Bitcoins Price History

 Bitcoin has had a very volatile trading history since it was first created in 2009. The digital cryptocurrency has seen a lot of action in its fairly short life. Bitcoins initially traded for next to nothing. The first real price increase occurred in July 2010 when the valuation of a bitcoin went from around $0.0008 to $0.08 for a single coin.1

Bitcoin price today is $36,031.80 with a 24-hour trading volume of $51,036,026,844. BTC price is down -1.0% in the last 24 hours. It has a circulating supply of 19 Million BTC coins and a max supply of 21 Million. FTX.us is the current most active market trading it.

The currency has seen some major rallies and crashes since then. Interest in bitcoin is surging in 2020 as it has regained its losses and pushed past its previous all-time high. Bitcoin has now surpassed its last all-time high of $19,783 and has pushed to over $23,000 as of Dec. 17, 2020. There are currently more than 18.5 million Bitcoins in circulation and it now has a market capitalization of over $428 billion.

When Did Bitcoin Start?

Bitcoin was invented by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 and released as open-source software in early 2009.2 The first transaction took place between Nakamoto and an early adopter of bitcoin in January 2009. The first real-world transaction happened in 2010 when a bitcoin miner bought two pizzas from a Papa John's in Florida for 10,000 bitcoins.3

The currency is based upon a blockchain that contains a public ledger of all the transactions in the bitcoin network. Those participating in the currency can mine for bitcoins using computer power. Initial interest in the currency was small, particularly among cryptographers and those seeking to engage in transactions that could not be easily traced.

Over time, the currency gained wider exposure—both good and bad. More retailers opened up to using bitcoin in 2012 and 2013. However, federal authorities shut down the Silk Road website, which used bitcoins for black market transactions, in October 2013.

The popular Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange also went under in 2014. Originally started as a site for trading game cards, it evolved into a marketplace for bitcoins. As of May 2013, 150,000 bitcoins were traded on the exchange per day. But accusations of fraud surrounded the exchange when it closed down in 2014. The exchange lost around 850,000 bitcoins, although some of them have since been found.5

Bitcoin is now traded on a number of independent licensed and regulated exchanges, such as Coinbase, Kraken, or Gemini. The currency can also be bought and sold through broker-dealers. There may be slight differences in the prices among the different exchanges, which could lead to arbitrage opportunities across the different exchanges.