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Every finance or investing site today churns out crypto headlines, yet Bitcoin still dominates the feed—for good reason. In a matter of months the coin leapt from $900 to $3 000, only to slip back toward $2 500 days later. That volatility frightens seasoned investors, but it keeps traders glued to the charts.
Before 2013: A Currency for Geeks
Prior to 2013 Bitcoin was little more than “internet money for tech nerds.” Prices oscillated between a few dollars and a couple dozen, letting early web entrepreneurs scoop up whole coins for pocket change. Calling those purchases “investments” is generous; they were bets on an unknown protocol.
Where Did the First Coins Come From?
They were simply mined. In the early network solving the cryptographic puzzle was trivial, so hobbyists generated blocks on laptops and immediately listed the coins for sale—unsure the experiment would last.
Back then you could obtain bitcoin two ways:
- Investor route: buy on the first exchanges for next-to-nothing;
- Miner route: run your CPU/GPU and collect block rewards.
Electricity costs were so low that even a modest asking price covered them; on the other hand, near-zero demand meant purchasing coins outright was often cheaper than mining.
Difficulty Ramps Up
Built into Bitcoin’s code is an automatic difficulty adjustment: the more blocks found, the harder the next puzzles become. By 2013 the network required far more hash-power than a home PC could deliver, creating a natural scarcity that underpinned price appreciation.
2013: Bitcoin’s “IPO” Year
Media coverage exploded, speculators piled in and BTC settled above $100 for the first time. Chart candles sprouted long wicks—classic signs of a young, uncertain market finding its footing.
Birth of the Mining Farm
Individual CPU mining died almost overnight. Profit seekers began chaining GPUs, then ASICs, into “mining farms”—warehouses humming with specialized chips. What started as a dorm-room side hustle morphed into an industrial race for the remaining 21 million coins.