoin will be driven by those anticipating the upcoming reduction in new supply. In the months leading up to the last two halving events, we saw the price of Bitcoin rise steadily and then rise again after the reward halving.”

Even if the miners leave, those who stick around still have a chance
While lowering Bitcoin rewards may discourage miners, lower hash rates reduce mining difficulty. Therefore, less electricity and computing power are required to mine new Bitcoins. Therefore, those who are brave enough to stay will still profit. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming mainstream, being accepted by different businesses around the world. It is borderless and Bitcoin is the most valuable. With adoption comes widespread use and therefore more transaction fees to supplement the low block rewards.