Cryptocurrency Price History
Cryptocurrency has gone through endless metamorphoses in its short lifetime, and nowhere is this more apparent than in cryptocurrency price history.
Analyzing crypto historical data gives a glimpse into the changing face of the industry. CoinMarketCap’s coin history pages offer week-by-week coverage of crypto’s shifting prices, market caps, volume and more.
Taking a retrospective look at market cap data can quickly produce surprises, particularly for those who are relatively new to the space.
CoinMarketCap’s cryptocurrency list 2017, for example, has Bitcoin (BTC) at near all-time highs of $20,000 in late December. Ether (ETH) is trading at $700, while the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is Bitcoin Cash (BCH), changing hands for $1,862 per coin.
Contrast that with the cryptocurrency list 2016, and the scale of change that 2017 witnessed — due in no small part to the ICO phenomenon — is immediately apparent.
In the third week of December 2016, ETH cost just $7, while BTC was circling $800 and BCH was not even part of the listings, having only forked off from the Bitcoin network in August the following year.
A similarly wild variation can be found when looking at the cryptocurrency list 2018, which saw the price of Bitcoin and altcoins alike plummet at different times. December 2018 saw BTC/USD hit the pit of its bear market after the all-time-high crypto frenzy, bottoming out at around $3,100.
In the intervening period, a renaissance has taken place, with cycles of highs and lows nonetheless continuing to characterize cryptocurrency. 2020, for instance, is seeing investor interest in DeFi buoy the price of both industry-specific tokens and the network on which they run, Ethereum.
A broader overview can be gleaned from the historical market cap of cryptocurrencies, which at $347 billion is only marginally higher than Bitcoin’s own at the height of its price rally.
Head to CoinMarketCap’s dedicated history pages to discover more about the history of cryptocurrency in figures as the market’s composition continues to change on a daily basis.