3,468 days of Bitcoin history
A detailed look at the behavior of the quintessential cryptocurrency since 2015
By César Heredia, data journalist
What a rollercoaster for Bitcoin! From its initial monetary value to the guy who paid two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins on May 22, 2010, to the current price, much water has passed under the bridge.
From an initial estimated value of 0.0009, Bitcoin wasn't even worth a buck until February, 2011. Months later, its cotization began to scale. It reached 30 dollars for the first time in July but dropped to 2 dollars just six months later.
In 2012, Bitcoin broke the 100-dollar barrier for the first time on April 11, and in 2013, the 1,000-dollar barrier, however rapidly fell to 559.36 dollars on December 17.
2014 was not a good year, despite reaching a maximum of 936.4 dollars on January 5. It ended that year at 314 dollars, a value loss of two-thirds.
What happened next?
Coingecko, the world's largest independent aggregator of cryptocurrency data, has historical Bitcoin price data public since January 1, 2015. The following table shows the daily price from that date through June 30, 2024. That's nine and a half years or, looked at another way, 114 months, or 3,468 days of Bitcoin prices at our disposal to perform the most interesting analyses.
Bitcoin daily price from January 1, 2015 to June 30, 2024 (USD)
In that span, Bitcoin went from the lowest price (172 dollars on January 14, 2015) to 73,098 dollars (on March 14, 2024), the highest value reached until now. Not bad if you believed in this project and invested in (or before) 2015. How many dollars would represent that day the two pizzas bought in 2010 for 10,000 bitcoins? A hint: it's a number of nine figures!
Bitcoin daily price from January 1, 2015 to June 30, 2024
Milestones
Bitcoin reached the following milestones on these dates:
- 10k: November 28, 2017.
- 20k: December 17, 2020.
- 30k: January 3, 2021.
- 40k: January 9, 2021.
- 50k: February 18, 2021.
- 60k: March 14, 2021.
- 70k: March 12, 2024.
Bitcoin YoY average price variation from 2015 to June 2024 (%)
So, there is no surprise when you look at the YoY average price variation from 2020 to 2021: an increase of 329.3%. However, the maximum percent variation occurred between 2016 and 2017 (609%). The only significant decrease was from 2021 to 2022 (-40.4%).
Bitcoin YoY average price from 2015 to June 2024
In 54.4% of the 3,468 days analyzed in this report, there was an increase in Bitcoin's price. The days in which the price rose the most were:
- December 7, 2017: 33.3%.
- January 15, 2015: 22.3%.
- July 20, 2017: 21.6%.
- February 9, 2021: 19.2%.
- April 3, 2019: 17.3%.
- October 26, 2019: 16.4%.
- December 26, 2017: 16.2%.
- September 15, 2017: 15.7%.
- January 5, 2017, and March 20, 2020: 14.8%.
The steepest declines occurred on the following dates:
- March 13, 2020: -5.2%.
- January 14, 2015: -22.3%.
- September 14, 2017: -20.2%.
- January 16, 2018: -18.7%.
- February 6, 2018: -17.6%.
- January 13, 2015: -17.5%.
- June 14, 2022: -15.8%.
- November 10, 2022: -15.2%.
- January 15, 2016: -14.8%
- August 2, 2016: -14.6%.
Bitcoin daily price variation from January 1, 2015 to June 30, 2024 (%)
Month-Over-Month
Some of the biggest monthly percent price variations of Bitcoin happened in 2017 between June and December. From November to December, Bitcoin almost doubled its value (an astonishing 99%).
In May 2017 (54.6%), August 2017 (51.3%) and January 2021 (59.6%), the Bitcoin price rose more than 50%. In June 2017 (41.1%), November 2017 (46.7%), and May 2019 (40.5%), it increased 40% or more. Nine times, between November 2015 and August 2021, it climbed more than 30%, and in another six days, the price jumped more than 20%.
Bitcoin monthly average price variation from January 2015 to June 2024 (%)
But, as we have seen in this report, the Bitcoin price has been a constant high and low, not for the faint-hearted. For example, in December 2018, it lost a third of its value compared to the previous month, the largest MoM decline. Only one more time, it decreased by more than 30% (30.1% in February 2018).
On 17 times, Bitcoin price recorded a monthly loss between 10 and 30 percent.
Bitcoin monthly average price from January 2015 to June 2024
Note for the graphics: all prices at 00:00:00 GMT Source: Coingecko
A look at the future
Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter (now X), forecasts that Bitcoin will reach a seven-figure price by 2030. That is an optimistic approach, given that according to Coincodex price prediction, Bitcoin may reach a value of approximately 300,000 dollars by 2030.
Meanwhile, marketing guru Neil Patel predicted at The Motley Fool that it will be worth 150,000 dollars in six years. This article was replicated on the Nasdaq website.
Let's see what fate has in store for the world's pioneer and best-known cryptocurrency.
