Bitcoin Price History (BTC-USD): Daily Coinbase Prices Since 2014

Bitcoin price history tracks the daily USD spot price of BTC, the most liquid and widely traded cryptocurrency. This page documents the daily closing prices in USD published since December 2014 by Coinbase (FRED series CBBTCUSD), without reproducing them. Bitcoin price history matters for macro-financial analysis because BTC has evolved from a niche digital asset into a liquidity-sensitive macro instrument whose dynamics co-move with net liquidity, real rates, and global risk appetite.

Series: Bitcoin price in USD, Coinbase via FRED (CBBTCUSD, from December 2014) · not reproduced on this page

The dataset file is not offered for download: it contains data whose owner restricts redistribution (Coinbase prohibits reproduction of its data in any form without its prior written permission, according to the note on FRED series CBBTCUSD). The series is not reproduced on this page either, whether as a chart, a table of values or a file. It can be consulted at its source: FRED, series CBBTCUSD. The methodology lists every source.

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Methodology

The reference series is the Coinbase BTC-USD daily close, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on FRED under the identifier CBBTCUSD. The series starts on 1 December 2014 and is quoted every calendar day, since crypto markets do not close.

Eco3min does not reproduce the series. FRED marks it “Copyrighted: Citation required”, but the note attached to the series states that reproduction of Coinbase data in any form is prohibited except with the prior written permission of Coinbase. The file and the chart previously published on this page were withdrawn on 30 September 2026. Source: Coinbase, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (series CBBTCUSD).

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The bitcoin price history series is a single-venue reference: the Coinbase close, as republished by FRED. Coinbase is the largest US-regulated exchange, which makes its close a widely used institutional reference.

• Release latency. FRED updates CBBTCUSD daily; the latest observation typically appears within one to two days of the close.
• Revisions policy. Exchange closing prices are not revised after publication, but FRED may restate values if the upstream Coinbase feed is corrected. Such restatements are infrequent and small in magnitude.
• Alternative sources. Other venues (Binance, Kraken, Bitstamp) and cross-exchange aggregates (CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap) can diverge from the Coinbase close during periods of high volatility. Bloomberg’s XBT<CRNCY> ticker and Refinitiv’s BTC=BTSP also publish institutional-grade BTC-USD references with paid access.
• Known gaps. The series begins in December 2014; earlier bitcoin history (2010–2014) is not covered. Bitstamp, which began trading BTC in 2011, is commonly used for long-history reconstructions back to 2010.

For production workflows, verify the most recent observation date before any analysis, and check the time-of-day convention of the Coinbase close before joining the series to equity closes.

Common Pitfalls When Using Bitcoin Price History

Bitcoin price history is widely used in macro and asset allocation research, but several recurring interpretation errors distort the signal.

1. Single-venue close vs cross-exchange aggregate. This series is the Coinbase close. During periods of high volatility, Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken can diverge by 1–3% intraday, and aggregates such as CoinGecko sit somewhere in between. Users comparing bitcoin price history to a strategy backtested on another venue often misattribute slippage to model error when the gap is purely a data-source artifact.
2. Closing-time convention. Daily crypto closes follow the venue’s convention and do not coincide with the NYSE close (16:00 ET). Analysts who join the BTC series to NYSE-closing equity series frequently create false lead-lag patterns because the BTC “previous day” may already incorporate hours of post-equity-close trading.
3. Price versus market capitalization. A common confusion is treating BTC-USD price as a proxy for total crypto market cap. With circulating supply growing through halving cycles (~210,000 BTC mined per year currently), price and market cap can diverge over multi-year windows. For aggregate market exposure, market cap or total value locked metrics are more appropriate.
4. Ignoring the halving cycle in regime analysis. The supply schedule produces a discontinuity every ~210,000 blocks (~4 years): May 2020, April 2024, and the next expected around 2028. Studies that pool pre- and post-halving data without explicit regime indicators conflate distinct supply regimes — the post-halving stock-to-flow doubles, structurally shifting marginal seller behavior.

Historical Regimes

The Coinbase series starts in December 2014; bitcoin price history over the full 2009–2026 period decomposes into several distinct macro regimes worth referencing when interpreting current data:

2009–2013: Emergence (sub-$100 to $1,000). Bitcoin’s first four years saw price discovery from effectively zero to $1,000 by November 2013, driven by early retail adopters and the Silk Road shutdown narrative. Liquidity was thin and exchange infrastructure rudimentary.

2014–2016: First crypto winter. Following the Mt. Gox collapse (February 2014), bitcoin price history shows a multi-year drawdown to ~$200 by January 2015, then a slow accumulation phase. This regime coincided with stable monetary conditions and limited correlation to traditional macro variables. A related perspective: the case for bitcoin or ethereum.

2017: First parabolic cycle. Driven by retail FOMO and the ICO boom, BTC rallied from $1,000 in January 2017 to near $20,000 by December — a ~20x move in twelve months. The 2018 correction reversed ~84% of that move.

2018–2020: Second crypto winter. BTC ranged $3,000–$13,000 with declining volatility. Macro correlations remained weak. The COVID liquidity shock in March 2020 produced a brief drawdown to ~$4,000 before central bank response triggered the next regime.

2020–2021: Macro coupling and institutional adoption. Following the May 2020 halving and unprecedented monetary expansion, BTC rallied from $9,000 to $69,000 (November 2021). This is the regime where bitcoin price history first synchronized clearly with the M2 expansion and broader risk-on flows. The Ethereum cycle ran in parallel with even higher beta.

2022–2023: Third crypto winter and macro reset. The Fed hiking cycle, Terra/Luna implosion (May 2022), and FTX collapse (November 2022) drove BTC from $69,000 to $15,500 — a 78% drawdown. Correlation with the S&P 500 reached historical highs as crypto traded primarily on Fed expectations.

2024–2026: ETF era and fourth halving. The January 2024 approval of US spot bitcoin ETFs and the April 2024 halving anchored a new regime. The specifics are documented in this analysis of spot bitcoin etf microstructure. Institutional inflows reduced realized volatility versus prior cycles, while the most recent part of the series captures the post-halving expansion and consolidation phases. Cross-referencing with gold reveals an emerging “digital gold” valuation channel that prior cycles did not display.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Bitcoin price history sits at the intersection of three macro vectors: global liquidity (M2 and dollar dynamics), risk asset cycles (equities), and the alternative store-of-value complex (gold and other crypto). These linked datasets contextualize BTC moves within the broader macro regime.

Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub

Sources

• Coinbase: BTC-USD daily close, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (series CBBTCUSD)

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Bitcoin Price History (BTC-USD, Coinbase via FRED, 2014–2026).<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/bitcoin-price-history-dataset/