1 BTC to USD Exchange Rate
Check the latest Bitcoin to US Dollar exchange rate and track historic currency performance.
Live BTC/USD exchange rate: 28,618.92805
| Stat | Last 7 days | Entire period |
|---|---|---|
| High | 29,010.0445005 | 29,010.0445005 |
| Low | 26,776.6234317 | 19,643.9095188 |
| Average | 27,877.6648668 | 25,411.7195657 |
| Volatility | 58,697.0629671% | 275,618.1275207% |
At the exchange rate of 28,618.92805 on 31st March 2023, a sum of ₿1 is worth $28,618.9280535.
Using the 30 day high exchange rate of 29,010.0445005, a sum of ₿1 would be worth $29,010.0445005, while at the 30 day low of 19,643.9095188 it would be worth $19,643.9095188. This variance equates to $9,366.1349817 over the last 30 days.
At the highest exchange rate seen in the last 7 days, ₿1 would be worth $29,010.0445005, while at the weekly low it would be worth $26,776.6234317. This weekly variance equates to $2,233.4210688.
More popular currency pairs
| USD | EUR | GBP | INR | AUD | CAD | JPY | HKD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| To USD | - | 1.0844 | 1.2332 | 0.01217 | 0.6685 | 0.73989 | 0.00753 | 0.12739 |
| To EUR | 0.92215 | - | 1.13727 | 0.01122 | 0.61647 | 0.68231 | 0.00695 | 0.11748 |
| To GBP | 0.8109 | 0.8793 | - | 0.00987 | 0.54209 | 0.59998 | 0.00611 | 0.1033 |
| To INR | 82.185 | 89.1214 | 101.351 | - | 54.9407 | 60.808 | 0.61898 | 10.4696 |
| To AUD | 1.49589 | 1.62214 | 1.84473 | 0.0182 | - | 1.10679 | 0.01127 | 0.19056 |
| To CAD | 1.35155 | 1.46562 | 1.66673 | 0.01645 | 0.90351 | - | 0.01018 | 0.17218 |
| To JPY | 132.775 | 143.98 | 163.738 | 1.61556 | 88.7601 | 98.2391 | - | 16.9143 |
| To HKD | 7.84985 | 8.51238 | 9.68044 | 0.09551 | 5.24762 | 5.80804 | 0.05912 | - |
2023-04-02 09:00:00
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a decentralised cryptocurrency first launched in 2009. It is a peer-to-peer online currency, meaning there is no intermediary needed to facilitate transactions between two people. It is therefore different from fiat (so-called 'real' money), which relies on financial institutions to handle payments between parties.
Bitcoin was first described in a whitepaper by its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. While Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to enter into general use, the idea of a decentralised currency stretches back to the early 1990s when American cryptographist David Chaum pioneered Cyberbucks as part of the DigiCash payments system.
Today, Bitcoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world. Each bitcoin is made up of 100,000,000 'satoshis', meaning ordinary people can trade fractions of a bitcoin.
Bitcoin's source code is freely available for anyone to inspect. The project is maintained by open source contributors. As of June 2022, there are 872 contributors listed on GitHub.
How does Bitcoin work?
Bitcoins do not exist physically. Rather, they are traded digitally between sender and receiver. The Bitcoin network rests on blockchain technology. The 'blockchain' is a decentralised digital ledger where all bitcoin transactions are recorded.
Holders of bitcoins have complete control over their currency; it cannot be accessed without their private cryptographic key. Participants in the Bitcoin network send and receive bitcoins using public keys associated with their digital wallets, where bitcoin is stored.
New bitcoins are released into circulation through a process known as 'mining', described in more detail in the next section. Mining bitcoin won't last forever, though. Bitcoin has a maximum supply of 21,000,000 coins by design. Given the limits on mining bitcoin, we are expected to reach this limit in early 2140.
What is bitcoin mining and why is it important?
Bitcoin mining serves two purposes: generating new bitcoins, and verifying that transactions have taken place across the network. The verification of transactions is crucial to the functioning of Bitcoin: it produces a shared, decentralised ledger of all bitcoin transactions that everyone trusts
Bitcoin mining involves a huge network of miners racing to solve cryptographic hash puzzles belonging to a set of bitcoin transactions grouped together in a 'block'. When the puzzle is solved, the block is verified and it is added to the chain of previous blocks - i.e. the blockchain (the ledger of all bitcoin transactions).
The successful miner is rewarded with a 'block reward' - currently 6.25 bitcoins - and the updated ledger is redistributed to all miners in the network for the process to begin again. A block is added to the blockchain on average every 10 minutes, and the block reward halves every 4 years, with the next halving expected in early 2024.
Investopedia has a very good explainer on bitcoin mining, while Simplilearn goes into the nuts and bolts of blockchain technology. This helpful video also explains how blockchain technology creates trust between participants in the Bitcoin network.
Energy consumption of bitcoin mining
The bitcoin mining process requires huge computational power. As a result, it's highly energy intensive. It is estimated that bitcoin mining will use more energy in a year than the country of Argentina - some 45 million people.
Bitcoin's energy consumption has attracted scrutiny from lawmakers such as the US Senate, while high-profile figures such as Elon Musk have criticised the cryptocurrency for its impact on the planet.
In response to this, initiatives such as the Crypto Climate Accord and sustainable mining companies such as HIVE are leading the efforts to make Bitcoin greener.
