Bitcoin is further away from all-time high than you think
It turns out that bitcoin never actually hit an all-time high in March. Thanks a lot, inflation.
nuttapon averuttaman/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
Gary Gensler. The IMF and the World Economic Forum. Inflation.
If crypto were Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, these boogeymen would high up on her death list.
Why not pour fuel on the fire?
Despite popular belief, bitcoin has not actually returned to its all-time high set in November 2021, all because of inflation.
What was a bitcoin all-time high of $68,998 back then would be the equivalent of $77,975 in today’s money.
That’s 13% cumulative inflation across nearly three years, per US consumer price index data.
So, after adjusting for inflation, bitcoin still needs to rally by more than $9,100 to break that price record — a 14% jump.
Before adjusting for inflation, bitcoin is only $4,900 away, or 6.7%.
Inflation never stops, so bitcoin’s inflation-adjusted all-time high continues to rise as time goes on.
When bitcoin hit its local top in March, that figure was $76,744, which means it really stopped about 4% short when it peaked at $73,738.
The same goes for ether and solana. ETH at $2,490 is actually a gut-wrenching 55% below its current inflation-adjusted price record of $5,513.
ETH had to have reached $5,426 to break an all-time high in March. So, when it hit $4,090, that was actually 22% below the mark, rather than 14%.
Right now, SOL is otherwise 44% below its own adjusted all-time high of $294, and was 28% below in March.
What does it all mean? It’s unlikely that crypto will break from the rest of the finance world and consider only inflation-adjusted prices as the true value of assets.
Although, there is an argument to do so during periods of high inflation, as was the case in the years during and after the worst of the pandemic.
More critically, it’s just further proof that inflation really sucks the fun out of everything — bitcoin all-time highs included.
Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:
- The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
- Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
- Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
- 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox.
- Lightspeed: All things Solana.
- The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
- Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.
