Where’s it going? Nobody knows for sure, but we can at least make an educated guess.
Credit: Mashable
Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, has had a big year. In 2024, it broke new ground, reaching and surpassing the price of $100,000 per 1 BTC for the first time.
But it’s a very interesting moment for crypto investors right now. President Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time in January, bringing with him the most crypto-friendly administration the U.S. has ever seen. He preluded that with the launch of a new $TRUMP meme coin, likely making millions in the process. Macroeconomic indicators are all over the place, and the global geopolitical situation hasn’t been this messy since the Cold War era.
Large entities such as corporations and nation-states have been buying bitcoins en masse, but in recent months, they’ve been more eager to sell than buy. The U.S. government will no longer sell its stash thanks to Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve initiative. To complicate things further, arcane technologies, such as quantum computing, are threatening to unravel Bitcoin’s very foundation — though no one’s sure when that may happen or if it will happen at all.
All of that leaves Bitcoin in a precarious place. Ask 10 experts where its price may go, and you’ll get 10 vastly different answers, likely ranging from zero to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The thing to do, then, is to calmly and carefully consider the most critical factors that influence Bitcoin before making any investment decisions.
Disclaimer: We’re not here to provide an investment thesis or investment advice. This is an overview of Bitcoin’s progress and some of the major risks and tailwinds that may define its future.
We’ve consulted cryptocurrency experts on the matter. At Mashable, we’ve covered Bitcoin since at least 2017, and we’ve seen some massive crashes, impressive price rises, community splits, and technology changes and challenges. Now that Bitcoin is seemingly on a downward trajectory, at roughly $82,000 per coin, it’s time to do a thorough check-up on the orange coin once again.
Bitcoin’s biggest milestone: Hitting $100,000
How did this happen? Bitcoin started out as an experiment by its elusive, pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, who unleashed it onto the world and disappeared shortly after. It was first embraced by a few enthusiasts, such as Hal Finney, whose interests were at a cross-section of cryptography and finance.
For Bitcoin to succeed and become secure, bitcoins must become vastly more expensive.
For years, Bitcoin was almost a joke, with proponents seemingly waiting forever for it to become the peer-to-peer digital cash that Nakamoto envisioned. But the price kept rising, and though Bitcoin was never widely adopted as a means of payment, it became something else: a decentralized version of digital gold that feeds on computing power to keep its transactional network secure.
It took a few years for people to start paying attention: In May 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz famously spent 10,000 BTC on two pizzas; had he kept the bitcoins, they would be worth billions now. Hanyecz is annually reminded of this on May 22, when bitcoiners celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day.
By 2024, Bitcoin had essentially become widely legitimized as something that has value and should be taken very seriously. A key development in this was the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs. ETFs, or exchange traded funds, are investment funds that hold a certain asset or security, allowing anyone to get exposure to that asset (in this case Bitcoin) without having to deal with the intricacies of having a cryptocurrency wallet.
Spot Bitcoin ETF on-chain holdings in BTC.
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These funds, which require BTC to actually be bought and held in custody for its clients, were huge, prompting heavyweights such as BlackRock and Fidelity to finally throw their marketing machines and financial heft behind Bitcoin. The ETFs were a stellar success, with billions pouring in on a weekly basis. As of now, spot Bitcoin ETFs hold a total of 1.13 million BTC, worth roughly $100 billion.
Add that to Michael Saylor’s Microstrategy, a company with a somewhat inert software business that started buying bitcoins en masse in 2020 and now holds roughly 499,000 BTC worth $41 billion, and you not only have a race to earn more bitcoins but a real fear amongst cryptocurrency titans of being left behind with zero bitcoins while everyone else has some.
