On October 31, 2008, a mysterious figure known only as Satoshi Nakamoto wrote a nine-page whitepaper that would change the world.
Bitcoin has been declared dead by the media 477 times in the 16 years since that fateful day Nakamoto revealed his idea for a new online payment system, yet here we are: staring at a six-figure price point for the king of cryptocurrency.
But the road to get here has been long and winding, with shifting public opinion, angry political rhetoric, and a piece of NFT artwork called The Merge that sold for $91.8 million.
For the uninitiated, the curious, or the nostalgic, here’s a short & sweet timeline of bitcoin’s rise to $100,000.
The early days
The Genesis Block, an undeniably cool name for the first block on bitcoin’s blockchain, was released on January 3, 2009. Hardly anyone noticed, and the nascent crypto wallowed at around $0.10 per bitcoin for well over a year.
There it would stay until October 2010, when only the nerdiest of techies began to understand the potential of a decentralized payment system. Bitcoin climbed to $0.20, then $0.30 by the end of the year. It wasn’t until February 2011 that the crypto broke above $1.00 for the first time (probably when you should’ve bought it).
Although a niche audience of devotees was slowly but surely coalescing around crypto, it wasn’t until 2013 that bitcoin really began to gain attention.
Bitcoin experienced its first true bubble that year, rising from $20 in January to $230 in April, then plunging back down to under $70. But by November, it rose to a high of $1,200, ending the year at just over $800.
2013 was also a pivotal year for bitcoin’s usage. That was the year the FBI shut down Silk Road, where bitcoin, due to its untraceable nature, was the currency of choice for illicit transactions. That reputation would haunt bitcoin in the years to come, partially leading to the Chinese government banning banks from transacting in bitcoin.
By 2014 the bitcoin hype was building, but so was the crypto chaos.
The cryptocurrency industry was still figuring out how to work, with crypto exchanges popping up and dropping off the map seemingly daily. 2014 was highlighted by a multimillion-dollar hack of crypto exchange Mt. Gox—the effects of which are still being felt today.
Attacks like the one against Mt. Gox would happen regularly, with targets like bitcoin exchanges Bitstamp and BTC-e. But it was also a year of hope, with both PayPal and Microsoft allowing bitcoin payments on their respective platforms for the very first time. It also saw the debut of bitcoin’s closest competitor: Ethereum’s ether.
Bitcoin spent most of 2015 consolidating higher slowly but surely. 2016 was more of the same, with bitcoin climbing from $445 at the beginning of the year to $936 by the end.
2017 was when things got weird.
Bitcoin began that year a hair above $1,000. But by December, the price had skyrocketed to above $19,000.
During the months between, bitcoin entered the public consciousness in a major way. Headlines touting “bitcoin millionaires” caught plenty of attention from retail investors who wanted in on the action, while crypto coders decided bitcoin shouldn’t be the only game in town. The debut of many Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s) featuring new, weird, colorful crypto projects injected the booming industry with over $2 billion in funding as everyday investors dove in headfirst.
Financial regulators took notice as well. Some, like then-IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, wrote that digital currencies could very well be the future of finance. Others, like the SEC, worried that it was too early for cryptocurrencies to be available to the broader investing public.
But everyone saw an opportunity for profit. Plenty of private bitcoin index funds and crypto hedge funds came on line, while bitcoin futures began trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange in December.
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However, the next few years made it seem like bitcoin’s heyday was behind it. Bitcoin occasionally enjoyed a pop, particularly in the summer of 2019, but the OG crypto fell lower and lower until the last time it was reasonably affordable: March 2020.
The pandemic changed everything
With lockdowns in place and traders’ pockets filled with stimulus checks, retail investors sought entertainment where they could. They found it in bitcoin, sending the cryptocurrency soaring from $5,182 in March 2020 all the way to $28,868 by the end of the year.
2021 was even wilder—Bitcoin rose as high as $63,500 in April, dropped as far as $29,800 in July, and regained all that lost ground to hit $67,500 in November.
Forget “crypto millionaires”—the world was introduced to crypto billionaires during these years.
Bitcoin surged on its promise as a hedge against currency debasement due to the influx of liquidity by central banks around the globe. But many called that thesis into question, such as Warren Buffett, who famously stated that bitcoin “has no value,” and that he would never own any.
Throughout it all, investors looked for new ways to invest in crypto. That took many different forms, from the rising popularity of memecoins like dogecoin, to digital assets like NFTs featuring drawings of rocks.
Institutions sought out ways to cash in as well. El Salvador famously adopted bitcoin as legal tender, China made strides on creating a digital renminbi, and BlackRock became one of the first major Wall Street firms to acknowledge bitcoin’s potential as real investment.
The modern era
2021 was a euphoric high for bitcoin, with celebrities as esteemed as Paris Hilton touting crypto investments, while NFTs flew off the digital shelves.
2022, however, was a terrible low. The “crypto winter” set in with fury, squelching crypto hopes and pushing the price of bitcoin down to $15,886 by November.
The problems seemed to be coming from all angles. Inflation was rising stateside, forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, curtailing both liquidity and risk appetite among investors. In China, the linchpin of the global crypto mining industry, the government moved to shutter mining operations.
Most problems, however, came from the crypto industry itself. Several cryptocurrencies that had flown higher in the last year suddenly collapsed in on themselves, such as Terra and Luna, crypto lender Celsius, as well as crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.
But the biggest domino to fall that year was crypto exchange FTX. The implosion of one of the most-trusted names in the crypto world sent shockwaves across the industry and spurred on a massive sell-off. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried would be convicted of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison, while bitcoin sank to just above $16,500 by the end of 2022.
Which brings us to today
Bitcoin spent most of 2023 gaining ground thanks to a higher appetite for risk from investors eager to profit from the AI boom. The crypto ended the year a bit above $42,100, and would enter this year on a hot streak.
2024 got off to a great start for bitcoin, with the SEC finally approving bitcoin ETFs. That allowed a surge of investing inflows that powered bitcoin higher, and investor enthusiasm was only heightened by the debut of ethereum ETFs in July.
Bitcoin rose as high as $73,000 in March, but spent the summer selling off before election season began in full. Republican candidate Donald Trump’s promises of a looser regulatory environment for all cryptocurrencies spurred a speculative buying spree that rose to a fever pitch on his election victory.
Since the conclusion of the US presidential election in early November, bitcoin has soared over 45% higher to just above $100,000.
As for where bitcoin goes from here, only time will tell.—MR