Crypto for newbies: what is the real price of Bitcoins

• Financial

The first exchange rate was dated October 5, 2009 and established the value of one dollar at 1,309.03 BTC. Bitcoin reached $1,000 for the first time on November 27, 2013. New historical records were reached on December 17, 2017, reaching $20,000 per Bitcoin.

The value then collapsed rapidly, falling below $8,000 in February 2018 and stabilizing around $6,000 for the rest of 2018. Since 2019, the value has fluctuated from a low of about $3,500 in January to over $40,000 dollars in December 2020.

On February 8, 2021, after Tesla's purchase of bitcoin for one and a half billion dollars, its value increases to over $69,000. Bitcoin has set a trading range of $68978 and $65458 to $43451 and $38664 after a correction in December 2021.

The total value of the Bitcoin economy, calculated in December 2012 was about 140 million US dollars, in April 2013 1.4 billion US dollars, in November 2013, with an exchange rate of 1 bitcoin = 540 USD, the value still rises to more than 6 billion US dollars.

The psychological threshold of 500 USD was reached for the first time on Mt. Gox on November 17, 2013 and only two days later, on the same exchange, the recorded value was 900 USD. The USD 1,000 mark was first reached on November 27 of the same year; in December 2017 Bitcoin reached new all-time highs in the USD 20,000 area; in 2021 the USD 50,000 value per unit of account was exceeded for the first time, this roughly coincided with the achievement of the USD 1 trillion market cap.

The bitcoin-based economy is still very small compared to long-established economies, and the software is still in a beta release state; however, real goods and services such as, for example, used cars or software development contracts are already traded in bitcoin.

Bitcoins are accepted for both online services and tangible goods. There are now many institutions, organizations and associations that accept donations in bitcoin; among many we can mention the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Pirate Bay, Free Software Foundation and also Wikimedia Foundation.

Since November 2013, the University of Nicosia, Cyprus has accepted bitcoin as a means of payment for tuition fees. Starting from 1 July 2016, in the city of Zug, the capital of one of the richest cantons in Switzerland, it is possible to pay in bitcoins for some public services, including healthcare and transport.

Some merchants, using exchange sites, allow you to exchange bitcoins for various currencies, including US dollars, euros, Russian rubles and Japanese yen. Anyone can check the list of bitcoin exchanges, known as the blockchain, and observe the transactions in real time. Several services are already available to facilitate these operations.