Bitcoin Price History 101

2024 has been an explosive year for Bitcoin, both in terms of adoption and price.

On December 17th, Bitcoin broke another new all-time high of $108,135.

With that in mind, as part of our “Prosper 101” educational series, we wanted to close out the year by taking a look back at Bitcoin's historic price movements since its creation in 2009:

2009 and 2010: Bitcoin's Genesis and the Start of Bitcoin Trading

On January 3rd, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined Bitcoin's genesis block. At this point, Bitcoin had no actual value.

However, on October 12th that same year, 5,050 BTC was traded for $5.02 via PayPal. This puts the price of Bitcoin at $0.00099 per coin.

In the following year, on May 22nd, Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC. These 10,000 BTC were worth $41, valuing each individual Bitcoin at $0.0041—this day has affectionately become known as "Bitcoin Pizza Day".

2011 and 2012: Satoshi Nakamoto Disappears

In February 2011, Bitcoin reached $1 for the first time. Not long after, in May 2011, BitPay, a cryptocurrency payment service provider, was founded—this allowed Bitcoin to be accepted as a form of payment.

By June 2011, Bitcoin's price reached a new all-time high of $30, before falling and trading between the $2 to $4 range.

A year later, in June 2012, Coinbase, one of the world's largest centralized exchanges, was launched. This provided investors with a more convenient method to buy and sell Bitcoin.

In November 2012, the first Bitcoin halving took place, reducing the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. By the end of the year, Bitcoin was trading at $13.50.

2013: The First Post-Halving Move

Following the halving in November 2012, Bitcoin's price skyrocketed to $268 in April 2013 before crashing back down to $51—a decrease of more than 80%—in just a few days.

In June 2013, Mt. Gox stopped processing US withdrawals, but this didn't hinder Bitcoin's price climbing back to new all-time highs, hitting $1,163 in December the same year.

However, that same month, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) "banned" Bitcoin, causing the price to drop to almost $700—still a 5,000% increase from the end of 2012.

2014 - 2016: Mt. Gox Troubles and Bitcoin Consolidation

In February 2014, a Mt. Gox hack caused a flash crash to $111, a 90% decrease from last year's all-time high. The remainder of this year was relatively uneventful for Bitcoin, which entered 2015 at $314 per coin.

Bitcoin's price consolidated for most of 2015. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) called Bitcoin a commodity for the first time in September, but it did little to impact the asset's price.

On July 9th, 2016, the second Bitcoin halving took place, but this event was overshadowed by popular cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex being hacked on August 2nd, 2016. 120,000 BTC was stolen, causing the price of Bitcoin to fall approximately 14% in 30 minutes.

However, Bitcoin’s price recovered and was valued at $966 at the end of 2016, following a relatively stable year-and-a-half.

2017: People Take Notice of Bitcoin

Bitcoin's price continued to experience upwards momentum in 2017, eventually hitting highs of $19,892 on December 15th, 2017—a 20x increase in less than a year. Despite this price growth, Bitcoin's market dominance began to fall as altcoins started to gain popularity.

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2018 - 2019: Bear Market

In the first quarter of 2018, Bitcoin's price retraced almost 50% before eventually bottoming in December at $3,250. The price rebounded a little to end the year at $3,700, before trending sideways for the first half of 2019.

Positive news about cryptocurrency's adoption saw the price of Bitcoin spike in the middle of 2019, hovering around $7,000 towards the end of 2019.

2020: Covid and the Third Bitcoin Halving

On March 17th, 2020, Bitcoin crashed to a low of $4,000 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, 2020 was a largely positive year for the asset, which experienced its third halving in May—this saw the block reward drop to 6.25 BTC.

In 2020, MicroStrategy started to accumulate Bitcoin and the US Government printed trillions of dollars. These two factors, alongside a general growth in popularity, saw Bitcoin closing the year at over $29,000.

2021: All-Time High (x2)

In April 2021, Bitcoin reached new all-time highs of $64,594. Unfortunately, this success was relatively short-lived, with China implementing restrictions on crypto transactions and Bitcoin mining, which caused the price of Bitcoin to crash to $29,970 on July 21st.

September saw Bitcoin's hashrate make a strong recovery, and El Salvador became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. This helped Bitcoin's price make a strong resurgence, reaching another all-time high of $68,789.

2022: Economic Turmoil

A number of factors led to Bitcoin's price dropping to around $20,000 in early 2022, including the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, a gas and energy crisis, and a looming recession.

To make things worse, TerraUSD (UST) lost its peg to the US dollar in May, causing the price of BTC to drop 44% between the 6th and the 18th. The fall of Terra then led to the collapse of Celsius, Voyager, and Three Arrows Capital (3AC).

Finally, the collapse of FTX, one of the world's leading cryptocurrency exchanges and hedge funds—furthered by Chengpeng Zhao's intention to sell $2.1 billion in BUSD and FTT—caused Bitcoin to crash by another 27%.

Despite reaching all-time highs almost a year prior, Bitcoin's price bottomed out at $15,477 in November amidst potential Grayscale and Genesis insolvency rumors.

2023: Price Recovery

Thankfully, 2023 saw Bitcoin's price recover somewhat. In January alone, the BTC price increased by 45% to $23,150.

In June, the SEC took action against Binance and Coinbase for securities violations, but this did little to dampen Bitcoin's price growth, with the asset rallying to $35,000 in October—the first time since May 2022.

In December, the price of Bitcoin rallied to $44,500 in anticipation of the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs.

2024: Bitcoin ETFs and New All-Time Highs

On January 11th, 2024, the SEC approved Bitcoin spot ETFs. This helped catapult Bitcoin's price above $70,000 for the first time ever in March.

The fourth Bitcoin halving took place on April 20th, with the Bitcoin mining reward reduced to 3.125 BTC.

Increased institutional adoption (thanks, in part, to the approval of Bitcoin ETFs), as well as interest rate cuts and the re-election of Donald Trump as US President, helped Bitcoin's price continue to grow, eventually surpassing $100,000 in December 2024.