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Just a few years ago, the bitcoin halving was something celebrated by only the earliest cryptocurrency lovers, who swore by it as a core feature of a revolutionary, anti-establishment deflationary asset.

Now, bitcoin has been embraced by the biggest institutions on Wall Street and continues to draw curious retail investors in each cycle. From the gleeful to the perplexed to the unimpressed, crypto market watchers know this halving is coming and that it must mean something good for bitcoin.

This is a technical event that takes place on the bitcoin network roughly every four years, cutting the supply of the cryptocurrency in half to create a scarcity effect that makes it like “digital gold.” Historically, it sets the stage for a new cycle and bull run – but this one’s a little different.

“The halving is the ultimate geek event for bitcoiners, but the 2024 iteration takes it up a notch because reduced supply combined with fresh ETF demand creates an explosive cocktail,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto exchange Nexo. “What makes this halving unique is bitcoin has already surpassed the last cycle’s high — something it’s never done ahead of the quadrennial event — which makes trying to forecast the length and ferocity of this cycle much trickier.”

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Bitcoin (BTC), entering its fourth halving period next week.

After the 2012, 2016 and 2020 halvings, the bitcoin price ran up about 93x, 30x and 8x, respectively, from its halving day price to its cycle top. Past performance isn’t indicative of future returns, and some even warn that in dealing with a smaller supply every four years, the days of such a big impact on the bitcoin price are likely already behind us.

However, Steven Lubka, head of private clients and family offices at Swan Bitcoin, said “if there was ever a moment to be a little extra optimistic” about returns after the having, it’s this year.

“This bitcoin bull cycle — which kicked into gear earlier because of the January approval of the spot ETFs — might well be shorter and more explosive, culminating in a peak in late 2024 or early 2025,” Trenchev added.

Whether you seek a deeper understanding of bitcoin as a new, deflationary asset, or you simply want to speculate on the bitcoin price in the coming weeks, here’s what you need to know about the halving and its potential impact on the market.

What’s happening?

The halving occurs when incentives for bitcoin miners are cut by half, as mandated by the code of the bitcoin blockchain. It’s scheduled to take place every 210,000 blocks, or roughly four years.

As a refresher, miners run the machines that do the work (essentially solving a very complex math problem) of recording new blocks of bitcoin transactions and adding them to the global ledger, also known as the blockchain.

Miners have two incentives to mine: transaction fees that are paid voluntarily by senders (for faster settlement) and mining rewards — 6.25 newly created bitcoins, or about $437,500 as of Thursday morning. Sometime between April 18 and April 21, the mining rewards will shrink to 3.125 bitcoins. The incentive was initially 50 bitcoins, but that was reduced to 6.25 in 2020.

The reduction in the block rewards leads to a reduction in the supply of bitcoin by slowing the pace at which new coins are created, helping maintain the idea of bitcoin as digital gold — whose finite supply helps determine its value. Eventually, the number of bitcoins in circulation will cap at 21 million, per the bitcoin code.

Market impact now and later

The halving isn’t like an on-off switch that gets flipped at a specific time. Indeed, it’s reasonable to think that the day will come and go without much action in the market. Of course, there certainly could be volatility driven by speculators who may be trading on the event. Swan’s Lubka warned that investors shouldn’t confuse that with the technical change taking place.

“I don’t think we see a big move either way, but even if there were a big move, it’d have nothing to do mechanically with the halving,” he said. However, “in the months that follow, every day there [will be] something like $30 million in bitcoin less being sold. That can build up fast and make an impact over that time period.”

That $30 million assumes a bitcoin price of about $70,000.

The one big thing investors need to understand about the halving and its potential impact on the market, Lubka said, is that miners sell a lot of the bitcoin they get paid in order to pay their everyday bills.

“These are very costly enterprises that have to consume a lot of energy and other things to do their job,” he said. “Miners are constantly selling the bitcoin that they mine just to cover costs. When that gets cut in half, there’s no two ways about it: There is half as much bitcoin being sold from the miners.”

“They are the most regular sellers,” he added. “Some hedge fund could sell its position … but miners are selling every day, every week, every month in predictable quantity — and that pressure gets cut in half.”

Diminishing returns from halving to halving

Bitcoin has always shot to the moon in the months following its halving — that’s what makes it such a celebrated day among enthusiasts. However, each time the mining reward and supply of bitcoin has shrunk, so have the returns from the halving day to the cycle top.

“Guessing the endgame for bitcoin after each halving is the ultimate sport,” said Trenchev. “What we do know is each post-halving bull run has seen diminishing returns. … Even a measly 2x will put bitcoin around $130,000 — not to be sniffed at.”

That trend could reverse this year, Lubka said, although it’d be the result not of the planned supply shock but rather of the new demand shock. Thanks to the advent of bitcoin exchange-traded funds, demand for the cryptocurrency is bigger than ever, according to CryptoQuant.

The data shows that historically, “whale” demand for bitcoin spikes after each halving, driving prices higher. This year, however, that whale demand (which includes OG bitcoiners, new investors and bitcoin ETF holders) is already at an all-time high, and the block reward hasn’t even been slashed yet.

“The once-significant influence of bitcoin halving on prices has diminished, as the new issuance of bitcoin gets smaller relative to the total amount of bitcoin that is available for sale,” said Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant. “In contrast … bitcoin demand growth seems to be the key driver for higher prices after the halving.”

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Etsy touts ‘shopping domestically’ as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

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Etsy touts 'shopping domestically' as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

An employee walks past a quilt displaying Etsy Inc. signage at the company’s headquarters in the Brooklyn.

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Etsy is trying to make it easier for shoppers to purchase products from local merchants and avoid the extra cost of imports as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs raise concerns about soaring prices.

In a post to Etsy’s website on Thursday, CEO Josh Silverman said the company is “surfacing new ways for buyers to discover businesses in their countries” via shopping pages and by featuring local sellers on its website and app.

“While we continue to nurture and enable cross-border trade on Etsy, we understand that people are increasingly interested in shopping domestically,” Silverman said.

Etsy operates an online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers with mostly artisanal and handcrafted goods. The site, which had 5.6 million active sellers as of the end of December, competes with e-commerce juggernaut Amazon, as well as newer entrants that have ties to China like Temu, Shein and TikTok Shop.

By highlighting local sellers, Etsy could relieve some shoppers from having to pay higher prices induced by President Trump’s widespread tariffs on trade partners. Trump has imposed tariffs on most foreign countries, with China facing a rate of 145%, and other nations facing 10% rates after he instituted a 90-day pause to allow for negotiations. Trump also signed an executive order that will end the de minimis provision, a loophole for low-value shipments often used by online businesses, on May 2.

Temu and Shein have already announced they plan to raise prices late next week in response to the tariffs. Sellers on Amazon’s third-party marketplace, many of whom source their products from China, have said they’re considering raising prices.

Silverman said Etsy has provided guidance for its sellers to help them “run their businesses with as little disruption as possible” in the wake of tariffs and changes to the de minimis exemption.

Before Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs took effect, Silverman said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in late February that he expects Etsy to benefit from the tariffs and de minimis restrictions because it “has much less dependence on products coming in from China.”

“We’re doing whatever work we can do to anticipate and prepare for come what may,” Silverman said at the time. “In general, though, I think Etsy will be more resilient than many of our competitors in these situations.”

Still, American shoppers may face higher prices on Etsy as U.S. businesses that source their products or components from China pass some of those costs on to consumers.

Etsy shares are down 17% this year, slightly more than the Nasdaq.

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Google’s antitrust woes are continuing to mount, just as the company tries to brace for a future dominated by artificial intelligence.

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Google held illegal monopolies in online advertising markets due to its position between ad buyers and sellers.

The ruling, which followed a September trial in Alexandria, Virginia, represents a second major antitrust blow for Google in under a year. In August, a judge determined the company has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. 

Google is in a particularly precarious spot as it tries to simultaneously defend its primary business in court while fending off an onslaught of new competition due to the emergence of generative AI, most notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which offers users alternative ways to search for information. Revenue growth has cooled in recent years, and Google also now faces the added potential of a slowdown in ad spending due to economic concerns from President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.

Parent company Alphabet reports first-quarter results next week. Alphabet’s stock price dipped more than 1% on Thursday and is now down 20% this year.

Why Google's antitrust woes endangers its AI momentum

In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google’s anticompetitive practices “substantially harmed” publishers and users on the web. The trial featured 39 live witnesses, depositions from an additional 20 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits.

Judge Brinkema ruled that Google unlawfully controls two of the three parts of the advertising technology market: the publisher ad server market and ad exchange market. Brinkema dismissed the third part of the case, determining that tools used for general display advertising can’t clearly be defined as Google’s own market. In particular, the judge cited the purchases of DoubleClick and Admeld and said the government failed to show those “acquisitions were anticompetitive.”

“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president or regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release from the DOJ that the ruling represents a “landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square.”

Potential ad disruption

If regulators force the company to divest parts of the ad-tech business, as the Justice Department has requested, it could open up opportunities for smaller players and other competitors to fill the void and snap up valuable market share. Amazon has been growing its ad business in recent years.

Meanwhile, Google is still defending itself against claims that its search has acted as a monopoly by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance. Google said in August, immediately after the search case ruling, that it would appeal, meaning the matter can play out in court for years even after the remedies are determined.

The remedies trial, which will lay out the consequences, begins next week. The Justice Department is aiming for a break up of Google’s Chrome browser and eliminating exclusive agreements, like its deal with Apple for search on iPhones. The judge is expected to make the ruling by August.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook (R) listen as U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with American and Indian business leaders in the East Room of the White House on June 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

After the ad market ruling on Thursday, Gartner’s Andrew Frank said Google’s “conflicts of interest” are apparent by how the market runs.

“The structure has been decades in the making,” Frank said, adding that “untangling that would be a significant challenge, particularly since lawyers don’t tend to be system architects.”

However, the uncertainty that comes with a potentially years-long appeals process means many publishers and advertisers will be waiting to see how things shake out before making any big decisions given how much they rely on Google’s technology.

“Google will have incentives to encourage more competition possibly by loosening certain restrictions on certain media it controls, YouTube being one of them,” Frank said. “Those kind of incentives may create opportunities for other publishers or ad tech players.”

A date for the remedies trial hasn’t been set.

Damian Rollison, senior director of market insights for marketing platform Soci, said the revenue hit from the ad market case could be more dramatic than the impact from the search case.

“The company stands to lose a lot more in material terms if its ad business, long its main source of revenue, is broken up,” Rollison said in an email. “Whereas divisions like Chrome are more strategically important.”

WATCH: U.S. judge finds Google holds illegal online ad-tech monopolies

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

Jason Citron, CEO of Discord in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The New Jersey attorney general sued Discord on Thursday, alleging that the company misled consumers about child safety features on the gaming-centric social messaging app.

The lawsuit, filed in the New Jersey Superior Court by Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the state’s division of consumer affairs, alleges that Discord violated the state’s consumer fraud laws.

Discord did so, the complaint said, by allegedly “misleading children and parents from New Jersey” about safety features, “obscuring” the risks children face on the platform and failing to enforce its minimum age requirement.

“Discord’s strategy of employing difficult to navigate and ambiguous safety settings to lull parents and children into a false sense of safety, when Discord knew well that children on the Application were being targeted and exploited, are unconscionable and/or abusive commercial acts or practices,” lawyers wrote in the legal filing.

They alleged that Discord’s acts and practices were “offensive to public policy.”

A Discord spokesperson said in a statement that the company disputes the allegations and that it is “proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer.”

“Given our engagement with the Attorney General’s office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today,” the spokesperson said.

One of the lawsuit’s allegations centers around Discord’s age-verification process, which the plaintiffs believe is flawed, writing that children under thirteen can easily lie about their age to bypass the app’s minimum age requirement.

The lawsuit also alleges that Discord misled parents to believe that its so-called Safe Direct Messaging feature “was designed to automatically scan and delete all private messages containing explicit media content.” The lawyers claim that Discord misrepresented the efficacy of that safety tool.

“By default, direct messages between ‘friends’ were not scanned at all,” the complaint stated. “But even when Safe Direct Messaging filters were enabled, children were still exposed to child sexual abuse material, videos depicting violence or terror, and other harmful content.”

The New Jersey attorney general is seeking unspecified civil penalties against Discord, according to the complaint.

The filing marks the latest lawsuit brought by various state attorneys general around the country against social media companies.

In 2023, a bipartisan coalition of over 40 state attorneys general sued Meta over allegations that the company knowingly implemented addictive features across apps like Facebook and Instagram that harm the mental well being of children and young adults.

The New Mexico attorney general sued Snap in Sep. 2024 over allegations that Snapchat’s design features have made it easy for predators to easily target children through sextortion schemes.

The following month, a bipartisan group of over a dozen state attorneys general filed lawsuits against TikTok over allegations that the app misleads consumers that its safe for children. In one particular lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia’s attorney general, lawyers allege that the ByteDance-owned app maintains a virtual currency that “substantially harms children” and a  livestreaming feature that “exploits them financially.”

In January 2024, executives from Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X were grilled by lawmakers during a senate hearing over allegations that the companies failed to protect children on their respective social media platforms.

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