Crypto winter: 2018
The euphoria of 2017 did not last. The price fell throughout 2018, reaching about $3,200 in December, more than 80% below its peak. Long slumps like this came to be called crypto winter.
In Japan, January 2018 brought the Coincheck hack, in which about 58 billion yen (around $530 million) of a cryptocurrency called NEM, not bitcoin, was stolen from a major exchange. Reported at the time as the largest theft ever, it showed that the lessons of Mt. Gox had not been fully learned, and the Financial Services Agency tightened its supervision of exchanges.
Development did not stop during the winter. The Lightning Network, built for fast small payments, went live in 2018, part of a steady effort to make Bitcoin practical as everyday money.
Facebook's challenge and the governments' answer
In June 2019 Facebook (now Meta) announced plans for its own digital currency, Libra. The prospect of a company with billions of users issuing money alarmed governments and central banks worldwide. Libra was scaled back repeatedly and finally abandoned in 2022.
Ironically, the affair highlighted that Bitcoin has nobody to stop. A corporate currency can be blocked by governments; Bitcoin cannot. It also pushed central banks to start researching their own digital currencies, known as CBDCs.
The COVID crash and the institutional era
On 12 March 2020 the global spread of COVID-19 sent financial markets into panic, and bitcoin fell about 40% in a day to roughly $3,800.
Then governments flooded their economies with stimulus money, and worries that currencies would lose value drove funds into the one asset with a fixed supply. This time the buyers were not only individuals.
- August 2020: the US-listed company MicroStrategy began buying bitcoin with its corporate treasury.
- October 2020: PayPal let US customers buy and sell bitcoin.
- February 2021: Tesla announced it had bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin.
In April 2021 the price reached about $64,000 and Coinbase, the largest US exchange, listed on the stock market. The "shady" asset was becoming part of Wall Street.
The institutional era
Wall Street starts to move.
2020.8
MicroStrategy
Buys bitcoin with its corporate treasury
2020.10
PayPal
Lets US customers buy and sell bitcoin
2021.2
Tesla
Buys $1.5 billion of bitcoin
2021.4
Coinbase
The largest US exchange goes public
A nation adopts it: El Salvador
On 7 September 2021 El Salvador, a small country in Central America, became the first nation to make bitcoin legal tender. The country had no currency of its own and used the US dollar; its stated aims included cutting the fees its citizens abroad paid to send money home.
The International Monetary Fund voiced strong concern and there was opposition at home. Everyday use never took off, and in 2025, as part of an agreement with the IMF, bitcoin's status as legal tender was effectively rolled back. Even so, the idea of a state adopting Bitcoin had become real, and that was a turning point.
A record high, then the 2022 collapse
On 10 November 2021 the price hit a record of about $69,000. The same month the Taproot upgrade activated, improving privacy and efficiency.
Then 2022 brought a chain of failures across the crypto industry. In May a project called Terra collapsed, dragging down companies connected to it, and in November the major US exchange FTX went bankrupt. It emerged that customer deposits had been funnelled into an affiliated trading firm, and the founder was later convicted. The price fell to about $16,000.
Mt. Gox, Coincheck, FTX. In every case what broke was a company holding people's bitcoin, not Bitcoin itself. The Bitcoin network has kept running almost without interruption since 2009.
A repeating pattern
What broke was always
the custodian.
About 850,000 BTC lost
About $530M of NEM stolen
Collapses after misusing customer funds
Meanwhile the Bitcoin network itself has kept running, almost without interruption, since 2009.
2024: Wall Street opens the door
On 10 January 2024 the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved spot bitcoin ETFs, after rejecting such applications for more than a decade. The world's largest asset managers, BlackRock among them, began offering bitcoin products, and anyone with an ordinary brokerage account could now invest.
April brought the fourth halving (6.25 → 3.125 BTC). And on 5 December the price passed $100,000 for the first time, fourteen and a half years after two pizzas cost 10,000 BTC.
5 December 2024
$100,000Fourteen and a half years after two pizzas cost 10,000 BTC.
Logarithmic scale (each gridline is 10×). Values are approximate.
| When | Price (USD) |
|---|---|
| Dec 2018 | ≈ $3,200 |
| Jun 2019 | ≈ $13,000 |
| Mar 2020 | ≈ $4,000 |
| Dec 2020 | ≈ $29,000 |
| Nov 2021 | ≈ $69,000 |
| Nov 2022 | ≈ $16,000 |
| Dec 2023 | ≈ $42,000 |
| Mar 2024 | ≈ $73,000 |
| Dec 2024 | ≈ $100,000 |
Chapter summary
- The 2018 winter cut the price by more than 80%, but technology such as the Lightning Network kept maturing.
- From 2020, listed companies and payment firms moved in, shifting the market from individuals to institutions.
- In 2021 El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender and the price peaked near $69,000.
- In 2022 FTX collapsed. Once again, it was the custodian that broke.
- In 2024 the US approved spot ETFs and the price passed $100,000.