Original title: (From worthless to $2 trillion market value, Bitcoin's 16-year evolution)
Original source: Talking about Li and other things
If you want to choose an asset that has performed best over the past decade, there is no doubt that Bitcoin will be ranked first. Data shows that Bitcoin has been the best performing asset class in 8 of the past 11 years, as shown in the figure below.
So how did Bitcoin grow from being worthless to a market value of over $2 trillion? On the occasion of Bitcoin’s 16th anniversary, let’s take a look back at the evolution of Bitcoin over the past 16 years:
(1) The value of Bitcoin in 2009 was $0
On January 3, 2009 (January 4, 2009, 2:15 am Beijing time), Satoshi Nakamoto personally created the first block, the genesis block of Bitcoin, on a small server in Helsinki, Finland, and received the first 50 Bitcoins automatically generated by the system as a reward. The first Bitcoin was born. See the figure below.
At the same time, Nakamoto also embedded a message:
「The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks」
"The Times, 3 January 2009: Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"
Satoshi’s deliberate reference to the Times headline above also appears to reflect his commentary on the economic challenges of the time and the potential need for an alternative financial system.
(2) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2010 was $0.5
On May 22, 2010, Bitcoin received its first market value recognition, because on that day, a Bitcoin enthusiast named Laszlo Hanyecz used his 10,000 Bitcoins to buy two pizzas. As shown in the figure below.
At that time, the market value of the two pizzas was 30 US dollars. If calculated based on this value at the time, the price of 1 BTC would be equivalent to 0.003 US dollars. This very memorable experimental attempt was also the first time that BTC was artificially priced in the real world. Later, people also regarded May 22nd of each year as "Bitcoin Pizza Day."
As the summer of 2010 approached, 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 (which we will also mention below) was established. It was around this time that Bitcoin finally had its own "trading price". In October of the same year, the price of Bitcoin rose to $0.1, and in November it rose to a high of $0.5, then fell to $0.3, and then remained at this price of $0.3 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, and by the end of May 2011, the price directly rose to $8.89.
On June 1 of the same year, Gawker (an American Internet gossip website that was closed in 2016) published an article saying that Bitcoin was very popular on the Silk Road website, which further prompted Bitcoin to soar to US$27. The total market value of all Bitcoins in circulation at the time also reached US$130 million.
Note: The Silk Road website may be sensitive. You can Google for details. The website is a Hei City trading website that operated from 2011 to 2013 and allowed users to anonymously buy and sell various services or goods using Bitcoin, as shown in the figure below. This did bring Bitcoin to a wider audience at the time, but it was also a controversial website. In October 2013, the FBI arrested the person in charge of the website and shut down the website's operations, and also confiscated a large amount of Bitcoin.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2011 was $0.3, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2011 was $4.7, and the highest price in the same year was $31.9.
(4) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2012 was $15.4
Coinbase was officially established in June 2012. That year, only a few exchanges such as Mt.Gox and Bitstamp provided Bitcoin trading. 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 $4.7, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2012 was $13.5, and the highest price in the same year was $15.4.
(5) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2013 was $1,156.14
On November 30, 2013, Bitcoin broke through $1,000 for the first time, reaching $1,156.14, marking the first major bull market for Bitcoin. In the same year, Mt. Gox quickly became the largest exchange at the time. At that time, almost 7 out of every 10 Bitcoin transactions were completed on Mt. Gox.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2013 was $13.5, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2013 was $754.01, and the highest price in the same year was $1156.14.
(6) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2014 was $1,017.12
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 hacked and 850,000 bitcoins were stolen. This incident had a huge impact on Bitcoin at the time, causing a continuous drop in prices and arousing widespread concern about the security of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, it also triggered protests from some Bitcoin holders at the time, as shown in the figure below.
That same year, innovations like multi-signature wallets began to go mainstream, with just 0.02% of all Bitcoin being cryptographically secured using the technology at the start of 2014, but by the end of the year, that number had risen to 5%. In that same year, daily Bitcoin transactions using multi-signature increased 79-fold.
In March of the same year, the People’s Bank of China issued a notice on further strengthening the prevention of Bitcoin risks, requiring all banks and third-party payment institutions to close the accounts of domestic Bitcoin trading platforms. As shown in the figure below.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2014 was $754.97, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2014 was $320.19, and the highest price in the same year was $1017.12.
(7) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2015 was $495.56
This year is also the first real bear market that Bitcoin has experienced, but the price of Bitcoin is still rising, which also means that Bitcoin has begun to attract more and more attention, and some people and institutions are beginning to prepare for the next big wave of encryption, as shown in the figure below.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2015 was $320.43, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2015 was $430.57, and the highest price in the same year was $495.56.
(8) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2016 was $979.40
On July 9, 2016, Bitcoin experienced its second halving, with the block reward 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, when Huobi’s Li Lin was interviewed by CCTV in front of the camera, as shown in the picture below.
In addition, it was also during this year that the debate over Bitcoin’s scalability began to heat up as the community worked on SegWit and the Lightning Network, laying the foundation for the future development of Bitcoin.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2016 was $430.72, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2016 was $963.74, and the highest price in the same year was $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, which was also the largest crypto bull market people had experienced at that time. The price of Bitcoin successfully broke through 20,000 US dollars in this year, and the annual increase reached 1984.66%. It was also during this round of bull market that Dalong officially entered this circle and came into contact with Bitcoin. I remember that the first transaction was just a trial purchase of 2,000 RMB worth of cookies for fun.
At the same time, many important events also took place this year, such as:
On August 1, 2017, Segregated Witness was successfully activated, and the first forked coin of Bitcoin (Bitcoin Cash) appeared.
On September 4, 2017, the People’s Bank of China and seven other ministries and commissions jointly issued an announcement on preventing the risks of token issuance and financing, announcing that 1CO would be classified as an illegal financial activity and all related transactions in the country would be suspended. Later, this day was also known as the “94” incident in the cryptocurrency circle.
On September 14, 2017, six ministries and commissions jointly issued a document to shut down all cryptocurrency exchanges in China and no longer provide channels for RMB and cryptocurrency exchange. Subsequently, various exchanges went overseas and ushered in a new era of currency-to-currency trading and OTC trading.
On December 11, 2017, CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) started futures trading with XBT as the code for Bitcoin, which was also the first Bitcoin futures listed in the world.
On December 17, 2017, Bitcoin broke its then-all-time high, reaching $20,089.
In this round of bull market, due to the surge in Bitcoin and the 1CO wealth-making movement, many stories of getting rich quickly were born, and Bitcoin began to attract global attention.
In addition, this year, the exchange ranking war has also undergone relatively large changes. In addition to Huobi and OKCoin, which originated in the bull market of 2013, exchanges represented by Binance have also been established, and exchanges have entered an era of flourishing development.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2017 was $963.66, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2017 was $14156.40, and the highest price in the same year was $20089.
(10) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2018 was $17,712.40
With the collapse of the ICO craze, the first round of speculative frenzy has ended. With the prices of thousands of altcoins falling or returning to zero, the crypto market has ushered in a new round of bear market cycle. This year has also been called the "winter of cryptocurrency" by many people. However, even so, the price of Bitcoin has remained relatively stable overall. As shown in the figure below.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2018 was $14,112.20, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2018 was $3,742.70, and the highest price in the same year was $17,712.40.
Bitcoin has been around for exactly 10 years since Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper in 2008. Although it has experienced many twists and turns during this period, the world seems to be unable to stop Bitcoin anymore.
(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 begun to attract attention in 2019, and has made Bitcoin payments faster and cheaper. However, the Bitcoin market this year has been very frustrating. The price has been fluctuating with major events that have affected the industry, and it seems that it is constantly trying to switch between bull and bear markets.
2019 is also called the first year of DeFi by many people. Various DeFi products and business models have sprung up like mushrooms after rain this year, including MakerDao, Compound, dYdX, etc.
In addition, some important events occurred this year, such as:
In January 2019, Binance kicked off a new round of fundraising, which was also called 1E0 (Initial Exchange Offerings), marking the start of a new fundraising model in the cryptocurrency industry. See the figure below.
In June 2019, the Plus Token wallet (a Chinese project) was exposed and ran away, and the first CX fund in the cryptocurrency circle collapsed. As for the Plus Token fund, you can find the relevant story by searching Google.
In November 2019, Hangzhou Canaan Creative (the company was founded in 2013 and was the world's second largest Bitcoin Kuang machine manufacturer at the time) was listed on the Nasdaq, finally taking the first step for cryptocurrency to enter the traditional capital market. It is also known as the first blockchain stock.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2019 was $3,746.71, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2019 was $7,193.60, and the highest price in the same year was $13,796.49.
(12) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2020 was $29,244.88
After entering 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic 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 and was regarded by more and more people as "digital gold." Because after the Federal Reserve printed trillions of dollars to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, some investors have set their sights on Bitcoin, making Bitcoin a new financial force that can cope with inflation.
It was also from this year that MicroStrategy began to buy Bitcoin, setting off a wave of global corporate adoption of Bitcoin. This year also became the year that people longed for institutional funds to flow into Bitcoin.
Moreover, the DeFi Summer also started in this year, with Maker as the representative at the beginning. Later, with Compound launching its governance token COMP in June, the DeFi landscape changed and set off a wave of "yield farming". In September of the same year, Uniswap also carried out a large-scale airdrop.
In addition, an event that may need to be mentioned here is OKEx (now OKX). In October 2020, it was revealed that the founder of OKEx, Xu Mingxing, had been taken away by the domestic police to cooperate with the investigation. The OKEx platform suspended users from withdrawing coins. Affected by this news, mainstream cryptocurrencies fell across the board at the time, and BTC once fell below $11,200. (In fact, I used OK more frequently at the beginning, and after this incident, I didn’t use this exchange for a long time. However, with Xu Mingxing’s overseas expansion, the upgrade of the OKX brand, and OK’s seizing the opportunity to deploy wallets in 2023, the number of OK users is now increasing.)
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2020 was $7194.89, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2020 was $29001.72, and the highest price in the same year was $29244.88.
(13) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2021 is $68,789.63
2021 was also Bitcoin’s third major bull run, with Bitcoin hitting (nearly) $69,000 during the year, a new all-time high.
At the same time, many major events also took place this year, such as:
Musk was very active in this round of bull market. On January 29, 2021, Musk changed his Twitter profile to "#bitcoin", which caused the price of Bitcoin to rise by 18% that day to $38,000. And it was also under Musk's strong support that DOGE completed an increase of more than 16,000.00% and successfully became popular. What impressed me most was that I remember that those people in my circle of friends who had not paid attention to the crypto market before 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 came out, the price of Bitcoin reached a high of $56,563.72.
On April 13, 2021, Coinbase was listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, becoming the first listed cryptocurrency company in the United States.
Since May 2021, China has launched a series of multi-dimensional crackdowns on cryptocurrencies, including:
On May 18, the three associations issued an (Announcement on Preventing the Risk of Speculation in Virtual Currency Transactions), followed by the famous "519" crash, with the price of Bitcoin plummeting 40% in a single day, reaching a low of US$30,000.
On May 21, the Financial Stability and Development Committee of the State Council held its 51st meeting and emphasized in particular the need to crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading activities and resolutely prevent individual risks from spreading to the social field.
On May 26, the official website of the Development and Reform Commission of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region released (Eight Measures to Resolutely Crack Down on and Punish Virtual Currency "Mining").
On June 9, the Development and Reform Commission of Changji Prefecture, Xinjiang, issued a notice on the immediate suspension and rectification of enterprises engaged in virtual currency mining.
On June 9, the Qinghai Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on the cleanup and rectification of 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 a notice on the cleanup and closure of virtual currency "mining" projects.
On June 21, the People's Bank of China issued an announcement and interviewed some banks and payment institutions including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Postal Savings Bank of China, Industrial Bank and Alipay. Subsequently, major banks and Alipay responded and stated that they "will resolutely not carry out or participate in any business activities related to virtual currency."
On June 9, 2021, the South American country of El Salvador passed a bill to make Bitcoin a legal tender in the country. El Salvador is also the first country in the world to grant Bitcoin legal status.
On November 10, 2021, the price of Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $68,790.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2021 was $28,994.01, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2021 was $46,306.45, and the highest price in the same year was $68,789.63.
(14) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2022 is $48,086.84
This year, the price of Bitcoin has been falling, and the crypto market has once again ushered in a bear market. The collapse of Luna/UST and FTX has also hit people's confidence to a great extent, giving people the feeling that the bear market is long-lasting. However, it was also in this year that I decided to do something publicly, and finally chose the path of self-media and founded the self-media IP "Hua Li Hua Wai".
Several things that impressed me most this year:
Many people around me left this circle, and various communities began to become lifeless. This year I also chose to quit and block all circles and group messages. Most of the time I was alone writing and posting articles quietly.
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 the collapse of both LUNA and UST.
On July 14, 2022, Celsius, a well-known crypto lending platform, fell into a vicious cycle due to insolvency and eventually filed for bankruptcy protection.
On July 2, 2022, Three Arrows Capital filed for bankruptcy protection.
On November 9, 2022, the FTX exchange entered a complete collapse and filed for bankruptcy on November 11. I was also using this exchange at the time, but I had withdrawn most of the assets in it before that, so I didn't suffer any major losses.
Looking back, 2022 should be regarded as one of the most difficult years in the history of the crypto market. However, opportunities are often born in despair. It was from May 2022 that we started a new round of Bitcoin "20 Months" fixed investment plan, which we have reviewed and sorted out in detail in the previous article (January 1).
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2022 was $46,311.74, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2022 was $16,547.50, and the highest price in the same year was $48,086.84.
(15) The highest value of Bitcoin in 2023 is $44,705.52
For the crypto market, this year can be described as a difficult year, but for Hualihuawai, 2023 is also a year of rapid growth. Hualihuawai's articles have gone from being unknown and unread to gradually becoming a circle that can gather many like-minded partners for common attention. This year we also launched Hualihuawai'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 opportunity in 2024-2025, and many people at that time are also looking forward to the upcoming ETF approval.
In fact, many major events happened in 2023, such as:
The Bitcoin Ordinals protocol emerged in January, and soon after, the BRC-20 related concept became one of the most important new narratives of the year.
With the launch of Blur tokens in February, the NFT market ushered in a small climax again, and many people also made considerable profits by relying on Blur's airdrops.
In March, many people received airdrops from ARB, and the inscription became popular in a small area. However, most people seemed to be paying attention to American banks, because the American banking industry suffered a serious bank run crisis at that time, causing bank stock prices to plummet, and even some banks to go bankrupt (such as Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank).
April seems to be the month of Hong Kong, 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 issue a number of policies that are favorable to cryptocurrencies. In addition, the more important events should be the upgrade of Ethereum (Shanghai upgrade and Capella upgrade).
In May, the MemeCoin craze broke out. MemeCoin represented by Pepe the frog (PEPE token was launched on April 14, 2023) and its derivatives almost occupied the attention of all crypto circles. With the successful listing of PEPE on Binance on May 6, the market value of the coin also reached its historical high at that time.
In June, the SEC started making trouble again, but everyone seemed to be more concerned about whether CZ would go to jail. Some people were also paying attention to the progress of BlackRock's application for a spot Bitcoin ETF.
In July, Ripple won a phased victory in the lawsuit against the SEC, and the price of XRP rose from $0.47 to $0.82, setting a new high since January 2018. Influenced by this incident, several tokens that were previously identified as securities by the SEC in the SEC v. Coinbase case (such as SOL, MATIC, ADA, XLM, etc.) also rose significantly.
In August, Grayscale also won a lawsuit from the SEC, which seemed to have laid some foundation for the subsequent approval of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF application, as Grayscale's victory can be considered to have accelerated the SEC's approval boom.
In November, CZ decided to go to jail and signed a plea agreement. Binance also paid a fine of up to US$4.3 billion to the US Treasury.
December was the highlight of MemeCoin. Due to a large number of Ordinals transactions, the daily transaction fee of the Bitcoin network even exceeded that of Ethereum. Then the Meme craze of the Solana ecosystem started, and the MemeCoin movement of making (returning) rich (zero) broke out again.
The opening price of Bitcoin in January 2023 was $16,547.91, the closing price of Bitcoin in December 2023 was $42,265.19, and the highest price in the same year was $44,705.52.
(16) The maximum value of Bitcoin in 2024 is $108,268.45
This year we finally saw the long-awaited bull market again. The BTC ETF was officially approved in January, and the price of BTC successfully broke through $100,000 in December. These are new milestones for Bitcoin.
In the future, Bitcoin will also be unstoppable. As we mentioned in the previous article (January 1): The crypto field may usher in or begin to enter a new era, and each of us will become a participant and witness.
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