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Bitcoin’s price has been on a roller coaster ride since it first debuted in January 2009, but the long-term trajectory has been ever higher – “up and to the right,” as they say.
Still, in little more than a decade, it seems that cryptocurrency, and in particular, Bitcoin, has become the most exciting trading opportunity in a long time.
Bitcoin was unleashed in the months after the global financial crisis obliterated economies.
Given these dynamics, speculators have rushed into the space to take advantage of the anticipated price appreciation.
When the market shifts to its “greed” phase, Bitcoin soars amid the utopian promises and speculators dismiss the risks of an asset that generates no cash flow.
Now the market has rewritten the narrative from Bitcoin as a medium of exchange to one where it’s a store of value, “digital gold.” However, gold has a few thousand years of history as a store of value, compared to little more than a dozen for Bitcoin.
Users on the BitcoinTalk forum traded 5,050 bitcoins for $5.02 via PayPal, making the first price mediated through an exchange a bargain basement price of $0.00099 per bitcoin.
While Bitcoin was officially launched on January 3, 2009, it’s tough to find any standard pricing before mid-2010.
One Bitcoin owner offered 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas, an offer that continues to live on in Bitcoin lore.
According to historical data at Investing.com, Bitcoin’s price never broke above $0.40 per bitcoin in 2010, but did manage to hit that level in early 2011.
After this bubble burst and a more than 90 percent fall from its all-time high, it might have seemed as if the Bitcoin fad was over.
In November 2012, Bitcoin went through its first “halving,” a change in the reward structure for miners, where they receive half as many bitcoins for mining blocks on the blockchain.
That consolidation set up Bitcoin for a strong run in 2013, when it began to attract more notice outside a niche audience of techies and hobbyists.
By early March, Bitcoin had already doubled again, rising to more than $40.
From there, it was just a week until Bitcoin was back at $68, as the bottom fell out.
By the end of the month, it had nearly tripled from there, up to more than $1,200, before ending the year at $805, a real downdraft, but still up from just $541 a couple weeks before.
The exchange had stopped withdrawals, then filed for bankruptcy after losing 744,400 bitcoins of users’ funds.
The year 2015 started with Bitcoin declining, but most of the year was a slow uptrend, unusual for Bitcoin, and it ended the year at $430.
As the year ended, Bitcoin was flirting with $1,000, a level it broke through in early 2017, a watershed year for Bitcoin, when it came to national awareness.
The end of May saw Bitcoin at $2,300, but despite a move higher, it was back below $2,000 by mid-July.
2, and then Bitcoin spent the rest of the year melting up: A couple weeks later Bitcoin passed $8,000, then $10,000, surging to $13,000 days later, eclipsing $16,000 and by mid-December topping out above $19,000.
But Bitcoin finished the year off its highest levels, ending the breakthrough year of 2017 at $13,850.
After the huge melt-up of 2017, Bitcoin spent most of 2018 in a downtrend, falling throughout the year, following a brief surge to start the year.
It tried to burst through $4,000 for the first few months, but finally hit it in April and then rose to $5,000. May came and Bitcoin reached $6,000, then $7,000, then $8,000 before settling back in early June.
But with the turn of the calendar to 2020, Bitcoin picked up, rising over the next six weeks to above $10,000.
It settled over the next couple months, until October, when it pushed through $13,000 again and ultimately vaulted to nearly $20,000 in November 2020, as financial markets tore higher on liquidity from the Federal Reserve and the prospect of a COVID vaccine.
After what can only be described as a thrilling end of 2020 for Bitcoin, the digital currency started 2021 with a bang.
In May, China warned cryptocurrency buyers that it was going to put pressure on the industry, and the price of Bitcoin began to drop.
The market shrugged off that news, and by October the currency was back over $60,000 and on its way to a new all-time high, at $68,789, on Nov.
The 10-year Treasury rate began to rise, as investors began pricing in the prospect that the Fed would raise interest rates in the near future.
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