Last month, Bitcoin marked its 10th anniversary. Translating into 10 years since Satoshi Nakamoto published a whitepaper on the cryptocurrency.
In the paper, Satoshi envisioned a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash”. According to him, the currency would “would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another". All this would be achieved without going through a financial institution”.
Since then, the cryptocurrency has gone through one of the most volatile times. Though, on a macro scale, it has gone through a wonderful trend. Cruising from a market cap of $1 billion five years ago to now over $100 billion.
On a macro scale, Bitcoin's price has only shot up. The past 7 years have seen the price shoot up by 159%. Over the period of the past 5 years, this price increase was over 328%, 1,035% for the past 3 years and 455% over the past 2 years. Except for the past 12 months.
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This time last year, Bitcoin - the world’s most popular cryptocurrency - was on its way to approach a $10,000 mark. The figure was not only a record-breaking one, at that time, it also happened fast.
By December 15, last year, Bitcoin was on its way to hit the $20,000 mark after hitting $17,900 - its highest price to-date. It took the cryptocurrency close to four years to shoot from $500 to $1,000. Yet, it took less than 12 months to move from $1,000 to $10,000.
But, since then, the cryptocurrency has been on a downward spiral. After hitting its peak on December 15 last year, many thought it would hit the $20,000 mark. Instead, it dropped to $13,800 on December 22, 2017. By February 2018, the price had dropped almost by 50% to $6,200.
For the majority of 2018, Bitcoin has largely been on a downward trend. Except for February, April and June. In November this year, the cryptocurrency slumped to $4,000. With a further drop to below $4,000 - the first time it happened in the past 12 months. Compared to its peak of $17,000, this price drop is over 76% in a period of 11 months.
Since October last year, the price has dropped by 56% while the drop is at 42% for the past 6 months. In the past 30 days, the drop sits at 36% and 15% for the past week. In the past week, the Cryptocurrency hit its lowest price in the past year - at $3,493 on November 25, 2018. Though it has since recovered to over $4,000.
Despite the volatility and price drop, Bitcoin is sitting at a record number of wallets. By Q3 last year, there were 17 million Bitcoin wallets globally. Currently, Q3 2018, that number is close to 29 million.
In the last quarter of 2017, Bitcoin’s market cap peaked at $237 billion. Though, that was slashed by almost a half by close of Q1 this year. In Q2 2018, Bitcoin's market cap was at $101 billion. Though, like the number of wallets, the market cap witness a jump, to $114 billion by Q3 2018.