Bitcoin likely to drop after the halving, JPMorgan says

• JPMorgan said it expects bitcoin to fall after the reward halving.

• The bank’s analysis shows that the cryptocurrency remains overbought.

• Miners will be most affected by the event, the report said.

The Bitcoin (BTC) price is likely to weaken after the reward halving, a quadrennial event that slows the rate of growth in bitcoin supply and looks set to occur around April 19-20, Wall Street giant JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report on Wednesday.

The bank sees downside for the world’s largest cryptocurrency after the halving because the market is still in overbought conditions, according to its analysis of open interest in bitcoin futures.

Furthermore, the cryptocurrency price of about $61,200 is still above the bank’s volatility-adjusted comparison with gold, which sets it at $45,000, and its projected production cost of $42,000 after the halving. The bitcoin production cost has historically acted as a lower boundary for BTC prices.

JPMorgan also notes that venture-capital funding remains subdued despite the recent crypto market resurgence.

The biggest impact of the halving will be felt by mining companies: “As unprofitable bitcoin miners exit the bitcoin network, we anticipate a significant drop in the hashrate and consolidation among bitcoin miners with a highest share for publicly-listed bitcoin miners,” analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.

“Post halving event, it is also likely that some bitcoin mining firms may look to diversify into low energy cost regions such as Latin America or Africa to deploy their inefficient mining rigs to gain salvage values from those rigs which would otherwise sit idle,” the authors wrote.