Bitcoin price today: BTC is up 2.55%

What is the price of bitcoin today?

The price of bitcoin, or 1 BTC, traded at $69,574.98, as of 8 a.m. ET. The highest intraday price that the original crypto reached in the past year was $73,750.07 on March 14, 2024.

Bitcoin chart

The chart above is pulling data as of 8 a.m. ET daily and doesn’t display intraday highs or lows.

Bitcoin prices

Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $73,750.07 on March 14, 2024 The lowest intraday price it traded in the past year was $24,930.30 on Sep. 11, 2023. Bitcoin is up 137% year over year.

The original cryptocurrency debuted in January 2009. It’s now a major asset with a market cap of $1.37 trillion.

Bitcoin has become a popular alternative to government-backed fiat currencies, which tend to lose value over time due to inflation.

What is bitcoin? And how does bitcoin work?

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.

How is bitcoin’s price determined?

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

The first recorded bitcoin price came in late 2009 when users in the BitcoinTalk online forum exchanged 5,050 BTC for $5.02 via PayPal. This transaction valued bitcoin at about $0.00099 per BTC, or about one-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.

The next halving is expected in 2028 when the block reward price will fall from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC.

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.

Bitcoin price history

2010 – 2019

The earliest bitcoin exchanges launched in 2010. The crypto cleared the $1 threshold in 2011.

From there, BTC prices shot up. They reached $1,000 in late 2013 and kept growing.

By November 2017, prices had cleared $10,000. They doubled to over $20,000 a month later. CME Group’s decision to start offering bitcoin futures contracts in December 2017 was likely a factor.

Enthusiasm for the crypto declined in 2018. BTC prices dipped under $4,000 that year.

2020 – 2024

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked another major boom in 2020. Markets likely benefited from government stimulus money pouring into the economy while interest rates remained low.

As interest rates rose in 2022, many investors pivoted away from risky assets like crypto.

Falling crypto prices revealed overextended institutions. The industry was hit by a string of layoffs amid bitcoin’s decline.

But 2023 saw yet another price rally. On March 14, 2024, bitcoin set a new intraday high of $73,750.07.

How to buy bitcoin

Binance, Coinbase and Kraken are popular cryptocurrency exchanges for buying BTC.

You need a digital wallet to store your crypto. Private keys lock these wallets. Only people with the keys can use them to trade or store crypto.

Some bitcoin wallets are hardware wallets that look like USB drives. Others are software wallets that use apps on smartphones or other devices to store BTC.

Wallets are also divided into hot and cold options. Hot wallets are connected to the internet, which makes them more convenient but less safe. Cold wallets aren’t connected to the internet, offering more security but less convenience.

Read more: How to buy bitcoin

Bitcoin ETFs

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds offer a way to speculate on bitcoin prices without buying bitcoin directly.

In January 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved several bitcoin spot ETFs. They trade on exchanges like stocks and hold actual bitcoin.

These ETFs signal the increasing acceptance of crypto in the financial world.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)