In Bitcoin’s humble beginnings, it wasn’t possible to buy bitcoin, as there were no exchanges. There were no hardware wallets to store it and no influencers or the BlackRock marketing team even promoting it.
Just Satoshi, some cypherpunks, libertarians, geeks — and a protocol that most dismissed as a nerd experiment.
The tech was in its infancy. The code had numerous issues and the future was just a cypherpunk dream. The idea was absurd to most — and frankly, it still is… to most.
You see, bitcoin didn’t even have a price for its first year. It was mined, shared and bartered. The code was open, the incentive was to experiment, and try this thing out.
That all changed with one simple act: a man bought pizza.
Today, with the price hanging by a thread at $114,000 — despite a brief weekend drop to $111K and continually rising geopolitical tensions — bitcoin’s broader uptrend remains technically intact, that is of course according to the “bitcoin charts”. You might be wondering: is this the top, or is the next historical opportunity already here?
The 7 Best Times To Buy Bitcoin
1. When It Was Worthless (2009–2010)
Bitcoin Price Range: $0.00 to $0.01
Return to $100K: ~+1,000,000,000%
For bitcoin’s first nine months, it had no price. No one sold it. No one bought it. It was mined, discussed on forums, and mostly unnoticed by the outside world.
In October 2009, the NewLibertyStandard Exchange published a method to calculate bitcoin’s value based on electricity costs — pegging 1,309 BTC to $1. It wasn’t a functioning exchange in the modern sense, but it helped establish a reference price.
On October 12, 2009, the first known exchange of bitcoin for fiat occurred: 5,050 BTC for $5.02 via PayPal — an implied price of $0.00099 per BTC. That was the first moment bitcoin touched the real-world economy.
Then came Laszlo Hanyecz.
On May 22, 2010, he traded 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas — the first recorded exchange of bitcoin for a physical good. At roughly $41 in value, it set the first open-market price: ~$0.0041 per BTC.
From that moment, Bitcoin transcended bits and bytes. It became money, or at least that process had begun.
If you bought (or mined) back then, you weren’t chasing yield. You were taking a leap of faith on an anti-central banking monetary system few people understood. The 2010 overflow bug had just been patched. There were no wallets. No legal clarity. Just raw conviction.
If you bought bitcoin here, you are a certifiable legend.
This was a good time to buy bitcoin.
2. During The Dollar Parity Era (2011)
Bitcoin Price Range: $1 to $30
Return to $100K: ~+10,000% to +100,000%
When bitcoin reached $1 in February 2011, it hit a psychological milestone. Suddenly, it was “worth something.”
But the price didn’t stay there for long. Within months, it rocketed to $30 — before crashing 90% down to $2.
Meanwhile, Satoshi quietly exited the project. Mt. Gox dominated exchange volume but was already showing signs of instability. Those who held through this didn’t have “diamond hands” — they had nothing else like it to believe in. They were early adopters, not tourists. They bought not because it was safe, but because the alternative — fiat — was already proven to fail.
This was a good time to buy bitcoin.
3. After The Mt. Gox Collapse (2014–2015)
Bitcoin Price Range: $250 to $315
Return to $100K: ~+31,000%
In 2014, Mt. Gox — which once handled 70% of global bitcoin trades — imploded. 850,000 BTC vanished. Bitcoin fell from $1,100 to under $300. The headlines read “Bitcoin is dead.” Again.
But Bitcoin kept on churning out new blocks. Tick tock, as the saying goes.
If you understood that Mt. Gox wasn’t Bitcoin — that centralized exchanges don’t define the network — you were able to buy during one of the most misunderstood crashes in financial history. The risk was real, the opportunity was unreal.
This was a good time to buy bitcoin.
4. After the ICO Mania Implosion (2018–2019)
Bitcoin Price Range: $3,200 to $7,200
Return to $100K: ~+1,300% to +2,000%
2017 was a blur. ICOs, Ethereum, shitcoins everywhere. Talk of lambos and moon shots.
But by January 2018, the bubble burst. bitcoin crashed over 80%. Most altcoins crashed 95%+. Regulators cracked down, and the whole space entered a deep bear market.
Bitcoin bottomed at $3,200 in December 2018. Most had left. Many never returned.
Yet quietly, something important was happening. Custody improved. Lightning Network came online. Institutions were watching. And beneath the silence, the next cycle was brewing.
If you stacked then, you understood where this train was going.
This was a good time to buy bitcoin.
5. During The COVID Crash (March 2020)
Bitcoin Price Range: ~$4,000
Return to $100K: ~+2,400%
The world turned upside down in March 2020. Markets imploded and bitcoin dropped over 50% in a day, from $8,000 to below $4,000.
Those with macro or trading experience — or had their ears to the ground may have been ready for this one. For others, it was a wake-up call. This was the moment when the fragility of the fiat system became abundantly clear, just months after the repo market cracks were causing the markets concern..
By August, MicroStrategy entered the scene. Michael Saylor labelled cash “a melting ice cube” and converted his balance sheet into BTC, starting with $250 million.
That move sparked the institutional dominoes. Square, Tesla, banks, and sovereigns followed.
If you bought during the March crash, you saw what others couldn’t: that Bitcoin was the solution, and not part of the problem.
This was a good time to buy bitcoin.
6. When FTX Collapsed (Late 2022)
Bitcoin Price Range: $15,500–$17,000
Return to $100K: ~+588% to +666%
The 2021/22 bull market didn’t have the usual blow-off top. Instead, it slowly bled out, catching many people off guard. As the bleeding seemed to be coming to an end, FTX collapsed. In 48 hours, Sam Bankman-Fried went from darling of the media (and grifter to the Bitcoin community) to complete fraud by everybody. bitcoin crashed to $15,500 in November.
FTX had risen out of nowhere. Its fall was as quick as it was inevitable, in hindsight.
I remember Preston Pysh catching that falling knife. Military vets are built differently. If you stacked at this point in time, you weren’t listening to Gareth Soloway’s $10k calls. You trusted yourself. You tuned out the noise — and got your just desserts.
This was a good time to buy bitcoin.
7. Before The ETF Approval (January 2024)
Bitcoin Price Range: $43,000–$50,000
Return to $100K: ~+100% to +132%
For over a decade, retail carried bitcoin on its back. Developers, plebs, miners, and maxis — they were the early adopters. The true believers. They bought, held, and educated while Wall Street laughed from the sidelines.
Then in January 2024, the dam broke.
After years of legal battles and delays, the SEC approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs. The fastest-growing ETF launch in history followed. Blackrock, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton piled in. The “wall of money” had arrived.
The smart money wasn’t buying Blackrock & Co’s financial products. It was the retail stackers who front-ran them – The ones who bought when CNBC still called it tulips. The ones who understood that ETFs don’t change Bitcoin’s fundamentals — they just unlock new capital.
Buying under $50K — before the ETFs were rubber-stamped — was a calculated act of foresight. You weren’t late. You were early. Again.
This was a good time to buy bitcoin.
So… What About Now?
Bitcoin’s price is hovering just above $100,000. For many, it feels like the big opportunity has passed.
But that’s a short-sighted view.
According to Power Law Theory (PLT) — a mathematical model that maps bitcoin’s price against time, adoption, and network effect — we may only be halfway through the current cycle’s journey, and a mere fraction of the way to full global monetization.
The PLT formula is: Price = Age^(5.7). For example:
- Age 8 → ~$1.4K
- Age 12 → ~$14K
- Age 16 → ~$73K
- Age 24 → ~$737K
We’re now in year 16.
Notably, doubling Bitcoin’s age results in approximately 50x price growth, while increasing its age by 50% leads to a 10x increase. If Power Law continues to track — as it has for over a decade — then we’re looking at a possible 10x over the next eight years.
And that’s just one of several long-term models that point in the same direction.
To explore PLT in more depth — along with stock-to-flow, the quantile model, Metcalfe’s Law, and other forecasting methods — check out our bitcoin price predictions. It’s designed to give you the tools, charts, and models to zoom out, take a breath, and think in decades — not days.
You’re not late. You’re just early… with better information and a longer time horizon, you should expect to see bitcoin to continue to grow in value.
So yes, now is a good time to buy bitcoin.
