From worthless to a market capitalization of US$2 trillion, Bitcoin’s 16-year evolution

Article source: Hua Li Huawai

If one were to choose an asset that has performed best over the past decade or so, Bitcoin would undoubtedly be at the top of the list. Data shows that Bitcoin has been the best-performing asset class in 8 of the past 11 years, as shown in the chart below.

So, how did Bitcoin grow from worthless to over $2 trillion in market capitalization? On the occasion of the 16th anniversary of the birth of Bitcoin , we might as well review the evolution of Bitcoin in the past 16 years:

(1) The value of Bitcoin in 2009 was $0

On January 3, 2009 (2:15 a.m. on January 4, 2009, Beijing time), Satoshi Nakamoto personally created the first block, the creation of Bitcoin, on a small server in Helsinki, Finland. block, and received the first 50 Bitcoin rewards automatically generated by the system, and the first Bitcoin was born. As shown below.

At the same time, Satoshi Nakamoto also embedded a piece of information:

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”

“The Times 3 January 2009 Chancellor on the verge of second bank bailout”

Satoshi’s deliberate reference to The Times headline above also appears to reflect his comments on the economic challenges of the time and the potential need for alternative financial systems.

(2) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2010 was $0.5

On May 22, 2010, Bitcoin received its first recognition of market value, because on that day, a Bitcoin enthusiast named Laszlo Hanyecz used 10,000 Bitcoins in his hand to buy two pizzas. As shown below.

At that time, the market value of these two pizzas was US$30. If calculated based on this value at the time, the price of 1 BTC would be equivalent to US$0.003 . This very memorable experimental attempt was also the first time for BTC It was artificially priced in the real world, and later people also regarded May 22nd every year as "Bitcoin Pizza Day".

As the summer of 2010 entered, Bitcoin began to generate small-scale communication/trading activities among a very niche circle of technical experts and financial enthusiasts. At that time, the BitcoinTalk forum was the main discussion and communication platform for these people.

In July 2010, Mt. Gox (Mentougou, we will also mention this exchange below) was established. From about this time, Bitcoin finally had its own "transaction price". By the same year In October, the price of Bitcoin rose to US$0.1. In November, it rose to a maximum of US$0.5, and then fell to US$0.3. The price of US$0.3 remained until the end of the year.

The price of Bitcoin was $0 in January 2010, $0.3 in December 2011, and the highest price in the same year was $0.5.

(3) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2011 was $31.9

In January 2011, the trading price of Bitcoin exceeded $1 for the first time, and was subsequently published and reported by Forbes magazine, marking an important milestone. The price of Bitcoin was catalyzed to a certain extent. By the end of May 2011, the price That jumps right up to $8.89.

On June 1 of the same year, the Gawker website (an American Internet gossip website that was shut down in 2016) published an article saying that Bitcoin was very popular on the Silk Road website, further prompting Bitcoin to soar to $27, all of which were at the time. The total market price of Bitcoin in circulation has also reached $130 million.

Note: The Silk Road website may be relatively sensitive. You can find out the detailed introduction on Google. This website belongs to the Hei City trading website and was operated from 2011 to 2013. It allows users to use Bitcoin to anonymously purchase and Sell ​​various services or goods, as shown in the image below. This did bring Bitcoin to a wider audience at the time, but it was also a site that was always controversial. In October 2013, the US FBI arrested the person in charge of the website and shut down its operations. It also confiscated a large amount of Bitcoin.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2011 was US$0.3, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2011 was US$4.7, and the highest price in the same year was US$31.9.

(4) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2012 was $15.4

Coinbase was officially established in June 2012. In that year, there were only a few exchanges that provided Bitcoin trading, such as Mt. Gox and Bitstamp. On November 28 of the same year, Bitcoin experienced its first halving , with the block reward halved from 50 BTC to 25 BTC. This event also laid the foundation for Bitcoin’s scarcity-driven value.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2012 was US$4.7, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2012 was US$13.5, and the highest price in the same year was US$15.4.

(5) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2013 was $1156.14

On November 30, 2013, Bitcoin exceeded US$1,000 for the first time , reaching US$1,156.14, which also marked Bitcoin 's first major bull market . In the same year, Mt. Gox also quickly emerged as the largest exchange at the time. At that time, almost 7 out of 10 Bitcoin transactions were completed on Mt. Gox.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2013 was US$13.5, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2013 was US$754.01, and the highest price in the same year was US$1,156.14.

(6) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2014 was $1017.12

One of the important events that happened this year was the collapse of Mt. Gox . In February 2014, Mt. Gox declared bankruptcy because it was attacked by hackers, resulting in the theft of 850,000 Bitcoins. The incident had a huge impact on Bitcoin at the time, triggering a continued price decline and raising widespread concerns about the security of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, it also triggered protests from some Bitcoin holders at the time, as shown in the picture below.

It was also the same year that innovations such as multi-signature wallets began to become mainstream. At the beginning of 2014, only 0.02% of Bitcoins utilized this technology for cryptographic security. By the end of the same year, this number increased to 5%, and within a year, The volume of daily Bitcoin transactions conducted with multi-signatures has also increased by 79 times.

In March of the same year, the People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening Bitcoin Risk Prevention", requiring banks and third-party payment institutions to close the accounts of domestic Bitcoin trading platforms. As shown below.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2014 was US$754.97, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2014 was US$320.19, and the highest price in the same year was US$1,017.12.

(7) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2015 was $495.56

This year was also the first real bear market that Bitcoin experienced, but the price of Bitcoin is still rising, which also means that Bitcoin has begun to be paid attention to by more and more people, and some people and institutions are paying attention to it. Start preparing for the next big wave of crypto. As shown below.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2015 was US$320.43, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2015 was US$430.57, and the highest price in the same year was US$495.56.

(8) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2016 was $979.40

On July 9, 2016, Bitcoin 's second halving occurred , and the block reward was halved from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC. On April 28 of the same year, the famous gaming platform Steam announced that it would accept Bitcoin payments.

This year, Bitcoin even appeared on CCTV. At that time, Li Lin of Huobi was interviewed by CCTV in front of the camera, as shown in the picture below.

In addition, it was also during this year that as the community worked on SegWit and Lightning Network, the scalability debate of Bitcoin also began to heat up, which laid the foundation for the future development of Bitcoin.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2016 was US$430.72, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2016 was US$963.74, and the highest price in the same year was US$979.40.

(9) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2017 was $20,089

This year, Bitcoin ushered in its second bull market since its birth . It was also the largest crypto bull market that people had ever experienced at that time. The price of Bitcoin successfully exceeded US$20,000 this year, and the annual increase reached 1984.66 %. It was during this bull market that Dalong officially entered the industry and came into contact with Bitcoin. I remember that his first purchase was just a tentative purchase of 2,000 RMB pancakes.

At the same time, many important events also occurred this year, such as:

On August 1, 2017, Segregated Witness was successfully activated, and the first fork of Bitcoin (i.e. Bitcoin Cash) appeared.

On September 4, 2017, the People's Bank of China and seven other ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Announcement on Preventing Token Issuance Financing Risks", announcing that ICOs would be classified as illegal financial activities and all related domestic transactions would be suspended . Later, this day was also called the "94" incident in the currency circle.

On September 14, 2017, six ministries and commissions once again jointly issued a document announcing the closure of all domestic cryptocurrency exchanges and no longer able to provide exchange channels for RMB and cryptocurrency. Subsequently, various exchanges went overseas one after another and opened a new era of currency trading and OTC trading .

On December 11, 2017, CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) used XBT as the code for Bitcoin for futures trading, which was also the first Bitcoin futures listed in the world .

On December 17, 2017, Bitcoin broke through the then all-time high, with the price reaching $20,089 .

In this round of bull market, due to the skyrocketing price of Bitcoin and the wealth creation movement of ICO, many stories of sudden wealth were born, and Bitcoin began to attract global attention.

In addition, this year, the exchange ranking battle has also undergone relatively big changes. In addition to Huobi and OKCoin, which originated from the bull market in 2013, exchanges represented by Binance have also been established one after another. The exchanges have presented an era in which a hundred flowers bloom. .

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2017 was US$963.66, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2017 was US$14,156.40, and the highest price in the same year was US$20,089.

(10) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2018 was $17,712.40

With the collapse of the ICO craze, it also marked the end of the first round of speculation. As the prices of thousands of altcoins fell or returned to zero, the crypto market ushered in a new bear market cycle. This year was also Many are calling it the “crypto winter,” but even so, Bitcoin’s price has remained relatively flat overall. As shown below.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2018 was US$14,112.20, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2018 was US$3,742.70, and the highest price in the same year was US$17,712.40.

It has been exactly 10 years since Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper in 2008. Although it has experienced many twists and turns during this period, it seems that the world can no longer stop Bitcoin.

(11) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2019 was $13,796.49

With the launch of the Lightning Network on the Bitcoin mainnet in March 2018, after a period of development, the Lightning Network has attracted attention from some people in 2019 and can already make Bitcoin payments faster and cheaper. But this year, the Bitcoin market has been very frustrating. The price has been ups and downs with major events affecting the industry, and it seems that there are constant attempts to convert between bull and bear.

2019 is also called the first year of DeFi by many people . Various DeFi products and business models have sprung up during this year, including MakerDao, Compound, dYdX, etc.

In addition, some more important events occurred this year, such as:

In January 2019, Binance kicked off a new round of fundraising frenzy. This model was also called 1E0 (Initial Exchange Offerings), which also marked the beginning of a new fundraising model in the currency circle. As shown below.

In June 2019, as the Plus Token wallet (Chinese project) was exposed and ran away, the number one CX fund in the currency circle collapsed. Regarding the Plus Token capital disk, you can find the corresponding story by just searching Google.

In November 2019, Hangzhou Canaan Yunzhi (the company was founded in 2013 and was the world's second largest Bitcoin wallet manufacturer) was listed on Nasdaq, finally taking the first step for cryptocurrency to enter the traditional capital market. One Step, also known as the first blockchain stock.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2019 was US$3,746.71, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2019 was US$7,193.60, and the highest price in the same year was US$13,796.49.

(12) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2020 is $29244.88

After entering 2020, as the COVID-19 epidemic brought uncertainty to the global economy, the crypto market began to usher in another important moment of its own. Bitcoin began to shine like digital gold, being overtaken. More and more people regard it as “digital gold”. Because after the Federal Reserve printed trillions of dollars to fight the new crown epidemic, some investors have invested in Bitcoin, making Bitcoin a new financial force that can cope with inflation.

It was also from this year that as MicroStrategy began to purchase Bitcoin, it also set off a wave of global companies adopting Bitcoin. This year has also become the year of long-awaited institutional capital inflows into Bitcoin.

Moreover, the DeFi craze (DeFi Summer) also started this year , initially represented by Maker. Later, with Compound launching its governance token COMP in June, the DeFi landscape changed and set off a round of " Yield farming” craze. In September of the same year, Uniswap also conducted a large-scale airdrop.

In addition, an incident that may need to be mentioned here is OKEx (now OKX). In October 2020, it was revealed that OKEx founder Xu Mingxing had been taken away by domestic police to cooperate with the investigation. The OKEx platform suspended user withdrawals. Affected by this news, At that time, mainstream cryptocurrencies fell across the board, and BTC once fell below $11,200. (In fact, the first exchange I used more frequently was OK. After this incident, I didn’t use this exchange for a long time. However, with the subsequent overseas expansion of Xu Mingxing, the upgrade of the OKX brand, and OK’s seizing the opportunity of 2023 There are wallet layout opportunities in the years, and now the number of OK users is getting higher and higher.)

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2020 was US$7,194.89, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2020 was US$29,001.72, and the highest price in the same year was US$29,244.88.

(13) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2021 is $68,789.63

2021 was also the third major bull run for Bitcoin , which saw Bitcoin hit (nearly) $69,000, a new all-time high.

At the same time, many major events also occurred this year, such as:

Musk has been very active in this round of bull market. On January 29, 2021, Musk changed his personal profile on Twitter to "#bitcoin", causing the price of Bitcoin to increase by 18% that day. to $38,000. And it was precisely under Musk’s strong support that DOGE completed an increase of more than 16,000.00% and successfully broke out of the circle. What impressed me deeply was that I remember those people in the circle of friends who had not paid attention to the crypto market before. Everyone also started discussing DOGE.

On February 8, 2021, Tesla announced that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and also stated that it would consider accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for its products (cars). On the day the news appeared, the price of Bitcoin reached a maximum of $56,563.72.

On April 13, 2021, Coinbase was listed on the Nasdaq Exchange, becoming the first listed cryptocurrency company in the United States .

Starting in May 2021, China has continuously launched a multi-dimensional crackdown on cryptocurrencies , including:

On May 18, the three associations issued the "Announcement on Preventing the Risks of Speculation in Virtual Currency Transactions," and then ushered in the famous "519" crash. The price of Bitcoin plummeted 40% in a single day, reaching a minimum of $30,000.

On May 21, the Financial Stability and Development Committee of the State Council held its 51st meeting and specifically emphasized the need to crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading activities and resolutely prevent individual risks from being transmitted to the social sector.

On May 26, the official website of the Development and Reform Commission of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region released the "Eight Measures to Resolutely Combat and Punish Virtual Currency "Mining"".

On June 9, the Xinjiang Changji Prefecture Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice on Immediate Suspension of Production and Rectification of Virtual Currency Mining Enterprises."

On June 9, the Qinghai Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Cleaning up and Rectifying Virtual Currency "Mining" Projects" and launched a cleanup and rectification of relevant virtual currency mining activities.

On June 18, the Sichuan Provincial Development and Reform Commission and the Sichuan Provincial Energy Bureau issued the "Notice on Cleaning up and Shutting down Virtual Currency "Mining" Projects"

On June 21, the People's Bank of China issued an announcement and interviewed some banks and payment institutions such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Postal Savings Bank, Industrial Bank and Alipay. Subsequently, major banks and Alipay responded and stated that " We will definitely not carry out or participate in any business activities related to virtual currencies."

On June 9, 2021, the South American country El Salvador passed a bill making Bitcoin a legal tender in the country. El Salvador was also the first country in the world to give Bitcoin legal status.

On November 10, 2021, the price of Bitcoin hit a record high, reaching $68,790.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2021 was US$28,994.01, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2021 was US$46,306.45, and the highest price in the same year was US$68,789.63.

(14) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2022 is $48086.84

The price of Bitcoin has been falling this year, and the crypto market has once again ushered in a bear market. The collapse of Luna/UST and FTX has also greatly affected people's confidence, giving people the impression of a long bear market. But it was also during this year that I decided to do something publicly, and finally chose the path of self-media and founded the self-media IP of Hua Li Hua Wai.

A few things that impressed me deeply this year:

Many people around me have left this circle, and various communities have begun to become lifeless. This year, I also chose to quit and blocked all circles and group messages. Most of the time, I quietly write articles and Post an article.

On February 24, 2022, the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out .

From May 7 to May 13, 2022, UST, the leading algorithmic stablecoin at the time, experienced two decouplings and eventually fell into a death spiral, causing both LUNA and UST to collapse.

On July 14, 2022, Celsius, a well-known crypto lending platform, fell into a vicious cycle due to insolvency and finally filed for bankruptcy protection.

On July 2, 2022, Three Arrows Capital filed for bankruptcy protection.

On November 9, 2022, the FTX exchange entered a full collapse and submitted a bankruptcy application on November 11. I was also using this exchange at the time, but I had already withdrawn most of the assets there without any major losses.

From a comprehensive review, 2022 should be regarded as one of the most bumpy years in the history of the encryption market. However, opportunities are often born out of despair. It is also from May 2022 that we have started a new round of Bitcoin "20-month" fixed investment plan, which we have already mentioned in the previous article (January 1) There has been a detailed review and sorting out .

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2022 was US$46,311.74, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2022 was US$16,547.50, and the highest price in the same year was US$48,086.84.

(15) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2023 is $44705.52

For the encryption market, this year can be said to be a relatively difficult year, but for Hua Li Huawai, 2023 is also a year of rapid growth. Hua Li Huawai’s articles began to go from obscurity to no one read them. It has become a circle that can gather the common attention of many like-minded partners. This year we also launched Hua Li Huawai’s first e-book " Advanced Blockchain Thinking ".

Although the market is still experiencing a bear market this year, the fundamentals of Bitcoin have not been shaken. Many people (including me) are looking forward to the big bull market opportunities in 2024-2025, and many people at that time were also concerned about the possible upcoming ETF approval. At the same time full of expectations.

In fact, many big events will happen in 2023, such as:

The Bitcoin Ordinals protocol appeared in January, and soon after, BRC-20 related concepts became one of the most important new narratives of the year.

With the launch of the Blur token in February, the NFT market ushered in a new wave of climax, and at the same time, many people made considerable profits relying on Blur's airdrops.

In March, many people received airdrops from ARB, and the inscription also became popular on a small scale. However, most people's attention seems to be focused on the banks of the United States, because at that time the banking industry in the United States encountered a serious run crisis, causing the bank's stock price to plummet, and even individual banks directly collapsed (such as Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed one after another).

April seems to be Hong Kong month, because the Global Blockchain Conference was held in Hong Kong at that time, and Hong Kong also took the opportunity to announce that it would enact a number of policies that are beneficial to cryptocurrency. In addition, the more important event should be the upgrade of Ethereum (Shanghai upgrade and Capella upgrade).

MemeCoin craze broke out in May. MemeCoin, represented by Pepe the Frog ( PEPE token will be launched on April 14, 2023 ) and derived from various images, has almost occupied the attention of all crypto circles. As PEPE successfully logged into Binance on May 6, the market value of the currency also reached its highest price in history at that time.

The SEC started making trouble again in June, but everyone seems to be more concerned about whether CZ will go to jail. Some people are also concerned about the progress of BlackRock's application for a spot Bitcoin spot ETF.

In July, Ripple won a staged victory in the lawsuit with the SEC, and the price of XRP also rose from $0.47 to $0.82, setting a new high since January 2018. Affected by this incident, several tokens (such as SOL, MATIC, ADA, XLM, etc.) that were previously recognized as securities by the SEC in the SEC v. Coinbase case also experienced good gains.

In August, Grayscale also won a lawsuit from the SEC, which seemed to have laid some foundation for the subsequent application of BlackRock’s Bitcoin spot ETF, because Grayscale’s victory can be considered to have accelerated the SEC’s approval boom.

In November, CZ decided to go in and eat lunch. He signed a plea agreement and Binance also paid a fine of up to $4.3 billion to the US Treasury Department.

December was the highlight moment for Inscription. Due to a large number of Ordinals transactions, the single-day transaction fee of the Bitcoin network even exceeded that of Ethereum. Then the Meme craze of the Solana ecosystem started, and the MemeCoin movement to create (return) wealth (zero) broke out again.

The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2023 was US$16,547.91, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2023 was US$42,265.19, and the highest price in the same year was US$44,705.52.

(16) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2024 is $108,268.45

This year we finally had the long-awaited bull market again. The BTC ETF was officially approved in January, and the price of BTC successfully exceeded $100,000 in December . These are new milestones for Bitcoin.

In the future, Bitcoin will also be unstoppable. As we mentioned in our previous article (January 1): The encryption field may usher in or begin to enter a new era, and each of us will become a participant and witness .

The above are only some of my personal records and memories. There may be some omissions. If I missed anything important, you are welcome to leave a message in the comment area to add it. Thank you~