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Mint Explainer: What’s behind the surge in bitcoin prices

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Mint Explainer: What’s behind the surge in bitcoin prices

After rising by more than 150% in 2023, the price of bitcoin surpassed $45,000 on the second day of 2024, to its highest level since April 2022. Bitcoin is the world’s first cryptocurrency and the largest by market capitalisation. Many analysts and industry experts expect the rally to continue in the current calendar year, with some expecting bitcoin to rise to $100,000 in the coming months. (Although the price fell nearly 11% on Wednesday before bouncing back to $42,200, as per CoinDesk data. On Thursday morning in India, bitcoin was at about $43,100.)

Bitcoin last rose to its all-time high of $68,789 in November 2021 and then fell to a low of $15,760 in December 2022 amid the collapse of FTX, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, and fraud charges pressed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against its CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried, fears of worsening macroeconomic conditions and rising interest rates. 

The latest rally was triggered by impending developments–the halving of bitcoin rewards and the potential approval for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund in the US. The US Federal Reserve signalling interest rate cuts in 2024 has also helped the rally. Mint explains the factors behind the recent rally.

What is halving of bitcoin rewards and how does it affect the price?

The creators of bitcoin designed the cryptocurrency with a cap of 21 million to limit its supply, which they felt would create a scarcity as demand rises and thus push up its value. So far, 19.6 million have already been mined, and 900 bitcoins are added per day currently. Crypto miners are rewarded 6.25 bitcoins at present for every block they create and a new block is produced approximately every 10 minutes. 

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The code written by the inventors of bitcoin requires the rewards per block to be halved every time 210,000 blocks are added–which usually happens every four years. This halving of rewards is expected to happen in April-May, and the number of bitcoins rewarded per block created will drop to 3.125. 

The number of bitcoins minted per block was 50 when it was created. The rewards were previously halved in 2020, and before that in 2012 and 2016. The final halving will happen around 2140, after which it will not be possible to halve the rewards. At that point, the number of bitcoins in circulation is expected to be about 21 million.

The halving of bitcoin rewards per block slows the increase in the supply of the cryptocurrency. As a result, bitcoin prices usually start to rise much before the halving event and usually soar after the halving takes place. 

For instance, in the 12 months following the last halving in 2020, bitcoin gained about 560%. Similarly, in the 12 months after the first halving in 2012, bitcoin jumped more than 8,000%. If the same trends persist, bitcoin may soar to the levels projected by various industry experts and analysts.

Why are investors looking forward to spot bitcoin ETF?

The US SEC has until 10 January to approve proposals of asset managers to launch spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. There are over a dozen applications before the markets regulator. It is widely anticipated that the SEC will approve the ETF proposals much before the deadline (it may come this week), even though it has not given any indications whether it will indeed approve the applications.  

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A regulated product like an ETF could encourage a lot more people and institutions to invest in bitcoins. Some estimate that about $3 billion may flow into the ETF products in the US on the first day. 

Among those that have filed applications to launch ETFs based on the spot prices of bitcoin are Ark Investment, Franklin Templeton, BlackRock, Invesco and Fidelity. 

Unlike the bitcoin futures ETF, which involves investment in futures contracts, spot ETFs invest in the cryptocurrency directly. Investors in the US can currently invest in bitcoin futures ETF, which were first launched in October 2021. Most of the asset managers who have sought SEC approval for spot bitcoin ETFs already run bitcoin futures ETFs.

Can the easing of interest rates also boost bitcoins?

Rising interest rates affected cryptocurrencies like all other asset classes that are risky. When the Fed held rates steady at its December meeting, cryptocurrencies gained. 

More significantly, investors have been increasing their exposure to cryptos after a rough 2022, when stablecoins Terra and Luna crashed and the FTX scam came to light. With the Fed signalling that rate cuts may begin sometime in 2024, investors will be willing to increase their investment in risky assets such as cryptos.

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While there is a lot of optimism around bitcoin at this point, another FTX-like bankruptcy or a scam can cause the cryptocurrency market to crash like it did in 2022. Most of these catch investors unaware, leading to deep losses.

Crypto

2026 Won’t Be About Cycles — Research Shows What Will Actually Drive Crypto Prices

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2026 Won’t Be About Cycles — Research Shows What Will Actually Drive Crypto Prices
Crypto markets are shedding their four-year cycle as ETFs, concentrated liquidity and investor attention reshape price discovery, with Wintermute research pointing to 2026 as the moment digital assets begin trading like global financial instruments.
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3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks With More Potential Than Any Cryptocurrency | The Motley Fool

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3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks With More Potential Than Any Cryptocurrency | The Motley Fool

SoundHound AI, Lemonade, and CoreWeave will all profit from that secular trend.

Over the past few years, many growth-oriented investors with a high tolerance for risk have pivoted toward the cryptocurrency market. Several of the top tokens — like Bitcoin (BTC 2.52%) and Ether (ETH 3.84%) — generated impressive gains within a short time. However, many of the smaller altcoins and meme coins fizzled out during the last crypto winter.

Instead of chasing those volatile tokens, which are usually driven by supply and demand, it might be smarter to invest in the market’s more speculative artificial intelligence (AI) plays. Let’s take a look at three of those promising tech stocks — SoundHound AI (SOUN +1.65%), Lemonade (LMND 0.97%), and CoreWeave (CRWV +6.55%) — and see why they could have more growth potential than the market’s hottest cryptocurrencies.

Image source: Getty Images.

SoundHound AI

SoundHound AI develops AI-powered voice and audio recognition tools. Its namesake app can identify songs by hearing just a few seconds of recorded audio or a few hummed bars. However, it generates most of its revenue and growth from Houndify, its developer-oriented platform for creating customized voice recognition apps for a wide range of industries.

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SoundHound AI Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(1.65%) $0.18

Current Price

$11.10

SoundHound has been acquiring smaller companies to expand its presence in the restaurant and customer service chatbot markets. It already serves automakers like Stellantis, restaurants like Chipotle, and credit card giants like Mastercard, and it should attract more customers who want to develop their own voice recognition services without sharing their data with larger tech companies.

From 2025 to 2027, analysts expect SoundHound’s revenue to grow at a 30% CAGR, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) turning positive in the final year. With an enterprise value of $4.5 billion, it might seem pricey at 20 times this year’s sales. However, its early mover’s advantage in the growing voice recognition services market should justify that higher valuation. Over the next decade, it should continue to expand and evolve as it acquires more companies and rolls out more agentic AI tools.

Lemonade

Lemonade sells homeowners, renters, term life, pet, and auto insurance policies. It’s popular with younger and first-time insurance customers because it simplifies the byzantine buying process with a streamlined AI-powered app.

Using AI chatbots instead of human representatives can quickly onboard new customers and process claims in a few seconds. From the end of 2020 to the third quarter of 2025, its customer base nearly tripled from 1.00 million to 2.87 million.

Lemonade Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(-0.97%) $-0.78

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Current Price

$79.41

From 2025 to 2027, analysts expect Lemonade’s revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of 44%, with adjusted EBITDA turning positive in the final year. The expansion of its newer pet and auto insurance businesses, its overseas growth (especially in Europe), and its rollout of more AI features should drive those gains.

With an enterprise value of $6.2 billion, Lemonade still looks reasonably valued at five times this year’s sales. However, it could command a much higher valuation if it scales up its business and pulls millions of customers away from traditional insurance companies.

CoreWeave

CoreWeave was once an Ethereum miner, but it abandoned that business model after the 2018 cryptocurrency crash. It subsequently repurposed its mining GPUs to remotely process machine learning and AI tasks, acquired more than 250,000 high-end data center GPUs from Nvidia, and expanded its business from three data centers at the end of 2022 to 33 data centers today.

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CoreWeave Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(6.55%) $6.22

Current Price

$101.23

CoreWeave claims its dedicated cloud-based GPUs can process AI tasks 35 times faster and 80% more cost-effectively than other cloud infrastructure platforms. Those strengths make it a popular choice for companies which don’t want to expand their own infrastructure to support their latest AI applications. As it locks in more AI customers — including Microsoft and OpenAI — analysts expect its revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of 95% and 109%, respectively, from 2025 to 2027.

CoreWeave is growing like a weed, yet it has an enterprise value of only $87.9 billion — which equates to 7x this year’s sales and 11x adjusted EBITDA. The high costs of opening new data centers are likely compressing its near-term valuations, but it could have plenty of room to grow over the long term as the cloud and AI markets expand.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ethereum, Lemonade, Mastercard, Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool recommends Stellantis and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short March 2026 $42.50 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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XRP Drops Hard as Key Zone Breaks During Broad Crypto Sell-Off

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XRP Drops Hard as Key Zone Breaks During Broad Crypto Sell-Off
XRP slid sharply below key support as a broad crypto sell-off intensified, wiping out leveraged positions, driving extreme oversold signals, and exposing mounting macro and regulatory stress that continues to weigh on digital asset prices.
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