What is the current price of bitcoin?
As of 8 a.m. ET, the price of bitcoin, or 1 BTC, was $63,816.30. The crypto’s highest intraday price in the past year was $73,750.07 on March 14, 2024.
Bitcoin price chart
The chart above collects data daily as of 8:00 AM ET. It does not display intraday highs or lows.
Bitcoin Prices
*The performance comparisons are valid as of 8:00 AM ET.
Bitcoin’s all-time high was on March 14, 2024, trading at $73,750.07 per bitcoin. The lowest intraday price the crypto traded in the past year was $26,558.32 on October 12, 2023. The native crypto is up 135% year over year.
BTC had very humble beginnings when it launched in January 2009. Since then, the world’s first cryptocurrency has completely transformed global financial markets, amassing a global market capitalization of $1.26 trillion.
The crypto is also becoming a popular alternative to government-backed fiat currencies, such as the US dollar, which tend to lose their value over time due to inflation.
What is Bitcoin? And how does bitcoin work?
Bitcoin is known for its blockchain network and decentralized ledger that tracks transactions. The crypto is used throughout the financial sector. The network allows users to conduct transactions without a major bank or government intermediary.
Transactions are recorded on the blockchain and visible to everyone. Miners maintain the blockchain by solving complex mathematical problems to validate transactions. This creates new blocks on the blockchain. Miners receive BTC payments for their work.
Bitcoin became a proof-of-concept mechanism that spawned thousands of imitators. Since its launch, thousands of cryptos have entered the scene.
What determines the price of bitcoin?
There are no underlying assets associated with bitcoin, making it unique. The crypto does not represent ownership of any company and does not pay dividends. As a result, its price is completely at the mercy of supply and demand.
Miners receive new bitcoin when they verify a block of transactions and add them to the blockchain. The total supply is limited to 21 million BTC.
Prices fluctuate based on demand. This makes investor sentiment the only factor that determines the price of bitcoin.
The starting price of Bitcoin
Bitcoin prices started very low. In the first recorded transaction in late 2009, 5,050 BTC changed hands for $5.02. That works out to $0.00099 per BTC, or less than a tenth of a cent.
Bitcoin halving dates
Every time 210,000 transaction blocks are added to the bitcoin blockchain, the network automatically undergoes a process known as halving.
Bitcoin miners receive a fixed amount of BTC as a reward for their services to validate a block. But every time a halving occurs, that reward is halved. In other words, about once every four years, Bitcoin miners take a 50% pay cut.
Bitcoin halving is essential to limit the supply of Bitcoin and theoretically support its price.
Does the Bitcoin Halving Increase the Price of BTC?
Because bitcoin halvings reduce the supply of new BTC, they would theoretically be good for bitcoin prices.
But a halving has no direct impact on the price of bitcoin. So it is not a guaranteed bullish catalyst. Historically, bitcoin prices have hit a cyclical low about a year before a halving occurs and have risen for over a year after a halving.
A history of bitcoin prices
2010 – 2019
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 rise, reaching the $1,000 mark in late 2013. Four years later, BTC’s popularity and trading volumes snowballed.
In November 2017, bitcoin reached $10,000 and peaked at over $20,000 about a month later. The rally was driven in part by CME Group’s announcement to launch the first bitcoin futures contracts in December 2017.
Enthusiasm for the original crypto cooled in 2018, with BTC prices falling below $4,000.
2020 – 2024
The next notable Bitcoin boom occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This time, BTC’s rise was driven in part by government shutdowns of sports, casinos, and other leisure and entertainment venues and multiple rounds of stimulus checks by the government, which gave many Americans extra money. disposable income.
But rising interest rates cooled investor enthusiasm in 2022, with a flight away from riskier assets like cryptocurrency.
Falling crypto prices in 2022 exposed over-indebtedness among crypto lenders, hedge funds, and exchanges. A series of layoffs and bankruptcies in the crypto industry weighed on bitcoin prices in 2022.
But it didn’t take long for the original crypto to start recovering. Bitcoin’s rally resumed in 2023 and continues to rise.
On March 14, 2024, Bitcoin hit an all-time high for the day of $73,750.07.
How to buy bitcoin online
Investors can buy bitcoin on popular cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.
Any investor who purchases Bitcoin directly must store their BTC in a Bitcoin wallet. It is 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 other device.
Hot wallets are bitcoin wallets that are connected to the internet. Cold wallets, on the other hand, are not connected to the internet. Hot wallets are considered more convenient than cold wallets, but riskier due to online access.
Read more: How to buy bitcoin
Bitcoin ETFs
In addition to buying bitcoin directly, investors can speculate indirectly on the bitcoin market through bitcoin funds.
In January 2024, the SEC also approved several bitcoin spot ETFs. These funds own the cryptocurrency in lieu of crypto futures contracts and trade on major US exchanges.
The approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds represents a resounding institutional validation of the cryptocurrency, marking a departure from its original reputation as a speculative and volatile asset.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
BTC is the unique ticker symbol for bitcoin. This allows traders to quickly identify the cryptocurrency in an exchange’s system and distinguish it from other cryptocurrencies or products. One bitcoin is equal to 1 BTC.
One BTC represents one bitcoin, which is currently valued at $63,816.30. While global central banks often increase the supply of fiat currencies such as the US dollar, the supply of bitcoin is limited to 21 million BTC.
