Why the price moves so much

There is no official bitcoin price. It is simply the price of the latest trades between buyers and sellers on exchanges around the world, which never close. New coins arrive on a fixed schedule, so when demand changes, the price is the only thing that can move.

Live from a public market feed

The market right nowLoading live figures…

1 bitcoin

…US dollars

Change in 24 hours

…

Traded in 24 hours

…across major exchanges

Apps and exchanges each show the price of their own trades, so their figures differ a little, and the price you pay includes their fees and spread.

See it on satoshis.watch →

What usually moves it

• News and rules. A country banning or approving something, a big exchange failing, or a new kind of fund being allowed.
• Big buyers and sellers. Funds, companies and long-time holders moving large amounts.
• Borrowed money. Many traders bet with borrowed funds. When the price moves against them, platforms sell for them automatically, and those forced sales push the price further.
• The wider economy. Interest rates and stock markets: when investors get cautious about risk in general, bitcoin often falls with everything else.

Headlines that explain a day's move are usually written afterwards. Most days several of these happen at once.

Why it moves more than most things

A share in a company has profits to anchor its price; bitcoin has none, so the price rests entirely on what people expect. It trades every hour of every day, the market is smaller than the big stock and bond markets, and borrowing to trade is common. Moves of 5% in a day are common, and bigger ones come with little warning.

Big falls before

Peak	Low	Fall
June 2011, about $30	November 2011, about $2	about 93%
December 2013, about $1,150	January 2015, about $170	about 85%
December 2017, about $19,500	December 2018, about $3,200	about 84%
November 2021, about $68,000	November 2022, about $15,500	about 77%

After each of these, the price later passed its old peak. That is history, not a promise: nothing guarantees it will happen again, and nobody, including us, knows where the price will go next.

"Is it too late?"

People have asked this at nearly every price in bitcoin's history. Nobody knows the answer, including us. What the history does show is that timing mattered a great deal: people who bought near a peak sometimes waited years just to get back to what they paid, and some sold at a loss before then.