Bitcoin Price Charts Through the Years: Analyzing Historical Market Cycles

Bitcoin has gone through many market cycles since its inception in 2009, and each one helped to shape the cryptocurrency’s development and bring it to where it is today. In the several years of its existence, Bitcoin has experienced sharp ups and downs in its prices that have attracted more investors and critics. Looking into past trends in Bitcoin’s price can explain the behavior of this digital currency and what is in store for this market.

For those who need the Bitcoin price movements to be explained as and when they happen, there is the Bitcoin price chart. This depends on the past and current market prices of the bitcoins as it reveals the volatility and trends that affect the investors. By using this chart, investors can easily identify the changes in the prices, past cycles that have occurred, and the probabilities of opportunities or threats that may be present.

The Early Days: 2009-2012

Bitcoin started in 2009 when the group’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, launched it as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. It was worthless as an instrument of value in the early years of the use of Bitcoins. Before December 2010, it was mostly used by the community of the cryptocurrency for amusement or to test its viability as a method of purchase.

The first recorded price was in 2010 when a man named Laszlo Hanyecz paid for two pizzas using 10,000 BTC. At the time of the incident, the value of a single Bitcoin was approximately $0. 0008 per coin. Only by 2011, Bitcoin started to gain some popularity and its price reached $1, which could be considered its first achievement. It did not take very long for Bitcoin to experience its first high at the price of $31 in mid-2011 before dropping down to $2 by the end of the same year.

The First Major Bull Run (2013)

The first significant financial cycle of Bitcoin was in 2013 when the market price skyrocketed. Beginning of this year, it was trading at less than $13 but at one point early December it had hit over $1000. This was fueled by greater coverage by popular media, the continuous adoption of the new digital currency and the early trading platforms that were established to enable easier use of Bitcoin.

But this movement up only lasted for some time as this bull run is shown below: By early 2014, the green light was signaled and the market went down drastically, and in less than two months Bitcoin was trading again at $200. This crash was worsened by the Mt.Gok scandal in which one of the biggest Bitcoin trading platforms lost about 850,000 bitcoins to hackers. Thus, the Bitcoin lost the market’s trust, and it will took several years more for the recovery of the cryptocurrency.

The 2013 upwards move and plunge is known as Bitcoin’s first bubble. This pattern of rapid growth followed by sharp correction would repeat itself in the Bitcoin’s price volatility.

The 2017 Bull Run and ICO Mania

Bitcoin remained relatively asleep for some time and then began to rise slowly from $400 to nearly a thousand dollars by December 2016. Still, it was 2017 that can be considered as the year when Bitcoin appeared before the general public.

The year 2017 was particularly favorable for Bitcoin, regarding its prices, with the established corporate interest, elevated awareness, and the phenomenon of ICOs. ICOs became a new means for the blockchain project to attract funding by launching tokens on Ethereum or on any other platform on which they operate, it usually demanded Bitcoin or Ether to invest.

2017 was characterized by a lot of volatility in the prices of bitcoins and the currency climbed to almost $20,000 by the end of the year. As with prior cycles, this meteoric climb was succeeded by a steep decline though the bottom was not as low as the preceding two. Almost throughout 2017, Bitcoin experienced an incredible rally to reach $19,000 by the end of the year and then by early 2018, collapsed down to $3,000, that is about a loss of 80%.

The 2020–2021 Bull Run: Adoption by Institutions

One of the most recent major Bitcoin market cycles was initiated towards the end of the year 2020 and stretched through the year 2021. While earlier cycles of new car demand soared with the help of car-owning populace, the latest cycle is hailed to have been powered by institutional buyers including hedge funds, listed companies, and even governments.

It rose to an all-time high of about $64000 in April 2021. DeFi and an inclination towards Bitcoin as a hedge against centralized financial systems also added tremendous pressure on the price. However, the market went through another downward move later in the same year, and Bitcoin was trading at approximately $30,000 before it rallied back to a record high of $69,000 in November this year.

What Can be Learned From These Cycles?

Analyzing the price trends of Bitcoin over the past number of years, the cyclical behavior of the market turns out to be obvious. These cycles would normally include a feverish rise in the price of a given commodity due to technological breakthroughs, media hype, or speculation among investors before suffering a dramatic drop in its value.

For investors, it is important that they have to understand these cycles to avoid them or to make a well informed decision. Highs of the bull market may intrigue the trader or investor but what comes with it is another story of a bear market. However, BTC/USD has in the past tended to experience relief bounces and regain lost ground at subsequent higher levels after sharp sell-offs as is revealed in the following charts.

Conclusion

The price of Bitcoin can be represented in the form of a chart, which clearly indicates the history of this cryptocurrency since it came into existence to the time when it became popular. They established that Bitcoin entered several market cycles in the years of its existence and each cycle has moments of growth and decline. To investors and fans, such historical tendencies are useful to know how Bitcoin behaves in phases of the market.