No concerns over Bitcoin halving supply shock, says Bitvavo CEO

Supply and demand dynamics could mitigate concerns of a potential Bitcoin market supply shock during the upcoming mining reward halving in 2024, according to Bitvavo CEO Mark Nuvelstijn.

The co-founder of the Netherlands-based cryptocurrency exchange weighed in on Bitcoin-related market movements in conversation with Cointelegraph during the European Blockchain Convention held in Barcelona.

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Nuvelstijn expressed his belief that exchanges would likely have sufficient Bitcoin supply to meet the demand from users:

“If there’s more demand the price will increase, and it will keep increasing until there’s a match between price and demand.”

The Bitvavo CEO added that the potential booming demand for Bitcoin would lead to increasing prices until demand cools and prices stabilize. As a result, Nuvelstijn is not concerned that exchanges like his would run out of BTC to meet trading demands:

“As a platform we’re agnostic to that. We are just matching buy and sell orders to make trades possible. If there’s a lot of demand for Bitcoin, it’s only a good thing for the sector.”

Nuvelstijn also weighed in on the influence of Bitcoin exchange-traded fund applications submitted in the United States over the past year and the potential influence their approval could have on the value of Bitcoin:

“We’ve seen more attention, more interest in the crypto market. You saw how steeply the Bitcoin price increased over the past two weeks. It was up 20 or 30 percent which is a massive jump.”

Bitvavo has seen an increase in web traffic as well as customers visiting their platform and using their app. The exchange has onboarded new customers as well, while Nuvelstijn added that these numbers were still short of the levels it saw in 2021:

“As you mentioned, the ETFs are not yet approved, right? So this is let’s say a pre-event. The event itself still needs to happen.”

Nuvelstijn also explained that while Bitvavo’s core markets remain the Netherland and Belgium, it is eyeing steady expansion into jurisdictions including France, Spain and Italy. He also believes that the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) will drive market maturity and ease of doing business:

“It will open up the European market so you no longer need a license per country. The regulation will become more harmonized, meaning you can easily do cross-border business.”

Nuvelstijn also sees MiCA laying the foundation for cryptocurrency companies to offer more financial services, drawing comparisons to conventional financial regulations:

“It will be easier for crypto companies to offer financial services and for financial services to offer crypto services. I think you will see those kinds of business models being more commingled.”

A report from a Standard Chartered analyst in July 2023 suggests that growing institutional demand for Bitcoin could drive the price of BTC to around $120,000 by the end of the year, driven by increased mining profitability which will ease the need to sell mined coins.

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