Bitcoin Yearly High Prices
After the arrival of spot ETFs to bitcoin, the institutional world, the big hands, are beginning to reach bitcoin. But before that, what was the path?
Let's take a quick review of its history, until today.
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.
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 from 2013 to date
The last few years have been exciting, regarding the budding adoption of bitcoin, called "digital gold." Big hands have started to reach bitcoin.
The successive halvings have caused, de facto, the supply to be reduced, its inflation to drop and with an increasing demand, the price... in the end, has risen to the current figures.
Bitcoin (BTC) Technical Overview
When discussing future trading opportunities of digital assets, it is essential to pay attention to market sentiments.
Neutral
Bullish 69%
领英推荐
Bearish 31%
Right now, as of June 2024, we have bitcoin in technical zones from neutral to buy, thinking about the long term (with theoretical objectives of practically one year).
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 theircoins, 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.
This content is for informational and educational purposes. There is no consumer protection. Your capital is subject to risks. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any asset or crypto asset. Please do your own research (DYOR) or contact your trusted financial advisor.