Bitcoin in 2017

Through out the time, the number of businesses accepting bitcoin continues to increase. In January 2017, NHK reported the number of online stores accepting bitcoin in Japan had increased 4.6 times over the past year. BitPay CEO Stephen Pair declared the company's transaction rate grew 3× from January 2016 to February 2017, and explained usage of bitcoin is growing in B2B supply chain payments.
Since the start of history, by 2017 Bitcoin gains more legitimacy among lawmakers and legacy financial companies. For example, Japan passed a law to accept bitcoin as a legal payment method, and Russia has announced that it will legalize the use of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. And Norway’s largest online bank, Skandiabanken, integrates bitcoin accounts.
Exchange trading volumes continue to increase. For the 6-month period ending March 2017, Mexican exchange Bitso saw trading volume increase 1500%. Between January and May 2017 Poloniex saw an increase of more than 600% active traders online and regularly processed 640% more transactions.
  • January. After the rally for most of the second half of 2016, bitcoin broke the $ 1,000 mark for the first time in 3 years. Media coverage leads to an influx of new users who will allegedly raise the price even higher.
  • March Number of GitHub projects related with bitcoin exceeds 10,000.
  • April Japan recognizes bitcoin as a legal method of payment. The country's legislature passed a law, after months of debate, that led bitcoin exchanges to comply with anti-money laundering rules/information about your client, and classified bitcoin as a kind of prepaid payment instrument.
  • June The Bitcoin symbol was encoded in Unicode version 10.0 at position U+20BF (₿) in the Currency Symbols block.
  • June 12th Bitcoin exchange rate exceeds USD$3000 to the BTC.
  • August 1st Bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, the classic bitcoin (BTC) and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The split has been called the Bitcoin Cash hard fork.
  • September 1st Bitcoin exchange rate exceeds USD$5000.
  • October China forbids cryptocurrencies and ICOs.
  • November 29th In 2017 Bitcoin price exceeds USD 10,000.
  • December Cboe Global Markets begins offering bitcoin futures, allowing investors to speculate about bitcoin prices.
  • December 6th The software marketplace Steam announced that it would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for its products, citing slow transactions speeds and price volatility.
  • December 11th Futures on the world's most popular cryptocurrency rose by 26 percent from the opening price at their debut session on the CBOE Global Markets Inc., triggering two temporary trading stops aimed at calming the market.
  • December 18th. Bitcoin reaches a record high, but does not reach $ 20,000.
  • December 28th The price of bitcoins fell after South Korea announced additional measures to regulate bitcoin trading, including the potential closure of exchanges, among the volatile movements in the world's third largest cryptocurrency market.
    • What is interesting, the Bitcoin price was less than $3000 at the beginning of 2017, later it cost about 5000 of dollars, by the end of the year the Bitcoin worth USD 10000.

    Bitcoin in 2018

    2018 has been a rough year for Bitcoin and it's users, especially people who held on assuming the price would keep ascending. Many sold the cryptocurrency while they could, and the price has been steadily dropping all year. As of this writing, Bitcoin's price was at $3,732.04.
    • January 2nd Peter Thiel Foundation bought millions of dollars in bitcoin, the Wall Street Journal reports citing sources familiar with the situation. The paper says these stocks are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It is unclear whether the Founders sold any of their stocks, the report said.
    • January 8th Coinmarketcap removed prices from South Korean exchanges from its cryptocurrency settlements without warning, which led to a sharp drop in all prices. In addition, the financial authorities of Korea on January 8 began an investigation of services related to cryptocurrencies provided by local banks.
    • January 13th Out of a total of 21 million people, on January 13, 2018, 16 800 000 BTC were produced, and only 20% remained for production.
    • January 22nd, South Korea brought in a regulation that requires all the bitcoin traders to reveal their identity, thus putting a ban on anonymous trading of bitcoins.
    • January 24th, the online payment firm Stripe announced that it would phase out its support for bitcoin payments by late April 2018, citing declining demand, rising fees and longer transaction times as the reasons.
    • January 30th Facebook banned people from fully advertising bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
    • February 5th, Bitcoin's price dropped 50 percent in 16 days, falling below $7,000.
    • March 7th The U.S. securities and exchange Commission confirmed that many online trading platforms for digital assets should be registered with the Agency as exchanges. Statement the SEC has heightened concerns about the fact that the regulation tightening might restrict trade.
    • March 14th Google announced that it prohibits online advertising promoting cryptocurrency
    • March 26th Twitter announced that it would ban advertising for cryptocurrencies, after overclocking Google and Facebook, which aims to protect investors from fraud.
    • April 13th one of India's largest cryptocurrency trading platforms lost about 438 bitcoins worth about 190 million rupees ($3 million), presumably due to an employee.
    • May 2nd one of the largest investment banks announced that Goldman is going to start using its own money to trade with customers on various contracts related to the price of Bitcoin.
    • May 24th The justice Department opened a criminal case about whether traders manipulate the price of bitcoins and other digital currencies. The investigation focuses on illegal activities that can affect prices such as spoofing or flooding the market with fake orders to trick other traders into buying or selling.
    • June 10th South Korean exchanger Coinrail loses more than $ 40 million in tokens after hacking.
    • October 31st $6,300, on the 10 year anniversary of Bitcoin, price holds steady above $6,000 during a period of historically low volatility.
    • November 14th, Falling below $6000.
    • November 24th, Falling below $4,000 (source Cointelegraph.com