Bitcoin broke the $100,000 mark for the first time – a journey that took 15 years.
Hitting the much-lauded $100,005 mark this morning, the cryptocurrency has officially jumped more than 159% from its low of $38,505 earlier this year. It is the largest cryptocurrency to date with a market capitalization of about $2 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap — more than the GDP of Spain.
Bitcoin made an initial rout of $100,000 on Nov. 25, but bounced back to just over $98,000 amid massive profit-taking by long-time holders, according to analytics company Glassnode. It hit the $98,000-plus mark again on Thanksgiving Friday, before falling.
However, after another breather, BTC finally crossed $100,000 today. The new record appears to have been triggered by the announcement of President-elect Donald Trump selected by Paul Atkinspro-crypto candidate, to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Atkins will replace current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who has earned the ire of the crypto world by filing multiple lawsuits against crypto companies.
However, the digital coin was not always highly valuable. Through more than a decade of highs, lows, lows and euphoric highs, the coin has persevered and has now reached the six-figure mark that few, except true Bitcoin believers, ever expected.
How did we get here?
Origin of Bitcoin
The idea for Bitcoin was proposed by an anonymous individual or group of individuals named Satoshi Nakamoto during the 2008 recession. ua white paperNakamoto outlined his vision of a peer-to-peer currency that existed outside the control of major financial institutions and governments.
Using a new technology called blockchain, Nakamoto created a digital coin powered by miners that help maintain a transparent public ledger where anyone could watch transactions as they happen. In 2009, the first block was mined on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Because Bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million coins and a mechanism that halves the reward for miners roughly every four years, the asset is deflationary — meaning each new token becomes more expensive — and many have turned to it as a store of value, similar to gold.
The first known Bitcoin transactions
But it was a slow start for the newly created digital money at first. Although the cryptocurrency attracted followers and developers who helped it grow, it still wasn’t worth much and was hardly accepted anywhere as a real currency.
On May 22, 2010, Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made a deal with another user on a Bitcoin forum to accept Bitcoin for pizza. In what would later become one of the most infamous bitcoin transactions, Hanyecz sent a forum member 10,000 Bitcoins, worth about $41 at the time, for two pizzas worth about $25, according to On gasoline. 10,000 Bitcoins would be worth about a billion dollars at today’s new record price.
In 2019, Hanyecz told 60 minutes he wasn’t too upset about what now looks like a one-sided deal. The crypto community still celebrates every May 22nd as “Bitcoin Pizza Day,” and Hanyecz more than agrees.
“It’s pretty cool to have a holiday in my honor,” he said 60 minutes.
Earn some recognition
In 2012, the first Bitcoin halving reduced mining rewards and slowed the coin supply. By 2013, the price of Bitcoin exceeded $100 for the first time.
At the time, financial regulators began to take notice of the fledgling currency—but not always in a good way. Many regulators and financial giants, such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimonhe saw digital currency as limited to enabling illegal transactions. They noticed that it was heavily used on the anonymous black market platform Silk Road, which he created Ross Ulbrichtwhich was known on the internet as “The Dread Pirate Roberts.” The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) also released its own first guidelines on digital currencies in 2013, warning users that Bitcoin transactions could attract the attention of law enforcement. In the same year, China banned financial institutions from using Bitcoin.
The first Bitcoin boom
Partly because 2014 collapse of crypto exchange Mt. Gox— the biggest of its time — the cryptocurrency experienced a wave of skepticism and a sell-off. But Bitcoin first saw a hint of a boom in 2017, when its price broke through $19,000 for the first time.
Institutions have also started diving into the crypto world. In 2017, the first futures contract traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange flooding the CBOE website. Later that year, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange also launched its own Bitcoin Futures contract.
Another tailwind during that time was ICO (initial coin offering) boom. A host of new digital coins—not necessarily related to Bitcoin—emerged, and many investors bought in to speculate. However, while many of these coins later disappeared, Bitcoin, as the original cryptocurrency with robust mechanisms to protect its value, remained, although by 2018 its price was (again) in a downward spiral.
Bitcoin Pandemic Rush
In 2020, Michael Saylor, co-founder and then-CEO of MicroStrategy, began quietly hoarding Bitcoin through his business intelligence company. MicroStrategy first invested $250 million in the coin, but has since invested much of its money in property and its holdings they are now at least $30 billion.
Then Bitcoin saw another boom in 2021, after the pandemic kept people in their homes, where they naturally gravitated to meme stocks and digital currencies. The coin reached a record high at the time of $60,000 and attracted new investors such as Elon Musk’s Tesla and the state of El Salvador, headed by President Nayib Bukele, a Bitcoin enthusiast. El Salvador is now reportedly the owner more than 500 million dollars Bitcoin.
Why is Bitcoin going up now?
Coin got a boost in January this year after the Securities and Exchange Commission granted the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which directly track the price of the cryptocurrency. ETFs have helped boost the price of Bitcoin by making it much more accessible to retail investors who have had an easier time dealing with traditional financial institutions.
In recent weeks, the price of Bitcoin has exploded, especially after Donald Trump won the US presidential election. Investors expect Trump to be more cryptocurrency-friendly, a marked shift from the often antagonistic stances taken by the Biden administration’s SEC chairman, Gary Gensler.
Earlier this week, Gensler said he would depart when Trump takes office on January 20. Among Trump’s proposals for Bitcoins are a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and creation crypto advisory council which could include top US crypto companies.
Trump’s tariff proposals they also likely sent investors flocking to store-of-value assets like Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation.
