BITCOIN PRICE HISTORY:
FROM $0.0008 TO $126,000
The complete story of the world's most volatile major asset - every bull run, every crash, every watershed moment from the genesis block in 2009 to today. What drove the price, who called it right, and who got burned.
Read history · See charts
01The Greatest Speculative Ride in Financial History
No asset in modern financial history has done what Bitcoin has done. Not tulip bulbs, not dot-com stocks, not gold. A $1,000 investment made in February 2011 - when Bitcoin first reached $1 on the Mt. Gox exchange - would be worth about $82 million at the October 18, 2026 price of roughly $82,000. That is not a typo.
Of course, you had to hold through four separate 80%-plus crashes along the way. You had to ignore Warren Buffett calling it "rat poison." You had to watch exchange after exchange collapse, scammers make off with billions, and regulators circle the industry for years without knowing what to do with it. And you had to hold in 2022 when FTX imploded and the price fell 77% from its peak. Easy to say in hindsight. Brutally hard to live through.
This is the full story. Every era, every event, every quote - the good, the bad, and the absurdly profitable.
02Bitcoin Price: 2011 to 2026 (Log Scale)
The chart below uses a logarithmic scale - the only sensible way to show Bitcoin's price history. On a linear scale, everything before 2017 is an invisible flat line.
Bitcoin Price History (USD) - Log Scale
Monthly close prices. Log scale. Key events annotated. Source: CoinMarketCap / Bitcoincharts.
03The Complete Bitcoin Timeline
| 2009 |
Genesis: The Experiment Nobody Noticed$0.00 (no market price until October) On January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first Bitcoin block - the "genesis block" - embedding a newspaper headline about bank bailouts in the code. It was as much a political statement as a technical one. For most of its first year, Bitcoin had no market price at all. The only "transactions" were early users sending coins to each other for free. The network existed. The price did not - until October 2009, covered in the next entry. |
| 2010 |
Pizza Day and the First Price: $0.0008First price: $0.0008 | Year high: $0.39 The first published exchange rate appeared in October 2009, when New Liberty Standard quoted 1,309.03 BTC to the dollar - approximately $0.0008 per coin, worked out from the cost of the electricity used to mine them. It was a quoted rate rather than a market trade; the first dollar-for-bitcoin trade usually cited is Martti Malmi's sale of 5,050 BTC for $5.02 in October 2009, about $0.001 each. The year's most famous event came on May 22, 2010, when Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John's pizzas. Those coins would later be worth over $1.2 billion at peak prices. Bitcoin Pizza Day is still celebrated annually in the crypto community as the first real-world commercial transaction. By year-end, the price had climbed to $0.39 - still less than half a dollar, but directionally meaningful. |
| 2011 |
The First Bubble: $1 to $31 to $2High: $31.91 | Low: $2.00 | Year end: $4.70 Bitcoin crossed $1 in February 2011. By June, the first real bubble was underway - the price hit $31.91 on Mt. Gox, an 8,000% gain in under six months. Then it crashed. Hacking incidents, including a major breach at Mt. Gox where 25,000 BTC were stolen, sent the price spiraling back to $2 by year-end. The bubble popped so fast that most people outside the niche tech community barely noticed it had happened. Classic first-cycle behavior. |
| 2012 |
The First Halving and Quiet AccumulationYear start: $5 | Year end: $13.50 | 1st Halving: Nov 28 Bitcoin spent most of 2012 recovering and consolidating. In November, the first "halving" occurred - the block reward for miners was cut from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. This reduced the rate of new supply entering the market. It would become one of Bitcoin's defining four-year cycles. The price ended the year at $13.50, quiet but building. Very few people outside the cypherpunk and early adopter community were paying attention. |
| 2013 |
Breaking $1,000: Cyprus, Silk Road and Mainstream ShockHigh: $1,242 | Start: $13 | Hit $1,000: Nov 27 The Cyprus banking crisis in the spring of 2013 sent money flowing into Bitcoin as Cypriot depositors feared a bail-in on their savings. The price jumped from $13 to $266 in April, crashed back to $50 in a matter of days, then embarked on a longer, more sustained run. By October, the FBI had shut down Silk Road and seized 144,000 BTC - but rather than kill Bitcoin, the publicity drove more mainstream curiosity. On November 27, Bitcoin crossed $1,000 for the first time. It peaked at $1,242 days later. The financial media had a new story. |
| 2014- 2015 |
Mt. Gox Collapse: The First Crypto WinterLow: $170 (Jan 2015) | Mt. Gox filed bankruptcy: Feb 2014 In February 2014, Mt. Gox - the world's largest Bitcoin exchange handling roughly 70% of all BTC transactions - suspended withdrawals and then filed for bankruptcy. Some 850,000 Bitcoin had gone missing. The price crashed from $1,000 to below $200. It would spend all of 2014 and most of 2015 in a grinding bear market. For most observers, this was confirmation that Bitcoin was done. The mainstream media wrote obituary after obituary. And yet: the network kept running. Development continued. A small group of believers kept building. |
| 2016 |
The Second Halving and a Slow BuildStart: $430 | Year end: $970 | 2nd Halving: Jul 9 2016 was the quiet year before the storm. The second halving in July cut miner rewards from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC. Institutional infrastructure was beginning to form. New exchanges were growing. Regulatory clarity was still absent but the conversation had started. The price ended the year at $970, setting up one of the most spectacular bull runs in financial history. |
| 2017 |
The Great Retail Mania: $1,000 to $19,783High: $19,783 (Dec 17) | Year gain: +1,824% 2017 was unlike anything markets had seen. Retail investors piled in from all over the world, particularly Asia. ICO mania drove billions of dollars into new tokens. Bitcoin hit $5,000 in October, $10,000 in November, and peaked at $19,783 on December 17. CNBC ran Bitcoin tickers. Taxi drivers asked about buying it. CME launched Bitcoin futures on December 18 - the day after the peak. The hype was stratospheric and almost entirely retail-driven. Almost nobody was talking about institutional adoption yet. |
| 2018 |
The 84% Crash: Crypto Winter Sets InLow: $3,128 (Dec) | Peak to trough: -84% What goes up comes down. Bitcoin shed 84% of its value across 2018. Regulatory crackdowns across Asia, the failure of numerous ICOs, exchange hacks, and the simple mechanics of a post-mania hangover drove the price from nearly $20,000 to under $3,200 by December. Bitcoin was declared dead - again - by the financial press. The "Bitcoin obituaries" website, which tracks every time a media outlet declares Bitcoin finished, logged more entries in 2018 than any prior year. |
| 2019 |
Recovery: Back Above $10,000High: $13,880 (Jun) | Start: $3,500 2019 brought a partial recovery. Bitcoin climbed from $3,500 to nearly $14,000 by June - a 300% run - driven by renewed retail interest and early signals of institutional curiosity. Facebook announced its Libra (later Diem) digital currency project, which paradoxically boosted Bitcoin by raising the profile of all digital assets. Bitcoin ended the year around $7,200, consolidating the gains from the spring run-up. |
| 2020 |
COVID Crash, MicroStrategy, and $29,000Low: $3,850 (Mar 12) | Year end: $28,994 | 3rd Halving: May 11 2020 started with a crash. On March 12, amid global pandemic panic, Bitcoin fell 40% in a single day to $3,850. It looked like the end. It was actually the bottom. The Federal Reserve's massive monetary expansion drove investors into inflation hedges. In August, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor announced his company had purchased $250 million in Bitcoin as a "primary treasury reserve asset" - a watershed moment that opened the door for corporate adoption. By year-end, Bitcoin was at $29,000, more than $10,000 above its previous all-time high. The third halving in May had once again reduced supply. The narrative had shifted: Bitcoin was now "digital gold." |
| 2021 |
Tesla, El Salvador, and $68,789High: $68,789 (Nov 10) | Two separate peaks 2021 was the institutional era. Tesla announced a $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase in February. Coinbase went public in April on the same day Bitcoin hit $64,507. El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in September. ProShares launched the first US Bitcoin futures ETF in October. The price hit $68,789 on November 10. Then it peaked and rolled over. The second half of 2021 was a slow bleed as regulatory uncertainty, Elon Musk's criticism of Bitcoin's energy usage, and China's mining ban weighed on sentiment. The stage was set for another reckoning. |
| 2022 |
Terra/Luna, Celsius and FTX: The Worst YearLow: $15,479 (Nov) | Peak to trough: -77% 2022 was a catastrophe. The Terra/Luna ecosystem imploded in May, wiping out roughly $60 billion in market value in days. Three Arrows Capital, one of the largest crypto hedge funds, failed. Celsius Network froze withdrawals. Then, in November, FTX - the second-largest exchange in the world - collapsed overnight in a fraud that wiped out billions in customer funds. Bitcoin's price fell to $15,479. Contagion spread across the entire industry. Many observers concluded that the crypto industry was irredeemably broken. They were wrong, but you could understand why they thought so. |
| 2023 |
The Quiet Comeback: $16k to $44kStart: $16,500 | Year end: $42,200 Against all expectations, Bitcoin staged a 155% recovery in 2023. BlackRock filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF in June - a significant signal that Wall Street's largest asset manager had decided the asset class was legitimate. Anticipation of ETF approval dominated the narrative through the second half of the year. The price climbed steadily from its 2022 lows, ending 2023 near $42,000. The recovery happened quietly, with little of the fanfare of previous bull runs. |
| 2024 |
Spot ETF Approval, the 4th Halving, and a New ATHETF Approved: Jan 10 | New ATH: $73,805 (Mar 14) | 4th Halving: Apr 19 On January 10, 2024, the SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs simultaneously - a decade after the first application was filed. The launch shattered ETF records. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust saw $788 million in a single day of inflows and $3.3 billion in one day of volume. Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $73,805 on March 14 - before the halving, an unprecedented sequence in prior cycles. The fourth halving in April cut rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. After Trump's election victory in November, the price surged past $88,000 and then past $100,000 for the first time. Bitcoin ended 2024 around $97,000. |
| 2025- 2026 |
$126,000 ATH and the Cycle CorrectionATH: ~$126,000 (Oct 6, 2025) | 2026 range through Oct 18: ~$59k-$97k Institutional holdings climbed toward $196 billion. In January 2025, Bitcoin hit $109,114 on inauguration day. On October 6, 2025, it set a new all-time high of about $126,000 - driven by sustained ETF inflows, Trump administration crypto-friendly signals, and discussions of a US strategic Bitcoin reserve. The cycle then began correcting. By February 2026, the price had pulled back roughly 50% from the October peak to around $60,000-65,000 - consistent with prior post-ATH corrections. The slide continued to below $59,000 in late June 2026, more than 53% below the peak, before a recovery to about $82,000 by October 18, 2026 (market value about $1.64 trillion). ETF inflows remained strong, suggesting structural demand that had not been present in prior cycles: on October 13, 2026, US spot Bitcoin ETFs held about $101 billion in net assets - roughly 6% of all Bitcoin by value - after $57.7 billion of cumulative net inflows since January 2024. |
04Bull Markets, Bear Markets and Halvings
Bitcoin has followed a remarkably consistent four-year pattern driven by its halving schedule - each halving reduces the rate of new supply, which has historically preceded major bull runs. Each cycle has reached a higher peak than the last, and each bear market has bottomed higher than the prior one.
| Cycle | Bull Peak | Gain | Date | Bear Bottom | Drawdown | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cycle 1 | $31.91 | +8,000% from $0.39 | June 2011 | $2.00 | -94% drawdown | Nov 2011 |
| Cycle 2 | $1,242 | +61x from $20 | Nov 2013 | $170 | -86% drawdown | Jan 2015 |
| Cycle 3 | $19,783 | +116x from $170 | Dec 2017 | $3,128 | -84% drawdown | Dec 2018 |
| Cycle 4 | $68,789 | +22x from $3,128 | Nov 2021 | $15,479 | -77% drawdown | Nov 2022 |
| Cycle 5 | $126,000 | +8x from $15,479 | Oct 2025 | ~$59,000 (correction low) | -53% from ATH | Late Jun 2026 |
Bull Market Cycle Returns - Peak Gains from Prior Cycle Bottom
Each successive cycle has produced lower percentage gains as the asset has grown larger - but still extraordinary by any conventional measure.
05The Four Bitcoin Halvings
Every ~210,000 blocks (approximately 4 years), the reward given to Bitcoin miners for processing transactions is cut in half. This reduces the rate of new Bitcoin creation and is hardcoded into the protocol. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. As of October 19, 2026 (block 972,191), more than 20.1 million have been mined. The fifth halving, cutting the reward from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC, is due at block 1,050,000 - projected for around April 2028.
| Halving | Date | Block Reward Before | Block Reward After | Price at Halving | Next Cycle Peak | Gain to Peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Halving | Nov 28, 2012 | 50 BTC | 25 BTC | $12.35 | $1,242 | +9,959% |
| 2nd Halving | Jul 9, 2016 | 25 BTC | 12.5 BTC | $650 | $19,783 | +2,943% |
| 3rd Halving | May 11, 2020 | 12.5 BTC | 6.25 BTC | $8,600 | $68,789 | +700% |
| 4th Halving | Apr 19, 2024 | 6.25 BTC | 3.125 BTC | $63,800 | $126,000 | +97% |
06CAGR Since Inception
Bitcoin's CAGR depends heavily on the starting price you use. The first published exchange rate was about $0.0008 in October 2009. Bitcoin crossed $1 in February 2011. The figures below show compounded annual returns from several starting points to a price of approximately $82,000 on October 18, 2026.
07Bitcoin vs. Major Assets Since 2011
How does Bitcoin stack up against stocks, gold, and bonds over the same time period? The comparison is staggering - though it comes with vastly higher volatility. In the March 2026 snapshot below, $10,000 invested in the S&P 500 in February 2011 had grown to roughly $68,000, while $10,000 in Bitcoin had grown to over $650 million. The catch: you needed a cast-iron stomach and perfect timing on holding through four crashes of 75%+.
$10,000 Invested in Feb 2011 - Growth Comparison (Log Scale)
Approximate illustrative growth curves. BTC uses logged scale. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
| Asset | $10k in Feb 2011 | Approx Value Mar 2026 | Total Return | CAGR (15yr) | Worst Drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $10,000 | $650,000,000+ | +6,500,000% | ~107% | -94% |
| Nasdaq 100 | $10,000 | ~$82,000 | +720% | ~14.5% | -36% |
| S&P 500 (dividends reinvested) | $10,000 | ~$68,000 | +580% | ~12.8% | -34% |
| Gold | $10,000 | ~$20,000 | +100% | ~4.7% | -45% |
| US 10-yr Treasury | $10,000 | ~$13,500 | +35% | ~2.0% | -18% |
| US Dollar (CPI) | $10,000 | ~$6,800 | -32% | -2.5% | - |
Note: This comparison is a snapshot as of March 2026 (Bitcoin at about $65,000) and has not been rolled forward to the October 18, 2026 price used at the top of the page; at about $82,000, the $10,000 Bitcoin position would be worth about $820 million. BTC figures assume Feb 2011 purchase at $1. Asset returns are approximate, and the CAGR column runs about 15 years to March 2026. This is not financial advice.
Annual Returns by Asset Class - Selected Years
BTC vs. S&P 500 annual return comparison. Bitcoin's volatility is clear - both the extreme upswings and brutal drawdowns.
Bitcoin Annual Return
S&P 500
08Bitcoin's Biggest Proponents - and Their Key Quotes
Bitcoin has attracted some of the most vocal advocates in modern finance - people who staked their reputations and, in many cases, their fortunes on the thesis that digital scarcity would reshape global finance. Here are the loudest voices and what they said along the way.
“Bitcoin is digital gold - harder, stronger, faster, and smarter than any money that has preceded it. We are all witness to the birth of a new asset class.”
Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy CEO - holds 500,000+ BTC via company treasury · 2020 / BTC price at time: ~$15,000
“Bitcoin will hit $250,000 by 2022. It is the greatest social network of them all - a network of value.”
Tim Draper, Venture Capitalist - bought 30,000 BTC at US Marshals auction (2014) · 2018 / BTC price at time: ~$8,000
“We think Bitcoin could be worth 40 times gold - if the thesis plays out, you are looking at a price of $500,000 per Bitcoin.”
Cameron Winklevoss, Gemini Co-Founder - reported early holder of 1%+ of all BTC · 2017 / BTC price at time: ~$10,000
“The case for Bitcoin as a store of value is as compelling as anything I have seen in 30 years of investing. It is the only asset with a mathematically enforced scarcity.”
Paul Tudor Jones, Tudor Investment Corp - disclosed BTC holdings in 2020 SEC filing · 2020 / BTC price at time: ~$10,000
“Bitcoin is an asset class unlike any other - it has no CEO, no headquarters, no single point of failure, and 21 million unit supply cap that cannot be changed. It may be the most important invention since the internet.”
Cathie Wood, ARK Invest CEO - ARK manages multiple crypto ETFs · 2021 / BTC price at time: ~$45,000
“Bitcoin is a techno tour de force.”
Bill Gates, Microsoft Co-Founder (early endorsement - later more cautious) · 2013 / BTC price at time: ~$120
09Bitcoin's Biggest Detractors - and Their Key Quotes
Bitcoin's skeptics have included some of the most respected names in mainstream finance. Most have been consistently, expensively wrong in their timing - though some of their structural criticisms have aged better than their price calls.
“Cryptocurrencies basically have no value. They don't produce anything. I don't have any Bitcoin. I don't own any and I never will. It is rat poison squared.”
Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway CEO - consistently skeptical across multiple decades · 2018 / BTC price at time: ~$9,000
“Bitcoin is a fraud. It is worse than tulip bulbs and it will not end well. If you are stupid enough to buy it, you will pay the price one day.”
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan CEO (2017 comment - JPMorgan later launched crypto products) · Sep 2017 / BTC price at time: ~$4,200
“Bitcoin is the mother of all scams and bubbles. It is not a currency, it is not a store of value, it is not a unit of account. It is a speculative bubble with no fundamental value whatsoever.”
Nouriel Roubini, Economist / NYU Professor - called the 2008 crash, consistently bearish on BTC · 2018 / BTC price at time: ~$6,000
“Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Gold has been money for 5,000 years. Bitcoin is a digital speculation, not an investment, and it will go to zero eventually.”
Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital CEO - owns gold, has never held BTC · Multiple statements / Most recent: 2024
“Bitcoin is evil. Its influence is pernicious. Bitcoin is a bubble that will give you a lot of grief. Speculators may profit in the short run, but this is not a real currency.”
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Economist / NY Times columnist · 2013-2022 / Multiple statements
“Bitcoin is highly speculative. I worry about its stability. It is not a stable store of value. I don't think it is a threat to the dollar, but I do worry about the investors who may be harmed.”
Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary / Former Federal Reserve Chair · 2021 / BTC price at time: ~$32,000
10What Moves the Bitcoin Price?
Major Price Catalysts by Category
Frequency of significant price events by type across Bitcoin's history. Events that drove 20%+ moves in either direction.
Based on Bitcoin's full price history, here are the most consistent price drivers:
Supply shocks (Halvings): Each reduction in block rewards has historically preceded major bull runs, typically with a 12-18 month lag. The supply squeeze interacts with demand cycles to produce explosive price action.
Regulatory news: Government crackdowns (China 2013, China 2017, China mining ban 2021) produced sharp crashes. Approvals and legitimizations (ETF approval 2024) drove major rallies.
Exchange failures: Mt. Gox (2014), QuadrigaCX (2019), FTX (2022) each triggered significant crashes combined with broader industry confidence crises.
Institutional adoption signals: MicroStrategy (2020), Tesla (2021), ETF approval (2024) each marked phase changes in institutional legitimacy and drove significant demand.
Macro conditions: Bitcoin increasingly trades as a risk asset correlated with tech stocks and inversely correlated with the US dollar. Fed rate decisions, inflation data, and dollar strength all influence BTC pricing, especially post-2020.
11Sources & Data
- CoinMarketCap - Historical Bitcoin Price Data
- Bitcoin Charts (bitcoincharts.com) - Early price data 2009-2013
- US SEC filings - MicroStrategy, Tesla and institutional disclosures
- Kpler, Vortexa - Market data
- US Federal Reserve - Monetary policy records
- Bloomberg - Price records and event data
- US Securities and Exchange Commission - ETF approval records (Jan 10, 2024)
- World Gold Council - Gold price comparison data
- Congressional Research Service - Regulatory timeline
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