Bitcoin’s December 15 Mark More Than Doubled in One Year

Bitcoin entered December 15, 2019 at more than twice its level on the same date in 2018, a point-to-point recovery that captured how far the market had moved from the depths of the previous year’s selloff without establishing a new bull-market peak.

Kraken’s contemporaneous daily reports marked bitcoin at $7,122 on December 15, 2019 and $3,187 on December 15, 2018. Comparing those two venue-specific observations produces a 123.5% increase: ($7,122 divided by $3,187 minus one) multiplied by 100. This is Coinburn’s calculation, not a global bitcoin return or an investable index.

CoinMarketCap’s dated snapshots independently showed a similar result. Its displayed bitcoin price increased from $3,236.76 to $7,152.30, a 121.0% point-to-point gain. The agreement in direction and approximate magnitude across the records supports the conclusion that bitcoin had more than doubled, although their different prices demonstrate why cryptocurrency should not be assigned a single universal close.

Recovery did not mean renewed momentum

The December 15, 2019 snapshot was subdued over shorter windows. CoinMarketCap showed bitcoin up 0.48% over 24 hours but down 5.29% over seven days. Kraken marked the asset up 0.56% for its reporting window and recorded $32 million of bitcoin turnover.

Kraken had reported $38.3 million of bitcoin turnover on December 15, 2018. The year-over-year decline was 16.4%, calculated from the two exchange reports. Total Kraken turnover across its reported markets fell from $62.9 million to $48.4 million, a 23.1% decrease.

Those comparisons describe one exchange on two Sundays exactly one year apart. They do not measure worldwide liquidity, and the rendered Kraken reports do not identify a precise timezone cutoff. Lower venue turnover also does not prove diminished institutional interest or explain bitcoin’s price.

Coinbase’s BTC-USD daily candles supply another venue-level check. For the UTC bucket beginning December 15, 2018, Coinbase recorded a $3,128.89 low, $3,228.69 high and $3,183 close. The corresponding December 15, 2019 bucket recorded a $7,006.01 low, $7,220.01 high and $7,111 close. The close-to-close increase was 123.4%. Coinbase warns that historical candle data may be incomplete, and these figures cover only its BTC-USD market.

The market beneath bitcoin changed

CoinMarketCap’s displayed bitcoin capitalization increased 129.6%, from $56.40 billion to $129.48 billion. That outpaced the price comparison partly because reported circulating supply increased 3.9%, from 17,425,037 BTC to 18,103,462 BTC. Market capitalization is price multiplied by estimated circulating supply; it is not cash held by the network or money available for withdrawal.

The rankings also shifted. On December 15, 2018, XRP ranked second at a reported $11.70 billion capitalization, while ether ranked third at $8.77 billion. On December 15, 2019, ether ranked second at $15.59 billion and XRP third at $9.47 billion. Ether’s displayed price rose 69.5% between the snapshots, while XRP’s fell 23.5%.

Tether remained fourth, but its reported 24-hour volume on December 15, 2019 was $19.58 billion, exceeding bitcoin’s $16.88 billion in the same snapshot. On December 15, 2018, Tether’s reported volume had been $2.19 billion against bitcoin’s $3.55 billion. The change illustrates stablecoins’ growing role in the trading mix, but aggregate reported volume was not audited consolidated turnover and may reflect differing venue coverage or methodology.

The defensible event-day conclusion is therefore measured: bitcoin had recovered dramatically from its year-earlier level, ether had regained second place by reported capitalization, and stablecoin trading had become more prominent. Short-term losses and thinner Kraken turnover showed that the recovery was neither uniform nor evidence of a completed market cycle.