Looking back at the history of Bitcoin can be a bit like looking back at your high school yearbook. You’ll see some people you haven’t thought about in years, and it’ll be clear that they used to be much more attractive. But the past is the past, so let’s focus on how we got here. The cryptocurrency has lost 85 percent of its value since 2019, plummeting from $13,800 on January 1 to $1,300 today. Read more here for the complete guide to bitcoin trading.
The decline is especially hard to swallow, given that last year was an incredible time for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. In December 2017, Bitcoin reached an all-time high at $19,783 a nearly 30-fold increase over its price just one month earlier $4,150. That rapid growth led many people to believe that digital currencies were going mainstream.
So, some analysts predicted they would replace traditional money within ten years. But then Mt Gox collapsed in February and is being liquidated by its creditors. Japanese authorities reportedly arrested Mark Karpeles in connection with embezzlement. And now there’s the Silk Road shutdown affecting those who bought into this market long before it became trendy again and anyone else who invested after 2014 but before these recent events took place.
Bitcoin (BTC) is down by 85 percent this year.
Bitcoin has lost 85 percent of its value this year. The cryptocurrency has plummeted from $19,000 at the start of the year to less than $3,000 in recent months. Bitcoin’s crash was about 70 percent in the last three months alone. It started falling on January 25 when it hit $12,000 and has since fallen by 65%.
Since January 1 this year, Bitcoin has seen a 60% drop in value, meaning that if you purchased $100 worth of bitcoin at the beginning of 2019, it would now be worth around $40.
In early May, bitcoin prices fell from $230 to $100 in less than two weeks. In June, Bitcoin’s price recovered to $240 but has declined since then. As of this writing, the price of bitcoin is currently $700, down from an all-time high of nearly $20,000 in December 2017.
In the first week of April, the crypto market was crashing. Within two weeks it dropped again to $130 before recovering to a high of $240. The price has since dropped again and is now hovering around $700. Bitcoin’s volatility is a fact of life, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore all your other investments when it comes time to rebalance your portfolio every year.
Bitcoin’s current value is around $700, roughly half the peak price in December 2013. And while bitcoin has risen this year, it’s still less than half of where it was at its peak in 2014 and 85% down from where it was in 2013.
The SEC said that between 2011 and 2014, Garza and Zaslavskiy allegedly raised more than $20 million from investors by promising revenue-sharing payments from their purported mining operations. According to the SEC’s complaint: “there were no actual operations and no revenue generation at all.”
There are plenty of lessons to be learned from the history of Bitcoin. It is not a safe investment, nor can it be considered a currency or store of value. Unlike gold or silver, Bitcoin is not backed by any government and has no intrinsic value. It does not have the same properties as fiat currencies like the US dollar or Chinese yuan. These currencies are tied to tangible assets such as gold reserves held at central banks worldwide.
Final Words
If you’re looking to invest in Bitcoin, it might be best to do so cautiously. The currency has seen its value fluctuate wildly over the past few years, which is unlikely to change soon. However, if you believe that Bitcoin is here to stay and with its current market capitalization at $70 billion, it seems likely that it will survive, at least for now, then buying some now might be a good idea.