The history of the price of Bitcoin
Since bitcoin was launched in January 2009, the price has fluctuated greatly. This development can be seen in the table above.
At the end of 2017, bitcoin reached its all-time high to date. A bitcoin was worth approximately 17,000 euros at the time.
Some facts about the price of Bitcoin over the years:
The price of bitcoin has increased considerably since its introduction in 2009. In May 2010, an American software developer bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. We hope you enjoyed them, because today those pizzas would be worth millions at today’s prices.
At the beginning of 2013, the price of bitcoin was 25 euros. At the end of that year a bitcoin would have cost him a little more than 1000 euros! The financial crisis in Cyprus was somewhat responsible for this price increase.
But things turned ugly in early 2014. The market was hit hard by the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, the first and largest bitcoin exchange at the time.
A year later, the leading European exchange Bitstamp was hacked and 19,000 bitcoins disappeared. Negative reports like these caused the price of bitcoin to drop rapidly. In January 2015, the price was raised to 180 euros.
By 2017, bitcoin climbed again and reached the price of 1,000 euros. The second half of 2017 drew attention in the media, which brought an exponential growth in price. Bitcoin hit its all-time all-time high of €17,000.
2018 started out great for bitcoin, but things took a turn relatively quickly; the price dropped to 2,862 euros.
Will the price of bitcoin stabilize?
The price of bitcoin is characterized by considerable fluctuations. This is called volatility. A frequently asked question is why the price is so volatile. To understand this, we can compare the total cryptocurrency market capitalization to other financial markets.
The total market value of bitcoin is approximately 60 billion dollars. The market value of all cryptocurrencies in their entirety is approximately $120 billion. Although this may seem like a huge amount of capital, it is merely a drop in the bucket. By comparison, the total market value of Apple, a single company, is five times greater: more than 600 billion dollars.
So the cryptocurrency market is still relatively small. As a result, relatively small amounts of money can cause some large price movements.
If you compare the crypto market to the entire stock market, it will look like the image below. Green blocks represent the crypto market, blue blocks represent the entire stock market.
What do we expect from the bit coin price?
The person who could predict the future movements of the bitcoin price would be a very wealthy person – if only they had a crystal ball! We are usually asked to give some kind of prediction of what the price per bitcoin will be on a certain date in the near future. The honest truth is that we have no idea either. We are very optimistic about the long term, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict what the price of Bitcoin will be three months from now.
What might be helpful is the ROI table at the top of this page. ROI (Return On Investment) means return on investment, this indicates that the bitcoins you bought gained or lost value and with what percentage. The table compares the current situation with last year, last three years and last five years.
Also, what we can say is that the price of bitcoin depends on several factors. In the short term, the media can be a big influence.
If the CEO of Twitter states that he expects bitcoin to be the currency of the internet, it is an opinion that will considerably improve the sentiment about bitcoin and consequently increase the price.
On the other hand, rumors of government regulation may cause the price to be lower. It is not accurate at all, since regulation can contribute to the acceptance of bitcoin. For example, regulation can inspire large investors to enter the market and encourage stores to accept bitcoin.
Most importantly though, the bitcoin ecosystem is still evolving and that is a solid foundation. Luckily, that seems to be the case. The number of people using bitcoin has increased tremendously, as has the number of daily transactions. The computing power of the bitcoin network has never been higher. The developers are currently working around the clock and the software has been actively tested and improved. These trends and improvements don’t seem all that spectacular on the surface and in turn don’t necessarily get the media attention they deserve, which are the ones that really matter.
