On June 5th, 2024, Bitcoin was priced over $71,121, and on June 24th, it currently sits at $59,825.40. That’s a drop of 15% in less than three weeks. What does this really mean, and is it the end of Bitcoin?
Let’s take a look at the history of Bitcoin (BTC), and see if this is truly a crash, or if it is just a highly volatile cryptocurrency going through its normal ebbs and flows. If we were to go back just a few years, we can see a pattern occur with BTC and its extreme changes. On August 12th, 2019, BTC was valued at $11,529.19. Just a few weeks later, on September 2nd of the same year, the price had fallen to $9,757.47 for a decrease of 15.37% in about a 20-day period. Prices fluctuated over the next several weeks, dipping as low as $7,153.66, in what many people likely thought that BTC was dead or dying.
However, Bitcoin continued to slowly increase up until a few weeks before its halving date in May of 2020. On March 16th, 2020, BTC dropped down to a very low of $5,385.23. That’s a total decrease of 53% in just a few months from when we started our 5-year journey of BTC.
After its halving in May of 2020, Bitcoin continued to increase, finally hitting over $11,000 in August. From there, it dipped a little but made upward progress week after week. BTC quickly exploded from $11,495 on October 19th, 2020, to $18,370.02 on November 23, 2020. Just a few weeks later, in early 2021, BTC jumped over $30,000. February led to BTC prices over $50,000 for the first time, while March led to $60,000 BTC prices.
Let’s evaluate another major dip in Bitcoin’s history. After hitting highs of over $60,000 in April of 2021, BTC plummeted to as low as $31,800.01 on July 19th of the same year. Where did it go from there? You guessed it, to new record highs in November of 2021 to over $65,000.
The story doesn’t end there, as much of 2022 saw Bitcoin with a low price. In 2022, Bitcoin price sat as low as $16,350, spending much of the year in the $17,000-23,000 range. After another relatively slow year, Bitcoin skyrocketed back up at the end of 2023, and in 2024, after another halving in April, BTC has been sitting at $60,000 for much of the year.
And that’s where we are today. Bitcoin is down 15%, and many are wondering if this is a crash. While it depends on how you define “crash,” this is more likely a volatile trading commodity doing what it does best: being volatile and leading everyone to pull their hair out. The truth is, we don’t know where Bitcoin will be in the next few days, or even in the next year. The trend shows upward movement, even if it does take a few years, it will likely either continue to increase in price, albeit over several years, or completely fail.
If you’re interested in tracking the price of Bitcoin, you can do it yourself and make your own judgment. Yahoo Finance is a great tool to see the history of a stock without any bias other than your own.
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