It’s sometimes easy to forget that Bitcoin (BTC) is just a teenager, launched in 2009 by the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto.
Since then, Bitcoin has seen a meteoric rise, increasing from fractions of a penny to an all-time high of nearly INR 56,96,689 in November 2021.
The big “B” was the best-performing asset class of the decade preceding that all-time high. Bitcoin returned more than 230% during the 10-year period ending in March 2021. For that reason alone, it’s now firmly entrenched in the mainstream.
But Bitcoin’s price journey has been far from smooth. The original digital currency has experienced many violent dips and pumps. Let’s take a closer look at the ups and downs of Bitcoin’s price history.
What Price Did Bitcoin Start At?
Bitcoin was originally worth next to nothing.
The transaction that first gave Bitcoin monetary value was in October 2009, when Finnish computer science student Martti Malmi, known online as Sirius, sold 5,050 coins for around INR 414.65, giving each Bitcoin a value of $0.0009 each.
The exchange took place on PayPal. That can be hard to believe, with so many crypto exchanges dedicated to buying and selling BTC nowadays.
Bitcoin’s Early Years: 2009 to 2012
The growth in BTC adoption in the early years started slow. If you look at Bitcoin’s pricing data on Google Finance, it only goes back to Nov. 20, 2015.
The early years were characterized by very little infrastructure, with only a few hobbyists buying and selling BTC.
“There was no action to speak of and no news cycle,” says Alex Preda, a professor of professions, markets, and technology at King’s Business School in London. “Bitcoin was a fringe phenomenon confined to a subculture of software engineering and not a financial phenomenon.”
The first “real world” transaction took place in May 2010 on a Bitcoin forum.
Posting to the bitcointalk.org forum, Florida native Laszlo Hanyecz enquired whether anyone…
