Bitcoin Price (BTC)
Bitcoin (BTC/USD) live price dashboard
Bitcoin (BTC) is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, trading 24/7 and widely watched as a barometer of risk appetite and global liquidity. Track its live price and long-term trend here.
Key Metrics
Summarizes the current price, price level, and 52-week range.
History
Additional Information
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin, launched in 2009, is the first decentralized digital asset. With supply capped at 21 million coins, it is often called 'digital gold.' Its price reacts sharply to global liquidity, regulation, and institutional demand.
Price drivers:
- Global liquidity and the interest-rate environment
- Institutional demand, including spot ETFs
- Supply reduction from the ~4-year halving cycle
- Regulatory and policy changes
- Risk-asset sentiment
Understanding the Bitcoin Price
What does the Bitcoin price represent?
The Bitcoin price is the market price of the world's first cryptocurrency as traded on exchanges. It is not published by any institution; instead it forms continuously, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, across exchanges worldwide. Bitcoin's supply is capped at 21 million coins, and its protocol halves the mining reward roughly every four years in events known as halvings. This fixed supply schedule underpins its frequent description as digital gold and its framing as a scarcity-driven asset.
How should the Bitcoin price be interpreted?
Bitcoin tends to be highly sensitive to global liquidity conditions and risk appetite, often rallying when rates fall or money supply expands and weakening during tightening cycles. A widely cited observation is that major price cycles have historically clustered around halving events, though past patterns carry no guarantee of repetition. Since the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, institutional fund flows have become a larger driver of price. Its volatility remains far higher than that of traditional assets, which is central to interpreting any move.
What does Bitcoin mean for markets and portfolios?
Bitcoin frequently behaves as a risk asset, with its correlation to technology-heavy indices like the Nasdaq rising in many periods, and its role as an inflation hedge remains debated. Its drawdowns and rallies are far larger than those of stocks or bonds, a defining characteristic of the asset. Market participants commonly cross-check Bitcoin against the dollar index, U.S. real yields, M2 money supply, and Bitcoin's dominance share within the crypto market. Regulatory developments and changes in accounting and tax treatment across jurisdictions are additional factors that influence price.