What is the price of bitcoin today?
Bitcoin, or 1 BTC, traded at $61,445.00 as of 8 a.m. ET. The highest intraday price the crypto reached 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 122% 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 $1.21 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?
Bitcoin launched the world’s first blockchain-based network to make financial transactions. It’s powered by millions of global users. Anyone with internet access can make financial transactions without banks or government intermediaries.
Every transaction on the blockchain is validated by miners. Miners use high-powered computers to solve complex math problems and create new blocks in the chain. They’re paid with newly created BTC for their work maintaining the network.
In the years since its launch, thousands of cryptocurrencies have tried to recreate bitcoin’s success. While some have grown rapidly, none have matched bitcoin’s value or popularity.
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 halvings
Bitcoin’s network undergoes a process known as halving after 210,000 blocks of transactions are added to the blockchain.
Miners receive a set BTC reward for validating new blocks. The process is called a halving because it cuts that reward in half. Halving is crucial because it limits the BTC supply and supports its price over time.
Does bitcoin halving increase BTC’s price?
Slowing the rate at which miners draw bitcoin should drive prices higher. But there’s no guarantee it will play out that way in the markets.
Historically, BTC prices have followed certain cycles around halving events. Prices have typically bottomed about a year before a halving. Then they rise for more than a year after a halving. But these patterns aren’t set in stone.
A history of bitcoin prices
2010 – 2019
The first bitcoin exchanges launched in 2010. BTC grew to over $1 by 2011.
It took another two years for the next thousandfold increase. The price of BTC pushed past $1,000 by late 2013.
Prices continued to snowball from there. In November 2017, they exceeded $10,000. The following month, when CME Group announced the first bitcoin futures contracts, prices cleared $20,000.
But 2018 saw a reversal, with prices falling under $4,000.
2020 – 2024
The crypto soared during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A combination of government stimulus funds and low interest rates helped boost bitcoin.
But interest rates started rising in 2022, prompting a price drop. That decline exposed some cracks in the crypto industry, including overextended companies. The result was a string of layoffs and bankruptcies that likely dragged prices down.
Prices rose again in 2023. On March 14, 2024, BTC hit a new 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)
Since bitcoin exchanges launched in 2010, BTC’s lowest recorded price was $0.04865 on July 14, 2010, according to CoinMarketCap. That said, bitcoin reportedly traded on online forums for just $0.00099 per BTC in 2009.
Bitcoin’s all-time high was $73,750.07, which it reached on March 14, 2024.
