Conceived in 2008 and launched in 2009, Bitcoin is the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency.
Back in 2010, a single bitcoin could be purchased for approximately $0.0011 Australian dollars. Today, the value is more than 24,000,000% higher – but it hasn’t all been gains.
In subsequent years, we’ve seen prices peak as high as nearly $69,000, but we’ve also seen prices drop as much as $22,000 in as little as three weeks.
Here’s a brief history of bitcoin’s biggest price movements and milestones along the way, from thousandths of a cent to tens of thousands of US dollars.
Bitcoin begins
One of the most interesting aspects of bitcoin is that no one knows who created it.
The 2008 whitepaper that laid out how the cryptocurrency would work—Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system– was written by a person or group of people using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
There have been several investigations to determine the true identity of bitcoin’s creator, but while several computer scientists and cryptographers are believed to have been bitcoin’s creator(s), no one has so far been able to identify Nakamoto with any certainty.
Beyond bitcoin
Bitcoin sparked the birth of an entire market of alternative cryptocurrencies in 2011 when Namecoin, the world’s first ‘altcoin’, was created.
While bitcoin was created to facilitate decentralized payments, Namecoin was created as a decentralized alternative to DNS – which is essentially the “phone book” of the internet, translating website addresses like Forbes.com to their corresponding IP addresses to route traffic.
Litecoin follows closely behind, and is able to confirm transactions four times faster than bitcoin.
Within 10 years, thousands of altcoins will have been created – including bitcoin’s biggest competitor, Ethereum (ETH).
Bitcoin stabilizes, then rallies
2013 marks perhaps the most stable period in bitcoin’s history, holding its value at just over $100 for most of the year before peaking for the very first time in the Northern Hemisphere summer.
Bitcoin rises from around USD 120 in October 2013 to more than USD 1000 by November of the same year. In 2014, Bitcoin gradually falls and fluctuates between $300-500 for the next few years.
Bitcoin is rising
In March 2017, a single bitcoin breaks above the November 2013 peak to reach over $1,290.
Traction continued to grow, with Bitcoin breaking US$5,000 for the first time in September, rising to nearly US$20,000 by the end of the year – around $30,000 Australian dollars at the time.
Four months later, this figure loses a third of its value in just 24 hours, falling below US$14,000.
This follows a period in which Google announces it will ban cryptocurrency advertising, German researchers discover links to child abuse images hidden in Bitcoin’s blockchain, and thieves in Iceland make off with 600 bitcoin mining rigs.
Commenters respond with headlines like “Bitcoin is ridiculous. Blockchain is Dangerous”, and payment platform Stripe ends support for bitcoin payments.
Prices fluctuate at levels between USD 6,000 until the end of December 2018 when they fell to around USD 3,000.
During this time, the 30-year-old CEO of Canada’s largest crypto exchange, Quadringa, dies, leaving $190 million in liabilities to around 115,000 customers locked away in a bitcoin wallet.
The first major derivatives exchange to offer bitcoin futures, Cboe Global Markets, is also dropping the cryptocurrency.
But March 2019 marks the beginning of a short-lived bitcoin bull run, with prices almost reaching $10,000 again by summer in the US. This is despite claims by a crypto index and ETF provider that 95% of reported bitcoin trading volume is fake.
COVID crash
In early 2020, Bitcoin prices fall almost 50% – with 25% lost in just 24 hours in the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As with many other sectors, cryptocurrency experienced many ebbs and flows during the global pandemic. By July, the price had returned to $10,000.
During this time, a high-profile bitcoin scam sees celebrities’ Twitter accounts hacked. Targeted accounts, including the likes of US Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, send out tweets asking for cryptocurrency donations.
Then in November 2020, bitcoin’s value explodes as the cryptocurrency peaks back to around $20,000, reaching as high as $42,000 by January 2021 (with a short-lived crash down 26%). Owner of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, announces that his company will accept cryptocurrency as payment.
In May 2021 – a month after the peak – bitcoin loses almost half of its value, falling to around $30,000. The losses came after reports that China would crack down on crypto mining and trading with new regulations, and that Tesla would sell or has sold all of its crypto holdings.
Winter conditions
Prices begin to pick up in July 2021, rising to $50,000 in late August, before falling the following month and rising to a record high of nearly $69,000 in November.
Fortunes changed again in 2022, a so-called ‘crypto winter’, which currently has bitcoin’s value down to around $20,000—down 51% at the start of the year and down 31% from the same period last year. In late June, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 30% in one week to around $21,000.
Few would care to speculate with any confidence on how bitcoin’s price will move in the coming days, weeks and months.
A look at history shows the dramatic twists and turns it has taken – and it seems fair to suggest that investors in this or any other cryptocurrency should brace themselves for a bumpy ride.
This article is not an endorsement of any particular cryptocurrency, broker or exchange, nor does it constitute a recommendation of cryptocurrency as an investment class.
