Bitcoin does rule the market, to be sure.
However, this entire crisis is a wildcard.
People like me are scrambling to get more Bitcoin because this is what it was designed for.
Those who panic sold at $4k are already seeing they are down 50%. Oops!
The halving event is also a wildcard at this point.
We didn't get a speculative pump/dump.
Say the economy opens in early May, then the block reward gets cut in half...
There's no telling what might happen.
The only certainty is volatility (uncertainty).
I think the block reward halving will not have an immediate effect as it never really has had. The influx of new supply will get cut from four to two percent annually. It will support the price but a lot will depend on the demand side as well. I'm afraid the demand side will take a serious blow from the economic crisis we have seen the beginning of.
The long-term prospects of Bitcoin remain unaffected. But I think this crisis will show the world that Bitcoin and the rest of the space has its work cut out for it in terms of increasing adoption.
If we can get people to work for Hive that comes out of somebody's wallet and not the inflation pool, then HIVE will have become a real currency and not just a speculative vehicle.
In all the 2 times that it's happened? The fact that it's never spiked on halving day is just as good a reason to assume it will. The market is a chaotic speculative nightmare.
Yes, the fundamentals of the halving can't kick in until time has passed, but this crisis has pushed back the speculative hype cycle that everyone was expecting to see. Has that pump/dump been eliminated, or is it lurking? Guess we'll find out.
Oh, it might spike. But this market is not completely chaotic. The supply crunch brought about by the halving manifests over a long period of time. There simply is no reason why it should cause a massive rally right out of the gate. The number of newly minted bitcoins in proportion to the entire trading volume is quite small. A rally might take place but without any fundamentals to support it, profit taking will result in a crash at some point. However, when 12-18 months pass, traders will feel the impact of the increased scarcity. That is, assuming that demand hasn't changed. The rising price will drive a larger, delayed speculative rally. Much of the market already knows this, which is why we saw the mid-2019 pump. But the fundamentals weren't there to support it.
I think we have already seen the beginning of the impact of the spanner the crisis has thrown in the works. I think it's likely that there will be a change in Bitcoin's appreciation schedule. I'd love to be wrong, though.