Bitcoin BTC/USD price history up until Dec 11, 2024

Bitcoin (BTC) price again reached an all-time high in 2024, as values exceeded over 73,000 USD in March 2024. That particular price hike was connected to the approval of Bitcoin ETFs in the United States, whilst previous hikes in 2021 were due to events involving Tesla and Coinbase, respectively. Tesla's announcement in March 2021 that it had acquired 1.5 billion U.S. dollars' worth of the digital coin, for example, as well as the IPO of the U.S.' biggest crypto exchange fueled mass interest. The market was noticably different by the end of 2022, however, with Bitcoin prices reaching roughly 101,173.03 as of December 11, 2024 after another crypto exchange, FTX, filed for bankruptcy.Is the world running out of Bitcoin?Unlike fiat currency like the U.S. dollar - as the Federal Reserve can simply decide to print more banknotes - Bitcoin's supply is finite: BTC has a maximum supply embedded in its design, of which roughly 89 percent had been reached in April 2021. It is believed that Bitcoin will run out by 2040, despite more powerful mining equipment. This is because mining becomes exponentially more difficult and power-hungry every four years, a part of Bitcoin's original design. Because of this, a Bitcoin mining transaction could equal the energy consumption of a small country in 2021.Bitcoin's price outlook: a potential bubble?Cryptocurrencies have few metrices available that allow for forecasting, if only because it is rumored that only few cryptocurrency holders own a large portion of available supply. These large holders - referred to as 'whales' - are said to make up of two percent of anonymous ownership accounts, whilst owning roughly 92 percent of BTC. On top of this, most people who use cryptocurrency-related services worldwide are retail clients rather than institutional investors. This means outlooks on whether Bitcoin prices will fall or grow are difficult to measure, as movements from one large whale already having a significant impact on this market.

比特币（BTC）价格于2024年再次触及历史新高，3月2024年的价值超过73,000美元。此次价格飙升与美国对比特币ETFs的批准密切相关，而2021年的先前涨幅则分别归因于特斯拉（Tesla）和Coinbase的事件。例如，特斯拉于2021年3月宣布已购买价值15亿美元的数字货币，以及美国最大的加密货币交易所的首次公开募股（IPO），这些都激起了公众的广泛关注。然而，到2022年底，市场发生了显著变化，比特币价格于2024年12月11日达到大约101,173.03美元，这得益于另一家加密货币交易所FTX申请破产。世界是否正在耗尽比特币？与美元等法定货币不同——美联储可以简单地决定印刷更多纸币——比特币的供应量是有限的：BTC在其设计中嵌入了一个最大供应量，其中大约89%已在2021年4月达到。尽管有更强大的采矿设备，但人们相信比特币将在2040年耗尽。这是因为根据比特币原始设计，每四年采矿难度会呈指数级增加，能耗也随之增长。因此，一笔比特币采矿交易可能相当于2021年一个小国的能源消耗。比特币的价格展望：是否存在泡沫？加密货币可用的计量指标很少，这限制了其预测能力，部分原因在于传闻只有少数加密货币持有者拥有大量可供使用的供应。这些大持有者，被称为“鲸鱼”，据说只占匿名所有权账户的2%，却拥有大约92%的BTC。此外，全球使用加密货币相关服务的大多数人都是零售客户，而不是机构投资者。这意味着对比特币价格是下跌还是上涨的预测难以衡量，因为一个大型鲸鱼的市场波动已经对这一市场产生了重大影响。