The price of bitcoin, or 1 BTC, traded at $43,051.76, as of 8 a.m. ET. The highest that the original crypto reached in the past year was $49,102.29 on Jan. 11, 2024.
Bitcoin price chart
Bitcoin price history
Bitcoin’s 52-week high was on Jan. 11, 2024, trading at $49,102.29 per bitcoin. The lowest that the crypto traded in the past year was $19,582.88 on March 10, 2023. The original crypto is up by 87.01% year over year.
BTC had very humble beginnings when it was launched in January 2009. Fifteen years later, the world’s first cryptocurrency has completely shifted global financial markets and amassed a global market capitalization of $844.48 billion.
The crypto is also becoming a popular alternative to government-backed fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, which tend to lose value over time due to inflation.
What is bitcoin?
Bitcoin runs on a groundbreaking blockchain-based network powered by a collection of global users. It allows anyone with internet access worldwide to make financial transactions that completely circumvent banks or other financial or government intermediaries.
Bitcoin’s security system is centered on its cryptography. All bitcoin transactions are validated by miners, who use high-powered computers to solve complex mathematical puzzles and create new blocks of verified transactions on the blockchain.
In the 15 years since bitcoin launched, it has inspired thousands of other cryptocurrencies. While many additional cryptos have become hugely successful, bitcoin remains the most valuable and popular cryptocurrency globally.
How is bitcoin’s price determined?
Because bitcoin does not represent ownership of tangible assets and does not generate earnings, revenue or cash flow, the price of bitcoin is determined exclusively by supply and demand.
Bitcoin’s network automatically releases new bitcoins to miners each time they verify and add a new block of transactions to the blockchain. The total supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million BTC.
Given bitcoin’s fixed supply, demand is the primary variable determining its price. This demand fluctuates based largely on investor sentiment.
Bitcoin’s starting price
The first recorded price of bitcoin came in late 2009 when users in the BitcoinTalk online forum exchanged 5,050 BTC for $5.02 via PayPal. This transaction valued bitcoin at about $0.00099 per BTC, or about one-tenth of a cent.
Bitcoin halving dates
Each time 210,000 blocks of transactions are added to the bitcoin blockchain, the network automatically undergoes a process known as halving.
Bitcoin miners receive a set amount of BTC as a reward for their services to validate a block. But that reward is cut in half each time a halving occurs. In other words, about once every four years, bitcoin miners get a 50% pay cut.
Bitcoin halving is important in limiting bitcoin’s supply and theoretically supporting its price.
The next halving is expected in April 2024 when the block reward price will fall from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
Does bitcoin halving increase BTC’s price?
Bitcoin halvings reduce the supply of new BTC, so that halvings would be good for bitcoin prices.
But halvings don’t directly impact the price of bitcoin. So it’s not a guaranteed bullish catalyst. Historically, bitcoin prices have reached a cyclical bottom roughly a year before a halving occurs, and then BTC prices rise for more than a year after the halving.
A history of bitcoin prices
The first online bitcoin exchanges emerged in 2010. The price per coin grew from the $1 threshold in 2011.
From there, BTC prices continued to climb, reaching the $1,000 mark in late 2013. Its popularity and trading volumes snowballed four years later.
In November 2017, bitcoin reached $10,000 and peaked at over $20,000 roughly a month later. The rally was partly driven by CME Group’s announcement that it would launch the first bitcoin futures contracts in December 2017.
Enthusiasm for the original crypto cooled in 2018, with BTC prices dropping below $4,000.
The next notable bitcoin boom occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This time, BTC’s rise was partly driven by government shutdowns of sports, casinos, and other leisure and entertainment options and multiple rounds of government stimulus checks that left many Americans with extra disposable income.
Bitcoin reached an all-time intraday high of $68,997.76 on Nov. 10, 2021. But rising interest rates cooled investor enthusiasm in 2022, with a flight away from riskier assets like cryptocurrency.
Falling crypto prices in 2022 exposed overleverage among crypto lenders, hedge funds and exchanges. A string of crypto industry layoffs and bankruptcies weighed on bitcoin prices, culminating in the bankruptcy of leading cryptocurrency exchange FTX in late 2022.
But it wasn’t too long until the original crypto began to bounce back. Bitcoin’s rally resumed in 2023 as investors grew more optimistic about the U.S. economic outlook and the anticipated launch of several bitcoin spot ETFs.
How to buy bitcoin
Investors can buy bitcoin on popular cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.
Any investor buying bitcoin directly must store their BTC in a bitcoin wallet. It’s similar to storing paper money in a physical wallet. In this case, bitcoin investors store the privacy keys needed to send or receive cryptocurrency in the wallet.
Bitcoin wallets can be hardware wallets that resemble USB sticks or software wallet apps that store BTC on a smartphone or another device.
Hot wallets are bitcoin wallets that are connected to the internet. In contrast, cold wallets are not connected to the internet. Hot wallets are considered more convenient than cold ones but more risky because of their online access.
Bitcoin ETFs
In addition to buying bitcoin directly, investors can speculate on the bitcoin market indirectly via bitcoin funds.
In January 2024, the SEC also approved several bitcoin spot ETFs. These funds hold the cryptocurrency rather than crypto futures contracts and trade on major U.S. exchanges.
The approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds represents a resounding institutional validation of the cryptocurrency, marking a departure from its initial reputation as a speculative and volatile asset.
Leading bitcoin spot ETFs include Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), VanEck Bitcoin Trust (HODL) and Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
BTC is the unique ticker symbol for bitcoin. It allows traders to easily identify the cryptocurrency in an exchange’s system and distinguish it from other cryptocurrencies or products. One bitcoin equals 1BTC.
One BTC represents one bitcoin currently valued at $43,051.76. While global central banks often increase the supply of fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, the supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million BTC.
