$30, $230, $1,150, $20,000

Exactly one year ago, the price of Bitcoin hit its last all-time high of just below $20,000. The peaks of Bitcoin’s previous big runs were $30 (June 2011), $230 (April 2013), and $1,150 (December 2013). After the December 2013 all time high, it took Bitcoin until February 2017 to surpass the $1,150 mark. If we keep Bitcoin’s historical trends in mind, it’s not too hard to see why the Bitcoin true believers seem to be mostly unfazed by the fact that BTC is down more than 80% from its December 2017 all-time high.

The first two months of 2018 were absolutely brutal for BTC as it tumbled from its peak all the way down to $6,400 in the first week of February. As it turned out, $6,000 then became a critical support level for Bitcoin for the remainder of the year.

After hitting a temporary bottom in early February, BTC reclaimed the all-important $10,000 psychological milestone in just two weeks, hitting a top of $11,700. After a correction, Bitcoin revisited a similar level of about $11,500 in early March, which was the last time BTC was valued at $10,000 or more. After a strong rally in April, Bitcoin almost hit $10,000 on May 5, but eventually retraced.

The year continued with a trend of lower highs, and Bitcoin underwent a period of unusually low volatility in September and October. As it turns out, the low volatility represented a calm before the storm, as the $6,000 support level was breached decisively in mid-November. This triggered a massive sell-off and just a few days ago, Bitcoin hit $3,200, its lowest level since the all-time high.

Still on top

Even though Ethereum once seemed like a very realistic candidate to overtake Bitcoin as the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, “the flippening” hasn’t materialized so far. In fact, Bitcoin solidified its relative position in the crypto market during the second half of the year, and its market cap is now almost 5 times larger than the second-ranked XRP.

1 year BTC dominance chart

When compared to other larger cryptocurrencies, BTC held up better in the 2018 bear market. The following list shows how the top 10 coins by market capitalization have performed since reaching their all-time high. Tether (stablecoin) and Bitcoin SV (only started trading recently) are excluded.