There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. So the question isn't what bitcoin is worth in dollars. It's what one bitcoin buys.
Everything else on this board is measured in things that aren't fixed: dollars that get printed, gold that gets mined, houses that get built, eggs that get laid. The chart shows how much of each one 1 BTC could buy since July 2010, when bitcoin first traded.
How to read the chart
- When the line goes up, a bitcoin bought more of the thing.
- It starts on a log scale: equal steps up are equal multiples (×10, ×100). Tap the y-axis or LOG to see it on a linear scale. The chip beside it picks how far apart the points are.
- Drag across the chart, or press ▶, to travel through time. The board follows. Go to a day starts from any day you like.
- 1₿=, SAT and ₿ switch between what 1 BTC buys and the thing's price in sats or bitcoin.
Where it started
Satoshi Nakamoto's paper, published October 31, 2008: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Want some? Here's where I get mine.
Nothing here is financial advice. Past purchasing power says nothing about the future.
No ads, no cookies, no accounts. Your settings stay on this device.
What stays on your device
Your settings (sound, your stack, your first sats, the lines on the chart, how lively the animation is, what's new you've read) are saved in your browser's own storage. They're never sent to me, and clearing this site's data in your browser erases them.
What I count
Visits, with Vercel Web Analytics, which records only anonymous totals (pages, referring site, country, device type) and nothing that identifies you or your IP address.
Notifications
If you turn them on, I store your browser's anonymous push address, your choices and your time zone, and nothing else (unless you pick your first sats for the Daily Tidbit or its anniversary: then that day too). Turning them off deletes it. The preview in Settings asks for the wording with your choices; nothing from it is kept.
What your browser asks other sites
- , for the live BTC price, as often as you choose in Settings.
- Bitstamp, on the 1D to 3M charts, for the prices since my last daily update; and with a time in Go to a day, for the minute prices around it (about 16 hours of them, so not your exact minute).
- mempool.space, for the newest block at your first sats' minute, and the chain near a halving.
Feedback
Messages through the feedback form go to my private inbox, with your browser type on a bug report. If you leave "Attach this view" ticked, a link to the view you were on and a picture of the board and chart (drawn by the site, not a screenshot of your screen) come with it; the picture is kept for up to 180 days.
Referral links
The links under Get bitcoin are my referral links: if you sign up through one, that service may pay me a bonus. Nobody pays to be listed, and I don't record who clicks.
Who made this
I'm Paul Branham. I also made orangeshift; start with its four-minute explainer.
Credits
- The flap sound is a public-domain recording of a real split-flap display (ngruber on Freesound).
- The pictures on the chart are Twemoji (CC-BY 4.0).
Found a bug or have thoughts? Send feedback. Every key the site answers to: keyboard shortcuts.