Bitcoin (BTC) Price, Chart, and Overview

Bitcoin (BTC) is the first and largest cryptocurrency: a fixed-supply digital asset that moves on a public ledger without a bank or central issuer. Its quote gives the US dollar price of one whole bitcoin, how that price changed over set windows, and how the network’s total value compares with the rest of the crypto market. These figures measure different things. This guide explains how to read each one, how Bitcoin works underneath the price, and what tends to move it.

How to read the Bitcoin quote

Price and percentage change

The headline number is a dollar price for 1 BTC, built from trades on crypto exchanges. Bitcoin trades around the clock, seven days a week, so there is no daily open or close. “24h” means a rolling window: the change compares the current price with the price exactly 24 hours earlier, not with midnight or a market open.

The change appears two ways: as a percentage and as a dollar amount. The 1-hour, 7-day, 30-day and 1-year windows work the same way, each measured back from the present moment. They can point in opposite directions. A positive 24-hour reading alongside a negative 30-day reading describes a short bounce inside a longer decline, not a reversal.

Percentage moves are not symmetric. If BTC falls 50%, it needs a 100% gain to return to the starting price. A 20% drop needs a 25% gain. This matters when comparing the 1-year change with the distance from the all-time high, the highest recorded trading price and its date. That high is a reference point, not a target.

Market cap, fully diluted value and supply

Market capitalization is price multiplied by circulating supply:

Market cap = BTC price × circulating supply

For example, at a hypothetical price of $50,000 and 20 million coins in circulation, market cap would be $1 trillion. Market cap ranks coins against each other, which is where Bitcoin’s #1 rank comes from. It is not the amount of money invested in Bitcoin, nor an amount anyone could cash out at once: selling a large share of the supply would push the price down long before the sale finished.

The supply table separates three numbers:

• Circulating supply: coins that exist and can move.
• Total supply: coins created so far. For Bitcoin this sits almost exactly on the circulating figure.
• Max supply: 21,000,000 BTC, the hard cap set in the protocol.

Fully diluted value (FDV) multiplies price by a larger supply figure: total supply or max supply, depending on the data provider. Based on total supply, FDV is practically the same as market cap, because total and circulating supply differ by only a handful of coins. Based on the 21 million cap, it is higher by the value of the coins not yet mined. For many newer tokens a large gap between market cap and FDV signals future supply unlocks. Bitcoin’s remaining issuance follows a fixed, public schedule (explained below), so FDV carries less information.

Volume and dominance

24-hour volume is the dollar value of BTC traded over the past day across the venues the data provider counts. It describes trading activity, not net buying or selling: every trade has a buyer and a seller. Volume figures depend on which exchanges and pairs are included, so different sites show different totals for the same day.

BTC dominance is Bitcoin’s market cap as a share of the total crypto market cap. A rising share means Bitcoin’s value grew faster (or fell more slowly) than the combined value of other coins, which are known collectively as altcoins. Dominance comes from market caps alone, so it says nothing about where new money came from.

Chart timeframes

The price chart switches between 7-day, 1-month, 3-month and 1-year views. Short views show intraday swings. Longer views flatten those swings into a trend line. The same move can look dramatic on a 7-day chart and minor on a 1-year chart, so the timeframe should match the question. For multi-year context, the Bitcoin price history page covers BTC’s record since its early trading years.

RSI readings across timeframes

The momentum panel shows the Relative Strength Index (RSI), a 0 to 100 oscillator that compares the size of recent gains with recent losses. “RSI 14” means it is calculated over 14 periods, and the label after it sets the period length: 14 fifteen-minute candles, 14 hourly candles, up to 14 daily candles.

That is why the readings differ. A high 15-minute RSI next to a low daily RSI means short-term momentum is positive while the past two weeks have been weak. Conventional thresholds treat readings above 70 as overbought and below 30 as oversold, and anything between is usually labeled neutral. These are descriptive bands, not signals that a turn is due. In a strong trend, RSI can stay above 70 or below 30 for long stretches.

Derivatives markets: perpetual futures

The derivatives table lists perpetual futures (“perps”), contracts that track BTC’s price without an expiry date. Traders use them to go long or short, often with leverage. Four columns need explanation:

• Price: the perp’s last trade on that exchange. It usually sits close to spot but not exactly on it, and it differs slightly from venue to venue.
• Volume % (share): each exchange’s portion of the total perp volume in the table, not of all Bitcoin trading.
• Open interest: the notional value of contracts still open. Volume counts trades. Open interest counts positions that have not been closed. Rising open interest means more leveraged exposure exists, in either direction.
• Funding: a periodic payment between long and short holders that keeps the perp price anchored to spot. A positive rate means longs pay shorts, and a negative rate means shorts pay longs. The rate applies per funding interval, which each exchange sets.

An example of funding: on a $10,000 long position with a funding rate of +0.01% per interval, the long pays $1 at each settlement. The rate looks tiny, but it repeats every interval and is charged on the full position size, not on the margin posted.

Leveraged positions can be force-closed when losses eat through margin. The Bitcoin liquidation heatmap shows where estimated liquidation levels sit.

Prediction market odds

Prediction markets price yes/no contracts on whether BTC will reach certain levels by certain dates. A contract trading at a given percentage implies traders price that outcome at roughly that probability. These are prices traders on that platform are willing to pay, not forecasts, and thinly traded contracts can swing on small orders.

What Bitcoin is

Origin

Bitcoin was described in a 2008 white paper published under the name Satoshi Nakamoto, which may belong to one person or a group and has never been verified. The network launched in 2009, when the first block (the “genesis block”) was mined. The paper proposed peer-to-peer electronic cash: a way to send value directly between parties without a bank in the middle, with a public record that prevents the same coin from being spent twice.

How transactions and mining work

Bitcoin’s ledger is a blockchain: a chain of blocks, each containing a batch of transactions and a reference to the block before it. Changing an old transaction would mean redoing every block after it, which is what makes the history hard to rewrite.

New blocks are produced through proof of work (PoW). Miners run specialized hardware that hashes candidate blocks until one meets a target value set by the network. The first miner to find a valid block broadcasts it, other participants check it, and the winner collects the block reward (newly created bitcoin) plus the fees attached to the block’s transactions. Because adding blocks is costly, an attacker trying to rewrite history would need to outspend the honest miners.

The network aims for one block roughly every 10 minutes. Every 2,016 blocks, about two weeks, the mining difficulty adjusts up or down so that block times stay near that target as miners add or remove computing power.

Sending bitcoin requires a private key, a secret number that signs transactions, stored in a software or hardware wallet. Hardware wallets keep keys on a dedicated offline device, which generally offers more protection than web wallets. Whoever controls the private key controls the coins. There is no password reset.

Supply schedule and halvings

Bitcoin’s supply is fixed by code. The block reward started at 50 BTC and halves every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years. These events are called halvings. Each one cuts the rate of new issuance in half, so most of the 21 million coins already exist, and the remainder will be issued in ever-smaller amounts until around the year 2140. After that, miners will be paid by transaction fees alone, and whether fees will fund enough mining to keep the network secure is a long-running open question.

A fixed and predictable schedule is one of Bitcoin’s defining traits. No central bank can expand the supply, and changing the cap would require broad agreement among the people running the network’s software, which makes such a change extremely difficult in practice.

Some coins in circulation are effectively lost: keys that were discarded, forgotten or destroyed. They still count in circulating supply because the ledger cannot tell a lost coin from an unmoved one.

Nodes and the peer-to-peer network

Mining produces blocks. Nodes verify them. A full node downloads the blockchain, checks every block and transaction against the rules, and rejects anything invalid, even if a miner produced it. Bitcoin Core is the most widely used node software.

Bitcoin has no company behind it. No company or government can issue more bitcoin or reverse a confirmed transaction. Rules change only when node operators adopt new software, and disagreements over rules can split the chain. The best-known split came in August 2017, when Bitcoin Cash forked off to allow larger blocks. Forks are separate coins with separate prices.

Units: satoshis

One bitcoin divides into 100,000,000 satoshis (“sats”), the smallest unit, named after the creator. Nobody needs to buy a whole coin. To convert:

Price of 1 sat = BTC price ÷ 100,000,000 Sats per dollar amount = (dollar amount ÷ BTC price) × 100,000,000

Example: at a hypothetical BTC price of $50,000, one sat is worth $0.0005, and $100 buys 200,000 sats (0.002 BTC), before any fees. Wallets and payment apps often show balances in sats, so the decimal places on the quote matter more than the headline number suggests.

How Bitcoin differs from other coins

Bitcoin is built mainly as a store and transfer of value, with a deliberately limited scripting system. Ethereum’s native asset, ether, runs on a network designed for programmable applications and uses a different consensus method. The Ether (ETH) overview explains those differences. Stablecoins such as USDT aim to hold a steady dollar value, which is why derivatives pairs like BTC/USDT quote bitcoin in a dollar-pegged token rather than in dollars directly.

What moves the BTC price

Bitcoin has no earnings, dividends or cash flows to anchor its value. Its price comes from supply and demand in open markets, and several forces feed into each side.

Supply. New issuance is fixed and shrinks at each halving. Supply that reaches the market also depends on whether existing holders sell, including miners covering costs and large holders, often called whales, whose sales or purchases can affect thin markets.

Demand from investment products. Since January 2024, spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the US have let investors hold BTC exposure in a brokerage account. When these funds see net inflows, they buy bitcoin to back new shares, and outflows work in reverse. The Bitcoin ETF flows page tracks daily creations and redemptions by fund.

Leverage. Perpetual futures let traders control positions larger than their capital. High open interest and lopsided funding show how crowded positioning has become. Forced liquidations can amplify moves in either direction, and they explain some sharp intraday spikes that unwind quickly.

Macro conditions and liquidity. Interest rates, the dollar and appetite for risk assets in general influence how much capital flows into speculative holdings, Bitcoin included.

Regulation and access. Rules on exchanges, custody, taxes and investment products change who can buy and how easily.

Sentiment and news. Headlines about hacks, adoption, legislation or large holders can shift prices fast, especially when leverage is high. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index condenses several sentiment inputs into one reading.

How to buy or get bitcoin

There are several routes, and they differ in custody, cost and what you actually own.

1. Crypto exchange or app. You verify your identity, deposit dollars and buy BTC or a fraction of it, then leave it with the exchange or withdraw it to your own wallet. Fees, spreads and withdrawal charges vary by platform.
2. Spot bitcoin ETF. You buy fund shares in a brokerage account and pay an annual expense ratio. You get price exposure without managing keys, but you cannot send the underlying coins to anyone.
3. Payment and brokerage apps. Some let you buy bitcoin directly but only allow buying and selling inside the app, with no withdrawals to an outside wallet.
4. Receiving it. Bitcoin can arrive as payment or a transfer. All you need is a wallet address.
5. Mining. It is dominated by operations running specialized hardware with low-cost electricity. Home mining rarely pays for itself.

Holding coins on an exchange means trusting that exchange to stay solvent and secure. Self-custody removes that risk but makes you responsible for backing up keys or seed phrases. A lost seed phrase means lost coins.

Practical caveats when using the quote

• Prices differ by venue. Each exchange has its own order book, so BTC trades at slightly different prices on different platforms and in different quote currencies (USD, USDT, USDC). The quoted price is an aggregate. The price you pay depends on your platform’s order book plus its fee and spread.
• The quote is not your fill. A market order on a large purchase can execute above the displayed price if the order book is thin. Limit orders set the maximum you pay but may not fill.
• Fees change the break-even. A purchase with a 1% total cost needs the price to rise more than 1% before you are ahead. Network fees for withdrawing on-chain are separate from trading fees.
• Perp prices are not spot prices. Futures can trade above or below spot, and funding makes holding a perp cost or earn money over time in a way that holding spot BTC does not.
• Volatility is the norm. Moves of several percent in a day have been common across Bitcoin’s history, and drawdowns from highs have been deep. Position size should reflect that a large decline is possible.
• Taxes. In many jurisdictions, selling, swapping or spending bitcoin can be a taxable event, measured against what you paid for it. Keep records of each purchase price and date.