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 above chart pulls data as of 8 a.m. ET daily. It doesn’t display intraday highs or lows.
Bitcoin prices
*The return comparisons are as of 8 a.m. ET.
Bitcoin’s all-time high was on March 14, 2024, trading at $73,750.07 per bitcoin. The lowest intraday price that the crypto traded in the past year was $26,558.32 on Oct. 12, 2023. The original crypto is up by 135% year over year.
BTC had very humble beginnings when it was launched in January 2009. Since then, the world’s first cryptocurrency has completely shifted global financial markets and amassed a global market capitalization of $1.26 trillion.
The crypto is also becoming a popular alternative to government-backed fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, which tend to lose 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 has been used throughout the financial industry. Its network allows users to make 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 math 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 led to thousands of imitators. Since its launch, thousands of cryptos have come onto the scene.
What determines bitcoin’s price?
No underlying assets are associated with bitcoin, making it unique. The crypto doesn’t represent ownership of a company or pay a dividend. As a result, its price is entirely at the mercy of supply and demand.
Miners receive new bitcoin when they verify and add a block of transactions to the blockchain. The total supply is capped at 21 million BTC.
Prices fluctuate based on demand. This makes investor sentiment the lone factor determining bitcoin’s price.
Bitcoin’s starting price
Bitcoin prices started very low. The first recorded transaction in late 2009 saw 5,050 BTC change hands for $5.02. That comes to $0.00099 per BTC, or less than a tenth of a cent.
Bitcoin halving dates
Each time 210,000 blocks of transactions are added to the bitcoin blockchain, the network automatically undergoes a process known as halving.
Bitcoin miners receive a set amount of BTC as a reward for their services to validate a block. But that reward is cut in half each time a halving occurs. In other words, about once every four years, bitcoin miners get a 50% pay cut.
Bitcoin halving is essential in limiting bitcoin’s supply and theoretically supporting its price.
Does bitcoin halving increase BTC’s price?
Because bitcoin halvings reduce the supply of new BTC, they would theoretically be good for bitcoin prices.
But a halving doesn’t directly impact the price of bitcoin. So it’s not a guaranteed bullish catalyst. Historically, bitcoin prices have reached a cyclical bottom roughly a year before a halving occurs and have risen for more than 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 climb, reaching the $1,000 mark in late 2013. Its popularity and trading volumes snowballed four years later.
In November 2017, bitcoin reached $10,000 and peaked at over $20,000 roughly a month later. The rally was partly driven 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 dropping below $4,000.
2020 – 2024
The next notable bitcoin boom occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This time, BTC’s rise was partly driven by government shutdowns of sports, casinos, and other leisure and entertainment options and multiple rounds of government stimulus checks that left many Americans with extra 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 overleverage among crypto lenders, hedge funds and exchanges. A string of crypto industry layoffs and bankruptcies weighed on bitcoin prices in 2022.
But it wasn’t too long before the original crypto began to rebound. Bitcoin’s rally resumed in 2023 and continues to climb.
On March 14, 2024, bitcoin reached an all-time intraday high 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 buying bitcoin directly must store their BTC in a bitcoin wallet. It’s 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 another device.
Hot wallets are bitcoin wallets that are connected to the internet. In contrast, cold wallets are not connected to the internet. Hot wallets are considered more convenient than cold ones but riskier because of online access.
Read more: How to buy bitcoin
Bitcoin ETFs
In addition to buying bitcoin directly, investors can indirectly speculate on the bitcoin market via bitcoin funds.
In January 2024, the SEC also approved several bitcoin spot ETFs. These funds hold the cryptocurrency rather than crypto futures contracts and trade on major U.S. exchanges.
The approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds represents a resounding institutional validation of the cryptocurrency, marking a departure from its initial reputation as a speculative and volatile asset.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
BTC is the unique ticker symbol for bitcoin. It allows traders to identify the cryptocurrency quickly in an exchange’s system and distinguish it from other cryptocurrencies or products. One bitcoin equals 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 like the U.S. dollar, the supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million BTC.
