Bitcoin price: A history of the cryptocurrency on its 10 year anniversary

Halloween 2018 marks the 10-year anniversary of the foundations of bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency, an asset that can fairly claim to have altered perceptions of what can truly be considered an asset in financial markets.

A decade ago today, bitcoin’s mysterious founder Satoshi Nakamoto published a nine-page long academic style paper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” The paper would go on to act as the founding text for the cryptocurrency, and lead to the first bitcoin transactions being carried out in early 2009.

It’s impossible to say how much bitcoin has increased in price single its earliest incarnation, because its value back then was in the fractions of cents. A conservative estimate, based on bitcoin’s current price being around $6,300 per coin, and its early price being less than $0.01, would see bitcoin’s value increasing more than 1 million fold in the last decade.

2008-2010: The early years

The first bitcoin transactions were carried…