If you’ve perused Crypto Twitter at all, you’ve likely heard the term “HODL” mentioned time and time again in relation to “Bitcoin.” A misspelling of the word “hold,” HODL is an industry joke used by cryptocurrency investors who believe that the price of BTC will appreciate with time, primarily due to adoption and the asset’s disinflationary inflation schedule, created by “halvings” every four years.
While some see this as a mere meme, the data shows that investors are taking the HODL joke to heart, which is something that may imply a price surge is on the horizon.
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HODLers Hold Their Ground Ahead of Halving
According to Rafael Schultze-Kraft, a co-founder of cryptocurrency analytics firm Glassnode, on-chain data tracking the number of Bitcoin days destroyed, a metric that increases near the tops of bull markets, shows that “HODLers have been diligently holding [in] the last months towards the upcoming halving.” Per historical trends, this means we are far from the end of the ongoing bull market, which is currently in a reaccumulation phase. 

Number of days per month in which more #bitcoin days were destroyed than on average, aka Binary BDD.
Read: HODLers have been diligently hodling the last months towards the upcoming halving!
H/t @hansthered for this metric
Live data: @glassnode https://t.co/HiEewoGT0S pic.twitter.com/SjVgulfcyx
— Rafael Schultze-Kraft (@n3ocortex) January 3, 2020

Schultze-Kraft’s observation lines up with a similar one made by Alistair Milne of Altana Digital Currency Fund, who, as reported by this outlet previously, pointed out that according to on-chain analytics — specifically Bitcoin unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) — nearly 70% of the 18.12 million BTC in circulation “hasn’t been moved for over 6 months.”
According to Eric Stone, the head of data science at Flipside, the fact that such a large sum of Bitcoin is “dormant” implies that a “dramatic shift” in the cryptocurrency industry and market is on the horizon.
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What Does It Mean For Bitcoin Prices?
That begs the question — what does Bitcoin investors’ propensity to HODL ahead of the May 2020 halving mean for the cryptocurrency market?
Well, it implies, analysts say, that BTC is on the verge of entering its next bull run.
Melik Manukyan, a prominent Bitcoin commentator and engineer, recently posted the Twitter thread below, showing that the scarcity of the leading cryptocurrency — only accentuated by the HODL investment strategy that exists — should lead to dramatic price appreciation with a multi-month lag following the event.
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The engineer remarked that halvings will have a large impact on the supply-demand economics of the BTC market, which should eventually result in prices heading higher to a decrease in mined supply being sold on the market.

How Bitcoin halvings work and why post-halving rallies have a lag following the event:
1. Demand (bids) is at equilibrium with current avail. supply (asks) and flow (new coins).2. Bitcoin halves. 3. Demand instantly begins eating into new coins & eventually depletes them.
— Melik Manukyan (@melikmanukyan) December 27, 2019

This assertion that the halving will boost Bitcoin has been echoed by Alistair Milne, who noted that after the halving comes into effect this year, 50% of all newly mined Bitcoin will be absorbed by the purchases of clients of two companies: Grayscale through its Bitcoin Trust and Square through its BTC buying service. This ignores the inflows from Coinbase customers, people buying cryptocurrency through RobinHood and eToro, and so on and so forth.
This ties in heavily with Manukyan’s sentiment that the halving will force prices higher due to stagnant/increasing demand, coupled with a decrease in incoming supply.
As to exact price targets, previous halvings were precursors to rallies of over 1,000%, making some believe something similar could take place again in the coming cryptocurrency market cycle.
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