The history of Bitcoin’s price in recent months

Exactly one year ago, on 10 November 2021, the price of Bitcoin was making a new all-time high, surpassing $69,000 for the first time in its history. 

Binance‘s marketing team wanted to make a video that shows just how Bitcoin’s price trended from 1 October 2021 to 8 November 2022. 

The video shows at the bottom the classic graph with the price trend, while at the top it shows the comparison between the daily highs and lows so as to get a sense of the volatility. 

It shows how volatility remained particularly high during the weeks leading up to the peak, then faded once it touched. It then remained relatively low until February, when it rose a bit. 

Thereafter it was also quite high in May, and especially in June, when the price fell to $17,500. It then remained basically contained until November, when it surged. 

The result is that between yesterday and today the new annual low was touched, which also corresponds so far to the post-bubble low of the current cycle, at about $15,500, or 77% below the all-time high. 

Bitcoin’s price throughout its history: previous cycles

Bitcoin‘s current cycle began in May 2020, with the third halving, and will end in the spring of 2024 with the fourth. 

The first cycle, from January 2009 to November 2012, was too anomalous to be taken as a benchmark, but the next two can be used for comparisons. 

In all three cases so far, a speculative bubble arose the year after the halving. 

Post first halving, 2014

Following the first halving in November 2012, a mega speculative bubble was generated in 2013, which caused the price to skyrocket from $13 to over $1,100. The following year, Bitcoin’s first post-bubble bear market began. 

The price first fell as low as $360 in April 2014, and then as low as $330 in October. However, the decline continued until January 2015, when the post-bubble low was reached at $172. 

Then during the first phase of the decline, the price made a -67%, followed by a further -8% in the second phase that ended in October 2014. Thereafter, starting in mid-December, there was a third sharp decline of 48% that brought the post-bubble low to -85% from the previous all-time high. 

The bear market after $20,000, 2018

After the second halving in July 2016, another large speculative bubble was generated in 2017, thanks to which a new all-time high was recorded at $20,000 in December. 

In that case, the first collapse stopped as early as February 2018, when $6,000 was touched, with a loss of 70% from the highs. In other words, the percentage loss was similar to that of the first drop in 2014, although it was much faster. 

The second phase of decline in 2018 lasted until June, but merely brought the price back to just below $6,000. 

When comparing the cumulative falls from the highs of the first two phases of Bitcoin’s price decline in the previous two post-bubble bear markets, the result is always -70%. 

Just as in the previous cycle, a third phase of descent was triggered at the end of 2018, with a further collapse of 46%. The post-bubble low was touched in December 2018 at $3,200. Again, the post-bubble low was 85% lower than the previous all-time high. 

Bitcoin’s price history since the last halving, 2022

After the third halving in May 2020, the third post-halving speculative bubble was triggered, albeit to a lesser extent. It started as early as December 2020, and led to record a new high in November 2021 at $69,000. 

In 2022, this bubble also burst, with an initial phase of decline ending in January at $35,000. The loss from the highs at that point was 49 percent, which was lower in percentage terms than both the loss of the first phase of the bear market in 2014 and 2018. 

The second collapse of 2022 occurred between May and June, bringing the price down to $17,500, or -74% from the previous highs. 

Hence, the cumulative decline in the first two 2022 collapses was larger, in percentage terms, and faster than in 2014 and 2018. 

The third drop is still in progress. Should it stop at $15,500, touched yesterday, it would have been -77% significantly less than the -85% of the past two cycles. However, the lowest peak of the first post-bubble bear market occurred in January 2015 and the second in December 2018. So there is still time to do the same. 

The current situation

One important thing to say is that nothing this year seems to indicate that Bitcoin has any problems. 

For now, it is the crypto markets that have big problems, but not Bitcoin per se. 

Bitfinex market analysts, for example, state:

“As the digital token space is left reeling amid frenetic selling pressure, the unique premise of Bitcoin as a truly decentralised form of digital cash will become all the more apparent. While there will be much healing to be done after the apparent implosion of FTX, a supposed pillar of the digital token industry, the reasons that brought Bitcoin into being are as clear and resolute as ever.”

In 2018, the problem with the November crash was precisely an incredible increase in BTC selling pressure due to the so-called hashwar, whereas in 2014 there was almost only Bitcoin dominating the crypto markets. 

Thus the current situation is still very different from the past, and may even have different outcomes. 

On the other hand, while the bear markets of 2014 and 2018 have several things in common, that of 2022 seems slightly different, perhaps precisely due to the fact that Bitcoin is not having any kind of internal problems. The 2021 speculative bubble itself on Bitcoin was hugely less than the past two, whereas the same cannot be said for some altcoins that clearly grew too much last year. 

In conclusion, perhaps it could be argued that during this 2022 Bitcoin has actually not suffered all that much, when compared to the sufferings of previous bear markets, and that it might slowly come out stronger.