BitCoin: A Monumental Milestone
Pedro Pina Catarino Pires
Senior Researcher | 7 Figure Crypto Assets Entrepreneur ?? | Professor/Senior Lecturer of Health Sciences | Healthcare Consultant | Higher Education Consultant | Fitness Instructor | Remote Worker
This week's article explores Bitcoin's extraordinary journey, tracing its evolution from the Genesis Block to surpassing the $100,000 per BTC milestone. On December 5, 2024, Bitcoin reached this historic achievement for the first time, taking three days to close a daily candle above the $100,000 mark. This report delves into the growth of the Bitcoin network and its underlying economic foundations, highlighting the remarkable progress from its inception to this groundbreaking price level.
Market Expansion
Bitcoin has been actively traded for 5,256 days, transitioning from fractions of a cent to a price of $100,000 per BTC. During this period, there have been 72 positive monthly candles (including December 2024), with an average gain of 37.4%, and 71 negative monthly candles, averaging a decline of -14.2%. This illustrates the dynamic interplay between bull and bear markets, with notable positive skew during periods of significant price appreciation.
As of December 5, a total of 19,791,952 BTC have been mined, representing 94.2% of the total supply cap of 21 million. Bitcoin's market capitalization briefly surpassed $2 trillion, exceeding that of silver, which stands at approximately $1.84 trillion.
Throughout this period of exceptional market expansion, investors have realized a cumulative profit of $1.27 trillion and incurred losses totaling $592 billion, based on the difference between acquisition and disposal prices. This resulted in a net capital inflow (Realized Cap) of $750 billion, underscoring the substantial value that has flowed into the Bitcoin network over its lifetime.
Supply Distribution
The distribution of Bitcoin across various wallet sizes is as follows:
A notable portion of these large wallets (holding 1,000+ BTC) are associated with exchanges, ETFs, and large institutional entities such as MicroStrategy, which collectively represent ownership by millions of customers and shareholders.
On December 5, significant holdings included 1.8 million BTC (9.1% of total supply) on exchanges, 1.1 million BTC (5.6%) managed by U.S.-based ETFs, and 700,000 BTC (3.5%) held by miners (excluding Patoshi). The U.S. government also holds 187,000 BTC (0.9%). These figures reflect the increasing institutionalization and centralization of Bitcoin custody, where large entities balance individual ownership with aggregated holdings that contribute to market liquidity and stability.
Network Evolution
Next, we examine the evolution of the Bitcoin network, tracing its transformation from a system for transferring financial value to a global financial phenomenon.
Bitcoin’s journey has been marked by technological advancements and adoption trends that have paved the way for its $100,000 price milestone.
Since the creation of the Genesis Block, a total of 873,304 blocks have been mined, with an average block time of 11.8 minutes to reach the $100,000 price point on December 5, 2024. While the current average block time is faster at around 9.6 minutes due to increased hash rates, the early years saw slower progress, as Satoshi Nakamoto initially overestimated the computational power of laptop CPUs relative to the difficulty setting.
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The network's difficulty has risen dramatically over time. After 418 difficulty adjustments (excluding periods without adjustments), the difficulty has reached 446,331,432,498,125,300,000,000. This significant increase reflects the growing security and computational power behind Bitcoin.
Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism targets a block time of approximately 10 minutes. Every 2,016 blocks (~2 weeks), the network adjusts the difficulty to maintain this target block time, regardless of changes in hash rate.
Since the beginning, the network hash rate has surged from 128,185 hashes per second to over 804.4 quadrillion hashes per second by December 2024. To date, miners have computed approximately 5.01 × 102? hashes, with 37% of the total hash rate occurring in 2024 alone.
Mining and Transaction Growth
As of December 5, 2024, miners have earned a cumulative $71.49 billion in rewards for their computational efforts, including $67.31 billion from block subsidies (newly minted coins) and $4.18 billion in transaction fees. This represents just 3.57% of Bitcoin’s peak market cap of $2 trillion, highlighting the remarkable efficiency of Bitcoin’s security model.
The Bitcoin network has also experienced exceptional growth in terms of transactions. To date, the network has processed over 1.12 billion transactions, with a filtered count of 840 million real economic transactions (after excluding internal transfers). These transactions have collectively transferred $131.25 trillion in value. After entity adjustment, the filtered transfer volume stands at $11.63 trillion, representing 8.86% of the total transaction volume.
Conclusion
Bitcoin’s rise to a $100,000 price point is not just a price milestone; it symbolizes the network’s transformation from a niche experiment into a globally significant financial infrastructure. From its humble beginnings with the Genesis Block, Bitcoin has matured into a robust financial system with a market capitalization of $2 trillion, surpassing silver in value, and processing $131 trillion in transaction volume through 1.12 billion transactions. The network has paid miners a cumulative $71.49 billion, representing just over 3% of its peak market valuation, reflecting an extraordinary return on investment for securing the network.
With a record-high hash rate and a highly distributed holder base, Bitcoin is poised to play an increasingly influential role in the global financial landscape.
Disclaimer
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. While the methods mentioned can help generate income, results may vary depending on individual effort and market conditions. Always conduct thorough research and exercise caution when participating in cryptocurrency activities.