Bitcoin Purchasing Power Chart
How much Bitcoin buys today compared with 2010: sats per US dollar from the first daily close in July 2010 to the latest, on a log scale.
1 bitcoin buys $75,696
$1 = 1,321 sats (0.000013 BTC) · Nov 7, 2026 close
↑ Line going up = Bitcoin buys more
- Peak purchasing power
- $124,723
- per 1 BTC · Oct 6, 2025
- Today vs peak
- −39%
- below the peak
- Purchasing power change
- 20% higher
- since Nov 7, 2021
- Annual growth
- +4%
- a year, compounded
Dollar amounts are nominal, not adjusted for US inflation.
Bitcoin price: daily USD close from CryptoCompare, updated daily.
Learn about our methodology →
Methodology
We verify every formula against primary sources, run it on live data, and document each model's assumptions and limits.
Learn about our methodology →
Built and reviewed by Fabio Arcieri
Fabio Arcieri
Founder, Orange Abacus
Bitcoin researcher with a background in economics and a decade in digital marketing. He builds and reviews every calculator on this site against primary sources.
Read full profile →Last reviewed: November 2026
How to read the chart
Bitcoin prices in all 3 views are nominal USD daily closes from CryptoCompare, not adjusted for inflation:
- 1 BTC in dollars: the dollar price of 1 bitcoin, where a rising line means bitcoin buys more.
- $1 in sats: how many sats (units of 0.00000001 BTC) $1 buys, where a falling line means bitcoin buys more.
- Compare with goods: how many units of a chosen good, such as a Big Mac, 1 bitcoin buys, where a rising line means bitcoin buys more.
What is Bitcoin purchasing power
Bitcoin purchasing power is the quantity of goods, services, or US dollars that a given amount of bitcoin buys on a given date.
Inflation-adjusted dollar purchasing power measures what $1 buys in goods and services, deflated by a price index such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The chart skips that adjustment. It compares bitcoin with nominal dollars, and with goods at the price recorded at the time.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Sats per dollar | How many sats $1 buys on a given date. The figure falls as the bitcoin price rises. |
| Daily close | The bitcoin price at the end of a day. The chart plots one per day. |
| Log scale | An axis where equal distances show equal percentage changes, so early and recent moves stay comparable. |
| Nominal USD | Dollar amounts as recorded on the date, with no adjustment for inflation. |
| Peak purchasing power | The day in the selected range when bitcoin bought the most. |
How Bitcoin’s purchasing power has changed since 2010
One dollar bought 2 billion sats at the first daily close, on July 17, 2010, and 1,480 at the November 8, 2021 cycle peak.
Each sat therefore buys roughly 1.4 million times more than it did at the first close, though prices before 2011 come from thin early trading and are rough.
Each cycle peak from 2011 to 2021, taken at the highest daily close rather than the intraday high, sits at higher purchasing power than the last:
| Point | Date | 1 BTC in dollars | Sats per $1 (rounded) |
|---|---|---|---|
| First close | July 17, 2010 | $0.05 | 2 billion |
| Cycle peak | June 8, 2011 | $29.60 | 3.4 million |
| Cycle peak | December 4, 2013 | $1,238 | 80,800 |
| Cycle peak | December 16, 2017 | $19,345 | 5,170 |
| Cycle peak | November 8, 2021 | $67,549 | 1,480 |
The climb is uneven. Each of the 4 peaks from 2011 to 2021 was followed by a fall of 77% to 93% in the dollar price before the next climb began. Past purchasing power does not guarantee future results.
Three properties of Bitcoin’s design help explain the long-run rise:
- Fixed supply: the protocol caps issuance at 21,000,000 BTC, so rising demand meets a supply that stops at the cap.
- Scheduled issuance: each halving cuts new bitcoin per block, to 3.125 BTC since April 2024, as the issuance chart shows.
- Divisibility: each bitcoin splits into 100,000,000 sats, so a higher price does not price out small purchases.