When Bitcoin cost R7.20
The price of Bitcoin reached new highs this weekend, with the cryptocurrency breaking through R150,000 on local exchanges.
On international exchanges, the price of Bitcoin passed $9,000.
Regardless of the reasons for Bitcoin’s climb, or whether this is a bubble waiting to pop, early investors who cash out now will see astronomical returns.
If you invested at the start of 2017, you would be smiling – but the real early adopters are the biggest winners.
The climb
Cryptocurrency exchange Luno has published an infographic detailing the history of Bitcoin, which tracks currency’s journey “to the moon”.
The journey starts in the late 1990s, and really gets underway in the early 2000s – following the creation of “cypherpunk money”.
Bitcoin’s first block on its blockchain was released in January 2009, after which the first exchange rate for Bitcoin was established in October 2009 – with $1 equal to 2,300 BTC.
The growth of Bitcoin then continued until “pizza day” on 22 May 2010.
The day is remembered for when a man from Florida paid a Londoner 10,000 Bitcoin for a Pizza. The price of Bitcoin soon increased 10-fold after that, reaching a new high of $0.08.
On 9 February 2011, Bitcoin reached a new milestone – parity with the US dollar.
The rand was trading at around R7.20 to the dollar at the time, meaning you could have bought 1 BTC for R7.20.
For R72, you could have bought 10 Bitcoin – which is worth over R1.5 million today.
Bitcoin over time
The graphic below shows Bitcoin’s journey from its inception, to late 2017.
Now read: Swissquote protects investors against Bitcoin volatility
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