Bitcoin crash history: every fall of more than 50 percent since 2011

A Bitcoin crash is a fast, deep slump in the price, and Bitcoin has seen plenty of them since 2011. Here is what is documented: seven times the price fell more than 50 percent below its most recent record high, measured on daily closing prices in US dollars. The deepest fall came in 2011, at around 93 percent. The most recent one began on October 6, 2025 at $124,753 and reached down to $58,559 by June 30, 2026, a loss of 53.1 percent. After each of the six earlier declines Bitcoin later traded above the old high again, though after the four big bear markets only 630 to 1,127 days after the high. What the newsroom draws from that for investors is set out further down as a marked assessment.

On October 22, 2026 at 3:16 a.m. Bitcoin stood at $84,212, which is 32.5 percent below the record and 43.8 percent above the June low. What pushed the price below $82,000 around October 20 is explained by our report crypto crash today. This guide shows the big picture: every decline of more than 50 percent since 2011, the known crash days, the patterns behind them and what a crash does to a portfolio.

Bitcoin crash: the key points at a glance

• Seven crashes of more than 50 percent: 2011, April 2013, December 2013, December 2017, April 2021, November 2021 and October 2025 each marked the start of a decline of more than half.
• Largest decline in percent: in 2011 Bitcoin fell from a little over $30 to a little over $2, a loss of roughly 93 percent.
• Largest single-day loss: on March 12, 2020, a day after the WHO declared Covid a pandemic, Bitcoin lost 37.2 percent.
• The lows became shallower: the big bear markets ended at minus 93, 85, 83 and 77 percent, while the most recent decline reached minus 53.1 percent by June 30, 2026.
• Recovery takes years: in the big bear markets, 630 to 1,127 days passed between the record high and the next record.
• The holding period counts: in Germany the gain on a sale is tax free after more than a year (Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, as of October 2026).

Bitcoin crash history: the table of every decline since 2011

In this overview a crash means any decline in which Bitcoin fell more than 50 percent below its highest daily closing price up to that point. A decline ends as soon as the price closes above that old high again. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself from daily closing prices in US dollars: from April 29, 2013 onwards from the data of CoinMarketCap, and for the period before that from the average price across large exchanges from Blockchain.com. The cut-off is the daily close of October 21, 2026. The figures for 2011 and April 2013 are rounded, because there were only a few exchanges at the time.

Two patterns stand out. First, the big falls each took roughly a year from the high to the low: 406 days after the 2013 high, 364 days after the 2017 high and 378 days after the 2021 high. Second, the way back was longer every time than the way down. From the low to the new high, Bitcoin needed 721, 716 and 469 days after those three crashes. Anyone who bought at the record high therefore waited between 847 and 1,127 days until their purchase price was reached again.

How often has Bitcoin crashed? The known crash days since 2013

Seven times by more than half, if you measure from the respective record high. Count individual crash days and the number is far higher: since the end of April 2013, Bitcoin has closed more than 10 percent lower than the previous day on 61 days. Of those, 35 fell in the years 2013 to 2017, 25 in the years 2018 to 2022, and since 2023 only a single one, February 5, 2026.

October 10, 2025 shows how badly a closing price can understate the force of a day. Bitcoin closed only 7.0 percent lower than the previous day, yet traded 14.1 percent below it during the session. February 6, 2026 was similar: the price fell as far as $60,074 intraday, and by the close it stood at $70,555, up 12.5 percent. Swings like these arise when exchanges force leveraged positions closed and every sale triggers the next.

The Bitcoin crashes in history: triggers from Mt.Gox to FTX

The triggers repeat themselves in four forms: the collapse of large exchanges, forced selling of leveraged positions, intervention by states, and shocks on the rest of the financial markets. In most cases several of them worked together.

2011 and 2014: Mt.Gox twice

In June 2011 the Tokyo exchange Mt.Gox sat at the centre of Bitcoin trading. On June 19, 2011 the price there collapsed after a hack: within minutes it fell from around $17.50 to below $10 and briefly to one cent, as Bitcoin.com reconstructs in its chronicle. The fall to one cent stayed confined to Mt.Gox; the damage to confidence did not. By November 2011 Bitcoin had fallen to a little over $2.

Three years later the same exchange was hit for good. On February 28, 2014 Mt.Gox filed for bankruptcy in Japan and reported roughly 850,000 missing bitcoin, 750,000 of them belonging to customers, as MPR News reported the same day. Bitcoin fell from $885 to $539 between January 26 and February 25, 2014, and as low as $420 intraday, and the bear market dragged on into January 2015.

2017 to 2020: from the record to the Covid crash

At the end of 2017 Bitcoin ran up to $19,497 on December 16 and lost 83.4 percent over the following year. Only on November 30, 2020 did the price stand above that again, and in the middle of it lay the blackest day in Bitcoin's history. On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a pandemic, and on March 12 Bitcoin fell 37.2 percent from $7,911 to $4,971. Measured from the interim high of February 12, 2020, that came to 51.9 percent in 29 days. The recovery went faster than after any big bear market: on July 27, 2020 the price stood above the February high again, 137 days after the low.

2021 and 2022: China, Terra and FTX

In April 2021 Bitcoin reached $63,503. In May China's State Council announced it would move against Bitcoin mining and trading, a few days after banks and payment services had been barred from crypto business, according to a Reuters report of May 22, 2021. By July 20 the price had fallen 53.1 percent, and by October it was back at a record.

The next fall began on November 8, 2021 at $67,567 and turned into a series of collapses. In May 2022 the stablecoin UST lost its peg to the dollar and the Terra system broke apart. The losses are estimated at roughly $40 billion, and founder Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison in New York in December 2025, Yahoo Finance reports. On November 11, 2022 the exchange FTX, together with more than 130 affiliated companies, filed for creditor protection under Chapter 11 of US bankruptcy law, as Semafor reported. Ten days later Bitcoin closed at $15,787, 76.6 percent below the record.

2025 and 2026: leverage, tariffs and rate worries

The most recent decline began on October 6, 2025 at $124,753. Four days later US President Donald Trump announced additional tariffs of 100 percent on goods from China. According to data from Coinglass, leveraged positions worth more than $19 billion were then forcibly closed across more than 1.6 million traders, the largest wave of liquidations in crypto history, as PYMNTS summarises. On February 5, 2026 came the largest single-day loss since November 9, 2022, at minus 14.1 percent.

In June 2026 Bitcoin slid below $60,000. According to Trending Topics, a sell-off in technology and AI stocks, outflows from the US Bitcoin ETFs and worries about higher rates after the rise in the oil price weighed on the price. The lowest close fell on June 30, 2026, at $58,559.

Largest Bitcoin crash: 2011, 2020 or 2026, depending on the yardstick

Which crash was the largest depends on what you measure. In percent it was 2011, at roughly 93 percent from the high to the low. On a single day it was March 12, 2020, at minus 37.2 percent. In dollars per bitcoin the most recent decline is the largest: from October 6, 2025 to June 30, 2026 every bitcoin lost $66,194 in value, against $51,780 in the 2021/22 fall.

For your portfolio the percentage is what counts, and there an uncomfortable asymmetry applies. A loss of 50 percent needs a gain of 100 percent to make it back. From the low of November 2022 to the old record, Bitcoin had to rise 328 percent, and from the low of January 2015, 546 percent. From the low of June 2026 to the record of October 2025, 113 percent is missing.

Bitcoin crash in the cycle: why the declines became smaller

The big bear markets became shallower from cycle to cycle: minus 93 percent in 2011, minus 84.5 percent to 2015, minus 83.4 percent to 2018 and minus 76.6 percent to 2022. The decline since October 2025 reached minus 53.1 percent by the end of June 2026. Whether June was the low of this cycle is open.

The rhythm has stayed similar. The record highs of 2013, 2017, 2021 and 2025 each came 12 to 18 months after a halving of the reward for new blocks, with the last halving in April 2024. In the three earlier cycles the high was followed by roughly a year of downtrend each time.

Our assessment: the shallower lows have a comprehensible reason in the market itself. In 2011 Bitcoin was a niche product with a handful of exchanges; today exchange-traded funds in the US buy and sell it too, and their outflows dragged the price down in June 2026. A larger, broader market dampens the swings but does not protect against them: a loss of 53 percent still halves a position. The force of individual days also depends less on the size of the market than on leverage, as October 10, 2025 showed. A guarantee that the next decline will again be smaller cannot be derived from four bear markets.

Bitcoin crash 2025/2026: where the most recent decline stands

On October 22, 2026 the record lay 381 days in the past. Comparing the earlier cycles on the same day after the high shows how differently this decline has run so far.

In the three earlier cycles Bitcoin stood close to the floor on this day; this time the price is 43.8 percent above the June low. Two readings fit this data: the floor has already been found, or the decline is running in a more drawn-out way than before. Which scenarios analysts are running for the price is collected by our Bitcoin price prediction. What weighed on the market in early October, from ETF outflows to liquidations of more than $651 million, is set out in crypto market slides.

Bitcoin crash in the portfolio: position size and holding period count

History yields no timing, but it does yield an order of magnitude. If you hold Bitcoin, you have to reckon with declines of more than 50 percent that can last years. How hard that hits a portfolio is decided by the share, not by the price. The table works through a portfolio of €10,000 in which only the Bitcoin part falls and the rest stays unchanged.

At a 10 percent share, even a fall like 2013/15 costs less than a tenth of the portfolio; at 50 percent it costs more than two fifths. The second lever is financing: anyone buying on credit or with leveraged derivatives cannot sit out a floor, as shown by the more than 1.6 million traders whose positions were forcibly closed on October 10, 2025. The third is custody. At Mt.Gox in 2014 and FTX in 2022, customers' coins sat on the exchange and were caught in the insolvency proceedings when it failed. Devices for your own custody can be found in the hardware wallet comparison, and trading venues including fees in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

For tax, what counts in Germany is above all the holding period. Under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, the gain from selling Bitcoin held privately is tax free if more than a year lies between purchase and sale. Inside that period gains stay tax free as long as all private disposal gains of a year together remain below €1,000. Losses from sales inside the period may be offset against gains from private disposals in the same year, and losses not offset may be carried back to the previous year or forward to later years. A loss after a holding period of more than one year does not count for tax. How long your individual purchases have been in the portfolio and which sale would be tax free is calculated by the free CryptoTicker tax calculator. That is no substitute for tax advice.

The one-year period could change from 2027. A draft bill from the German finance ministry dated September 30, 2026 provides for crypto assets acquired after December 31, 2026 to be taxed as capital assets at 25 percent capital gains tax, with no holding period. In the Bundestag's petitions committee a ministry representative said on October 12, 2026 that the proposal was in interdepartmental coordination. There is no cabinet decision: on October 14, 2026 the federal cabinet did not take up the draft, on October 21 it did not meet, and the ministry has named no new date (as of October 22, 2026). Our article on the crypto holding period keeps the status current.

Bitcoin crash history: up to 1,127 days to the next record

Seven times since 2011 Bitcoin has lost more than half its value, and six times the price later stood at a record again. The way there took between 630 and 1,127 days in the big bear markets, the lows became shallower from cycle to cycle, and the fiercest days were brought by exchange failures, leverage and shocks from outside. The most recent decline, at minus 53.1 percent to the end of June 2026, is still open. Whether and when Bitcoin reaches the high of $124,753 again cannot be read from history. What can be read from it is how much patience and what position size earlier crashes demanded. Cryptocurrencies remain a volatile investment and a total loss is possible. We will extend the table as soon as the decline is complete or a new one begins.