Bitcoin: the price before and after its major events
What Bitcoin's price did after 14 events that marked its history, measured on our own daily series of closes. Windows that haven't happened yet show empty, never projected.
The events, at a glance
| Event | Date | +30d | +90d | +365d | Max drawdown (365d) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin Pizza Day | 22 May 2010 | No data | |||
| Silk Road shutdown | 2 Oct 2013 | +95% | +601% | +258% | −68% |
| Mt. Gox collapse | 24 Feb 2014 | +6.82% | +5.73% | −56% | −74% |
| SegWit activation | 24 Aug 2017 | −13% | +91% | +55% | −70% |
| CME bitcoin futures launch | 18 Dec 2017 | −41% | −57% | −81% | −83% |
| COVID crash | 12 Mar 2020 | +39% | +99% | +1056% | −26% |
| MicroStrategy's first purchase | 11 Aug 2020 | −9.29% | +34% | +301% | −53% |
| Tesla buys bitcoin | 8 Feb 2021 | +22% | +26% | −4.24% | −53% |
| China bans bitcoin mining | 21 May 2021 | −4.24% | +25% | −21% | −57% |
| El Salvador legal tender | 7 Sept 2021 | +15% | +7.86% | −59% | −72% |
| Terra/Luna collapse | 9 May 2022 | −0.75% | −24% | −9.24% | −50% |
| FTX collapse | 11 Nov 2022 | +1.05% | +29% | +119% | −20% |
| US spot bitcoin ETFs | 11 Jan 2024 | +3.04% | +52% | +104% | −26% |
| US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve | 6 Mar 2025 | −7.67% | +16% | −24% | −49% |
Bitcoin price after Bitcoin Pizza Day
22 May 2010
On 22 May 2010, a programmer in Florida paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas — the first documented purchase of a physical good with bitcoin. At the time bitcoin had no established market price on any exchange.
Our price series starts 18 Jul 2010; this event predates it, so there is no real close to measure here.
Bitcoin price after the Silk Road shutdown
2 Oct 2013
On 2 October 2013 it became public that the FBI had shut down Silk Road, the largest dark-web marketplace built on bitcoin payments, and arrested its operator, Ross Ulbricht, the day before. The US government seized roughly 26,000 BTC held by the site.
$104.11
Price at the event
Slight discount
Model band
+95%
+30 days · $203.04
+601%
+90 days · $729.56
+258%
+365 days · $372.53
−68%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1 day
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after the Mt. Gox collapse
24 Feb 2014
Mt. Gox, then the world's largest bitcoin exchange, halted trading and went offline on 24 February 2014, weeks after first suspending withdrawals. It filed for bankruptcy on 28 February and disclosed that roughly 850,000 BTC belonging to customers and the company itself were missing.
$542.27
Price at the event
Expensive
Model band
+6.82%
+30 days · $579.24
+5.73%
+90 days · $573.31
−56%
+365 days · $239.87
−74%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
2 days
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after SegWit activation
24 Aug 2017
Bitcoin activated Segregated Witness (SegWit) on 24 August 2017, an upgrade that changed how transaction data is stored to gain effective block capacity. It came after years of debate over how to scale the network — a debate that had already split off Bitcoin Cash as its own chain three weeks earlier, on 1 August.
$4,326
Price at the event
Fair price
Model band
−13%
+30 days · $3,776
+91%
+90 days · $8,250
+55%
+365 days · $6,698
−70%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1 day
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after CME futures launched
18 Dec 2017
CME Group began trading cash-settled bitcoin futures on 18 December 2017, giving institutional investors a regulated way to bet on bitcoin's price without holding the asset. It came a week after CBOE launched its own, in the final days of the 2017 run-up.
$18,982
Price at the event
Peak bubble
Model band
−41%
+30 days · $11,160
−57%
+90 days · $8,189
−81%
+365 days · $3,660
−83%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1072 days
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after the COVID crash
12 Mar 2020
On 12 March 2020, bitcoin fell nearly 40% in a single day as global markets panicked over the COVID-19 pandemic, a day now known as "Black Thursday". It moved in the same direction as stocks and nearly every other asset that day, not against them.
$4,959
Price at the event
Opportunity
Model band
+39%
+30 days · $6,883
+99%
+90 days · $9,888
+1056%
+365 days · $57,335
−26%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1 day
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after MicroStrategy's first purchase
11 Aug 2020
On 11 August 2020, software company MicroStrategy announced it had bought 21,454 BTC for $250 million, the first publicly traded company to adopt bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset. It was the first of many purchases the company, led by Michael Saylor, would repeat in the years that followed.
$11,393
Price at the event
Slight discount
Model band
−9.29%
+30 days · $10,335
+34%
+90 days · $15,320
+301%
+365 days · $45,676
−53%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1 day
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after Tesla's bitcoin purchase
8 Feb 2021
On 8 February 2021, Tesla disclosed in an SEC filing that it had bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin and would soon accept it as payment for its cars. The purchases had been made in the preceding weeks; the filing was the market's first word of them.
$46,122
Price at the event
Bubble
Model band
+22%
+30 days · $56,116
+26%
+90 days · $58,288
−4.24%
+365 days · $44,167
−53%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1 day
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after China's mining ban
21 May 2021
On 21 May 2021, a Chinese State Council committee announced it would tighten oversight of bitcoin mining and trading, and in the following weeks several provinces began ordering mining operations to shut down. China accounted for much of the world's mining at the time, and a large share of it moved abroad over the rest of the year.
$37,174
Price at the event
Expensive
Model band
−4.24%
+30 days · $35,600
+25%
+90 days · $46,647
−21%
+365 days · $29,420
−57%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1 day
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after El Salvador's legal tender law
7 Sept 2021
On 7 September 2021, El Salvador became the first country to make bitcoin legal tender alongside the dollar, requiring businesses to accept it and launching a state wallet, Chivo. The rollout was uneven, and a later law, in 2025, removed the requirement to accept it.
$46,854
Price at the event
Bubble
Model band
+15%
+30 days · $53,805
+7.86%
+90 days · $50,535
−59%
+365 days · $19,293
−72%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
7 days
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after the Terra/Luna collapse
9 May 2022
On 9 May 2022, the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) began losing its peg to the dollar, setting off a spiral that erased tens of billions of dollars of combined value with its sister token, Luna, within days. Bitcoin had no direct tie to Terra, but the panic spread quickly through the rest of the crypto market.
$30,458
Price at the event
Fair price
Model band
−0.75%
+30 days · $30,229
−24%
+90 days · $23,154
−9.24%
+365 days · $27,642
−50%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
1 day
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after the FTX collapse
11 Nov 2022
FTX, then one of the largest crypto exchanges, suffered a run on withdrawals in early November 2022 after reporting raised doubts about the finances of its sister firm, Alameda Research. It filed for bankruptcy on 11 November 2022, and its founder was later convicted of fraud.
$16,917
Price at the event
Cheap
Model band
+1.05%
+30 days · $17,094
+29%
+90 days · $21,818
+119%
+365 days · $36,980
−20%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
19 days
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after the US spot ETFs launched
11 Jan 2024
The SEC approved the first US spot bitcoin ETFs on 10 January 2024, and eleven funds began trading the next day. It capped more than a decade of rejected applications and gave investors direct, regulated access to bitcoin from an ordinary brokerage account.
$46,381
Price at the event
Fair price
Model band
+3.04%
+30 days · $47,793
+52%
+90 days · $70,579
+104%
+365 days · $94,759
−26%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
29 days
Days to recover the price
Bitcoin price after the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve order
6 Mar 2025
On 6 March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, capitalized with bitcoin the government already held from criminal and civil forfeitures, plus a separate stockpile for other seized digital assets. The order did not direct any additional bitcoin to be bought on the open market.
$90,222
Price at the event
Expensive
Model band
−7.67%
+30 days · $83,302
+16%
+90 days · $104,783
−24%
+365 days · $68,227
−49%
Largest drawdown in 365 days
47 days
Days to recover the price
What this page doesn't show
Coincidence isn't cause
That the price moved after an event doesn't prove the event moved it. Bitcoin moves for many reasons at once, and several of these events happened in the middle of a move that was already underway. This is a record of what happened next, not an explanation of why.
Fourteen cases, not a sample
Each row is a single historical case, not an average across many. A pattern that repeats two or three times in this list can be a coincidence as easily as a rule.
The band is today's, not the event's
The model refits on every new close, so the band shown next to a 2014 event is what today's model would assign it, not what a model trained in 2014 would have said.
None of this is a recommendation
This page describes what happened, not what will happen. It is not financial advice or a signal to buy or sell.
Explore more
Bitcoin Rainbow Chart
Where today's price sits, from bargain to bubble.
Bitcoin DCA Calculator
What buying a fixed amount regularly would be worth today.
Bitcoin vs S&P 500 vs Gold
Bitcoin measured against gold, stocks and inflation.
Satoshi converter
Sats to dollars and dollars to sats at the live price.
Monthly Returns
Every month since 2011, and whether any month is really better.
The Bitcoin cycle
What the halving does to supply, and every cycle measured.