10 years ago, the “greatest“ Crypto Crash ever happened as BTC at the price of $260 declined -50% in a matter of a few hours.

I think everyone here has experience with our last bear market in 2022, at its peak we were down -70% from our ATH at $69k just one year prior to that. While most alts were even down further, with some down over -90%. Of course all of this sounds and even felt painful but it still happened over the span of months. In the earlier days of Crypto it was different.

The greatest crash Crypto (which consisted mostly of BTC back then) saw was 10 years ago, on the 10th April 2013. On this day BTC halved its value in just a matter of a handful of hours, in six ours BTC fell -50%, from $260 to about $130.

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BTC chart from period around 10th April, daily

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Minute chart from April 10th, picture from Pete Rizzo on Twitter

This is way greater than any fall we had so far, even the Covid crash does not come near that even if it is seen as one of the fastest drops of BTC. The reason for this crash was apparently Mt.Gox, yes the old Crypto exchange that was latter rug-pulled and left thousands of users with their BTC that would have made them millionaires today.

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Excerpt from BBC article about the situation back then

Back then 80% of all trades were done there and in that period it was having some issues, which they explained to be due to too many users but many had their suspicious that it were hacks in reality.

We obviously all know the history after that day until now, if you would have held on during that massive 50% crash you would have had a return of over 20000% today. Just a small fun fact as hindsight does not help you any further and probably less than 0.00000001% of us here ouwld have hold until now from then on.

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39 thoughts on “10 years ago, the “greatest“ Crypto Crash ever happened as BTC at the price of $260 declined -50% in a matter of a few hours.”

  5. I heard about it around that time actually but I was just thinking it is “magic internet money”.

  7. Yesterday’s crash is today’s 5-minute change. So nowadays’s crash will be a 5-minute change in 10 years.

  8. It’s crazy how a $130 fall in price for Bitcoin was the worst thing in the world back then, we’ve come so far.

    Mt. Gox almost fucked up the entire Crypto landscape but thankfully we came back.

  11. At that time Korean Wall Street bonuses were affecting the price. Now it’s fucking macroeconomics.

  14. Nice post. I love a good “today in history” snapshot. Provides good perspective and context reminder for where we are now.

  15. Imagine where we’ll be 10 years from now. You’ll be WISHING you bought more when btc was only $30k. (In theory… ;))

  16. Juicy lessons to learn, it’s kinda like the sooner you go through the motions the better

  20. Hindsight is always a good thing. But, let’s be honest… back then we weren’t really that serious about cryptocurrency at all.

    They even mentioned that university students could be using Bitcoins to pay for their tuition fees, as a welcome alternative (trying to think outside the box). However, the very thing that Bitcoin became was something phenomenal and took the world by storm. Now students would be lucky to just earn one!

  27. >Mt. Gox said it was working hard to improve the exchange to avoid future trading problems

    I’ll take things that aged poorly for 500, Alex

  30. There was also a 50% flash crash on March 12th 2020. I remember the day quite well. That was a day that truly tested my convictions, it was also a day where I made some of my best buying decisions.

  31. You do know that down -50% is actually up right?

    It’s down 50%, or -50%. Not both at the same time!

  35. Imagine all the people who didn’t buy at $130 because they were convinced it would bottom below $100. This is how little difference it makes long term.

  37. I remember there being a huge sellwall at $200 when it first crashed from $1200 to $175 in 2014.

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