Bitcoin Price History: 2009 - 2023

With Bitcoin’s price holding steady above the $20,000 mark for most of early 2023, there are hopes that the crypto winter of 2022 is thawing, and that BTC — as well as crypto prices in general — may recover some lost ground.

Bitcoin’s price has been on a wild ride since it launched over 14 years ago, on January 3, 2009. While that’s similar to most cryptocurrencies, BTC has been particularly volatile owing to the price surges of 2021, quickly followed by the dramatic declines during the so-called crypto winter of 2022.

In other words, those who bought Bitcoin (BTC) early and held onto it have typically seen phenomenal returns, but the fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price — as with all forms of crypto — have also led to considerable losses.

For crypto fans and investors curious about this space, the volatile price history of the world’s oldest and most widely embraced cryptocurrency can also be viewed as a much broader saga. Bitcoin’s story reflects the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi), the emergence of blockchain technology, and countless innovations that are changing how investors think of commerce as well as what the future of crypto might hold.

Bitcoin Price History

While some enjoy comparing Bitcoin’s price history to past speculative manias like Beanie Babies circa 1995 (or the infamous tulip bubble circa 1636), speculation is only one factor in any given Bitcoin price fluctuation.

Over the years, a fairly reliable pattern has emerged in Bitcoin’s prices. Every four years, the network undergoes a change called “the halving,” where the supply of new BTC rewarded to Bitcoin miners gets cut in half. This has happened three times so far. The first Bitcoin halving occurred in 2012, from 50 BTC to 25 BTC, the second in 2016, from 25 to 12.5, and the third in 2020.

As of July 15, 2022, the current reward for Bitcoin mining stands at 6.25 BTC.

In each instance, the price of BTC reached new record highs in the year or so following each halving event. This was typically followed by a Bitcoin bear market. After a period of consolidation, the price then moved upwards again in anticipation of the next halving, beginning a new Bitcoin bull market.

While the price of BTC can hardly be considered predictable, it’s useful to view the chapters in the Bitcoin price history and what it may mean for investors.

Bitcoin Price History by Year

Bitcoin Price in 2009: The Start

Price of 1 Bitcoin in 2009: $0

On October 31, 2008, the pseudonymous person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper. This paper introduced a peer-to-peer digital cash system based on a new form of distributed ledger technology called blockchain.

Then, on January 3, 2009, the Bitcoin network went live with the mining of the genesis block, which allowed the first group of transactions to begin a blockchain. This block contained a text note that read: “Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks.” This referenced an article in The London Times about the financial crisis of 2008 – 2009, when commercial banks received trillions in bailout money from central banks and governments. This event helped mark Bitcoin’s original price at $0.

For this reason and others, many suspect that Nakamoto created Bitcoin, at least in part, in response to the way the events of those years played out.

Bitcoin Price in 2011: The Surge Pt. 1

Price of 1 Bitcoin in 2011: $1 – $30

The Bitcoin price in 2009 was barely above zero. Real adoption of Bitcoin began to take place about two years later, and a major Bitcoin price surge happened for the first time.

In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) accepted BTC for donations for a few months, but quickly backtracked due to a lack of a legal framework for virtual currencies.

In February of 2011, BTC reached $1.00 for the first time, achieving parity with the U.S. dollar. Months later, the price of BTC reached $10 and then quickly soared to $30 on the Mt. Gox exchange. Bitcoin had risen 100x from the year’s starting price of about $0.30.

By year’s end, though, the price of Bitcoin was under $5. No one can say for sure exactly why the price behaved as it did, especially back when the technology was so new. It could be that 2011 marked the launch of Litecoin, a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain — and other forms of crypto began to emerge as well — signaling greater competition.

In 2012, of course, Bitcoin saw its first halving, from a 50-coin reward for mining BTC to 25 coins. This set the stage for its precipitous growth. But the pattern of an 80% – 90% correction from record highs would continue to repeat itself going forward, even as much more Bitcoin liquidity would come into being.

Bitcoin Price in 2013: The Decisive Year

Price of 1 Bitcoin in 2013: $13- $1,100

In 2013, the EFF began accepting Bitcoin again, and this was the strongest year in Bitcoin price history in terms of percentage gains. The cryptocurrency saw gains of 6,600%.

Starting at $13 in the beginning of the year, the price of Bitcoin rose to almost $250 in April before correcting downward over 50%. The price consolidated for about six months until another historic rally in November and December of that year, when the price peaked out at $1,100.

This bull run saw Bitcoin’s market cap exceed $1 billion for the first time ever. The world’s first Bitcoin ATM was also installed in Vancouver, allowing people to convert cash into crypto.

It would be over three years before the Bitcoin price would reach $1,000 again. The Bitcoin price in 2013 bottomed out at -85% off its record high.

Amidst this volatility was a surge in crypto interest, with Dogecoin being one of the more notable coins to emerge at that time. Though considered a meme coin, Dogecoin still exists.

Bitcoin Price in 2014 – 2016: The Fallow Period

While the cryptoverse quietly exploded in this time period, with technological innovations that permitted a move away from proof-of-work to the less onerous proof-of-stake, as well as the emergence of smart contracts, and the real foundations of decentralized finance — Bitcoin was relatively quiet.

The price held steady in the $200 to $400 range for much of this time, but began to climb with the second halving in 2016 — and quickly reached five digits within the year after the halving, peaking at nearly $20,000 in December of 2017. Let’s take a closer look.

Bitcoin Price in 2017-2019: The Surge Pt. 2

Price of 1 Bitcoin in 2017-2019: $1,100 – $20,000

The Bitcoin price in 2017 breached the $1,100 mark in January, a new record high at the time — following the Bitcoin halving in July of 2016. By December, the price had soared to nearly $20,000. That’s a 20x rise in less than 12 months, and it was followed predictably by a decline through 2018 and 2019. Bitcoin wouldn’t see the other side of $20,000 until late 2020.

Like the 2013 price surge, the 2017 rally occurred about one year after the halving. What made this time different was that for the first time ever, the general public became more aware of cryptocurrency. Mainstream news outlets began covering stories relating to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This price rise largely reflected retail investors entering the market for the first time.

Opinions on Bitcoin ranged from thinking it was a scam to believing it was the greatest thing ever. For the believers, this was an opportunity to learn how to invest in Bitcoin for the first time, but there’s little doubt that the influx of retail interest in the crypto markets contributed heavily to volatility across the board.

Bitcoin Price in 2020: After the 3rd Halving

The crypto feeding frenzy was well underway by the end of 2019, with hundreds of new coins on the market. By January 3, 2020, Bitcoin’s price was $7,347.49 and it steadily rose as the halving in May of 2020 approached, shooting north of $9,100 that month, nearly a 25% increase in just a few months.

But that was just the start of a meteoric rise — and fall — for BTC that few will forget, and a phase of Bitcoin’s story that many tie to the pandemic. With millions of people worldwide confined at home from 2020 through 2021 (in some cases longer), online speculation became a widespread phenomenon. One offshoot of that may have been the biggest Bitcoin bull market to date.

Bitcoin Price Chart in 2021: An Epic Rise and Fall

In August 2021, the price of Bitcoin was hovering around $46,000, and by November 2021 BTC hit its all-time high of over $68,500.

Toward the end of 2021, however, the Bitcoin hash rate, a factor thought to have some correlation to the Bitcoin price, plummeted to around $47,000 — a loss of close 30%.

The price drop occurred partly as a result of China requiring its citizens to shut down Bitcoin mining operations. The country previously housed a significant portion of the network’s mining nodes. As a result, these computers had to go offline. Many believe this reduction in mining capacity was a key factor weighing on the Bitcoin price.

In addition, politicians and regulators raised concerns about the future of crypto laws and regulations, adding to the general mood that crypto mavens refer to as FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) — one of many crypto slang terms now in wider use.

But as 2021 shifted into 2022, the specter of inflation — in addition to the global energy crisis and geopolitical turmoil thanks to Russia’s war on Ukraine — put a drag on the price of BTC and just about every other major crypto.

Bitcoin Price in 2022: Onset of the Crypto Winter

From January 2022 through May, Bitcoin’s price continued to sag as the Crypto Winter officially took hold. By May, BTC dipped under $30,000 for the first time since July of 2021.

What Is a Crypto Winter?

Unlike a bear market, a crypto winter doesn’t have specific parameters or criteria. But, similar to a bear market, it does mark a period of steady and sometimes precipitous losses that pervade the crypto markets as a whole.

Crypto Struggles in the Face of Crises

This downward trend proved to be the case as crypto prices overall declined through Q2 — partly affected by the collapse of stablecoins like TerraUSD and Luna. In June, Bitcoin fell below $23,000.

Crypto prices struggled through Q3 of 2022, and took another hit in November 2022, thanks to the sudden failure of crypto exchange FTX.

The exchange crashed amid a liquidity crunch and allegations of misused funds by its CEO, Sam Blankman Fried. A bailout by Binance was possible, but the deal fell through because of FTX’s troubled finances and implications of fraud.

The rapid downfall of FTX shocked the financial industry, and the crash had a massive ripple effect throughout the crypto market, affecting investor confidence. Widespread worries about inflation, as well as steady interest rate hikes, affected broader markets. Bitcoin’s price continued to be a barometer of crypto health in many ways, plunging below $20,000 by the end of December, 2022.

Bitcoin in 2023: Hopes for a Steady Recovery

As of February 27, 2023, Bitcoin’s slow but steady price increase to about $23,300 sparked hopes that the crypto winter had begun to thaw, with other cryptocurrencies showing similar price patterns in Q1.

Also, Bitcoin mining has reached a new high as February draws to a close. This signals interest from miners, which some traders are taking as a bullish indicator.

Although inflation has yet to be tamed in the wider markets, there is a sense that some of the measures the Fed has taken may encourage a soft landing.

What Factors Affect Bitcoin’s Price?

Bitcoin trades constantly on many different exchanges. The price is discovered through buyers and sellers agreeing on prices at which to settle trades. It can be said that “the market” determines the price of Bitcoin.

Of course, many external factors may influence the price at which people are willing to pay for Bitcoin.

1. Sentiment

With any asset, general market sentiment can influence present and future price action. This tends to occur in cycles.

It often happens that as more and more people grow increasingly bullish on something, the price keeps rising until everyone thinks it will never go down again. Then at some point, things change, and sentiment starts shifting the other way. Once most people think the price will never go up again, that usually indicates that prices have come close to bottoming.

This is why CNN has something called the “Fear and Greed Index”. The index measures sentiment across financial markets at large using seven broad indicators. These indicators measure things like Bitcoin stock price volatility, call-to-put ratios, and the amount of stocks making new highs vs the amount of stocks making new lows.

2. Mining

Bitcoin mining also impacts the price of Bitcoin. Miners are powerful computers that process transactions for the network, and they’re the source of newly minted bitcoins.

Because miners create and accumulate new coins, what they tend to do as a whole can make a big difference in market prices. Miners have to sell Bitcoin to cover electricity and maintenance costs. But what they choose to do with their remaining coin can impact prices.

For example, when miners anticipate the future price of Bitcoin to be higher than it is right now, they could choose to hold most of their coins, reducing overall supply on exchanges. This would create support for prices.

On the other hand, if miners think the price of Bitcoin will fall, or they need cash today for some reason, they could sell their coins, increasing the supply and potentially driving prices lower.

3. Money Supply

Some may argue that the number one factor affecting the price of Bitcoin is the growth in money supply. When central banks print more money, the price of Bitcoin tends to rise in almost direct proportion to the amount of new currency created.

This is part of the supply-and-demand element in Bitcoin’s price. More and more dollars (or Euros, Yen, Pesos, etc.) wind up chasing an ever-dwindling supply of bitcoin. The new supply of fiat currency keeps growing while the new supply of bitcoin gets cut in half every 4 years (a process known as Bitcoin halving).

4. The Network Effect

Some say Bitcoin’s true value lies in the Bitcoin network. In other words, how many people are using Bitcoin.

A rough analogy would be social media networks. We tend to measure the value of a social network by its number of users and how active they are on the platform. Facebook and Instagram both have over a billion users each, with at least half of them logging in everyday in the case of Instagram. This is the main reason people think these networks have value.

With the Bitcoin evolution, the more people who create cryptocurrency wallets, convert fiat currency to Bitcoin, and spend or store those coins, the more valuable Bitcoin could become. And as the price of Bitcoin rises, more people tend to join in the network, potentially creating a positive feedback loop.

The Takeaway

As of February 27, 2023, Bitcoin seems to be regaining some of the luster it lost during the crippling crypto winter of 2022, holding fairly steady above the $20,000 mark (but far off its November 2021 peak of about $68,000).

Nonetheless, the bigger story of Bitcoin’s price history is far more impressive. As the oldest and still the largest form of crypto, BTC has gone from being worth a fraction of a penny to about $23,000 today — with a staggering range of price highs and lows in between.

If Bitcoin continues to grow at even a fraction of the rate it has over the past 14 years, the gains for long-term crypto investors would outpace that of most other asset classes. However, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

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Photo credit: iStock/simarik

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