BTCUSD stands for the exchange rate between Bitcoin (BTC) and the US dollar (USD). Bitcoin (₿) is the oldest and world’s largest cryptocurrency, which is a decentralized digital currency sent from user to user (peer to peer) without intermediaries or institutional control.

What is BTCUSD?

BTCUSD is the leading cryptocurrency pair. Investors can learn more about how to trade BTCUSD, which represents the difference between Bitcoin and the US Dollar. In this pair, the base currency is BTC and the counter currency is USD, so the price of BTCUSD shows how much Bitcoin is worth against USD.

Bitcoin itself is the oldest and largest cryptocurrency in the world, and has been operating since 2009. It is a decentralized digital currency sent directly from one user to another (peer-to-peer) without any intermediaries or responsible institutions.

It is important to understand that the value of Bitcoin has a strong influence on the cryptocurrency market, both stablecoins and altcoins. If BTC goes up or down, altcoins usually follow.

How does Bitcoin work?

The blockchain, a decentralized ledger, is the heart of Bitcoin. It lets users make safe peer-to-peer transactions that anyone can see but can't change. This makes it almost impossible to create fake tokens, and BTC can be worth many thousands of dollars. The distributed ledger is a worldwide database with multiple copies saved in different places. Traders eager to explore how to invest in BTCUSD need a wallet, a private key, and a public key to do transactions.

Bitcoin blocks are 256-bit numbers that store information like the version, transaction, hash height number, timestamp, target, and nonce. The ledger can't be changed because each block has information about all the blocks that came before it. Miners try to match the next block's hash when they are mining. Proof-of-work rewards are given to the first person to solve the problem and find the hash. The higher the hash rate, the more powerful the hardware used; however, the difficulty of matching rises with time.

BTCUSD price history

Since the emergence of the cryptocurrency king in 2009, the markets have seen numerous Bitcoin price ups and downs.

2009

Bitcoin was created in 2009 by an anonymous person or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The first Bitcoin transaction occurred on January 12, 2009, when Satoshi sent 10 Bitcoins to Hal Finney, a developer and early Bitcoin contributor. Bitcoin had very little value in its early years, and its price was mainly driven by curiosity and speculation.

2010

In 2010, the first Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, was launched, and the price of Bitcoin started to increase gradually. By the end of 2010, the price of Bitcoin had reached $0.30.

2011

In 2011, Bitcoin gained more attention from the media and the public, and its price continued to rise. It reached $1 for the first time in February 2011 and then surged to $30 in June 2011 before crashing back to $2 in November 2011.

2013

Bitcoin's price history took a dramatic turn in 2013. In April 2013, Bitcoin's price surged to $266 but quickly crashed to $50. The price rose again and reached an all-time high of $1,242 in November 2013. In 2014, the price of Bitcoin went down quickly and kept going down all year. It reached a low of $177 in January 2015, an 85% decline from its all-time high in November.

2016 - 2021

Bitcoin's price started to recover in 2016, reaching $1,000 in January 2017. In December 2017, the price of Bitcoin surged to an all-time high of $19,783, but it quickly declined and reached a low of $3,122 in December 2018.

BTCUSD crossed the $1,000 barrier for the first time in November 2017. In December 2017, it hit $19,666, and the market crashed. It took almost three years for BTCUSD to hit these levels again. Still, when it did in November 2020, the market rallied to $64,895 in April 2021, dove in the upcoming months, and rebounded, hitting an all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021.

2022 - 2023

The FTX exchange collapse caused a drop in the prices of Bitcoin and other stablecoins in November 2022, with the lowest Bitcoin price at around $16,000. Since the start of 2023, however, BTCUSD has been in a bullish market and surpassed $25,000 in February.

Bitcoin market cap

BTCUSD market cap is not permanent and changes due to various factors. Investors should keep tabs on the chart above - an updated market cap is shown next to it.

Is BTCUSD a good investment

Bitcoin's price has changed significantly throughout the years. The history of the Bitcoin market might be predicted when going back over longer periods. Bitcoin and Ethereum have traded in cycles. Even so, investors must pay attention to high volatility and risk of losing the capital.

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