Bitcoin yearly highs and lows (AUD)
Bitcoin's high, low, open and close in AUD for every year from 2014 onwards, plus the intra-year range and full-year return. The interactive chart shows vertical bars from each year's low to high with the close marked. Hover any bar for the exact prices and which month produced the high and low. Useful for cycle reference: every Bitcoin cycle top has printed in October-December of its peak year, and every cycle bottom has printed in different months across years.
Chart
Vertical bar for each year showing the intra-year price range (low to high). White tick marks the year-end close. Green bars closed positive; red bars closed negative. Hover any year for the exact high, low, close, return, and which month produced each extreme.
Full year-by-year table
Which year had the biggest intra-year range?
2017 had the biggest intra-year range in Bitcoin AUD history. Bitcoin opened the year near A$1,200, bottomed at approximately A$1,700 in February (effectively the year's low close was right at the open), then rallied to A$25,000 by December - an intra-year range of over 1400 percent. The 2020 range was second-widest at approximately 600 percent (March COVID low to December peak). Bear and mid-cycle years (2015, 2018, 2019, 2023) tend to have ranges under 200 percent, reflecting consolidation rather than the parabolic moves of cycle peak years.
Bitcoin all-time high by year
Bitcoin's all-time high has been set or re-set in 6 distinct years: 2013, 2017, 2021, and 2024-2025. The other years' highs represented intra-year peaks within ongoing bear or consolidation phases. Notable per-year highs (AUD-priced):
- 2017 high: ~A$25,000 (December 2017 - the ICO mania peak)
- 2021 high: ~A$94,000 (November 2021 - end of post-halving 2020 cycle)
- 2024 high: ~A$165,000+ (mid-2024 / late-2024 - post-halving + ETF era peak so far)
- 2025 high: ~A$135,000 (December 2025 - secondary peak in current cycle)
For interactive cycle context, see the Charts Dashboard or the Bitcoin Rainbow Chart.
Which month do Bitcoin cycle tops cluster in?
| Cycle | Top month | Top price (AUD) | Days post-halving |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 cycle | November 2013 | ~A$1,200 | 365 (after Nov 2012 halving) |
| 2017 cycle | December 2017 | ~A$25,000 | 525 (after Jul 2016 halving) |
| 2021 cycle | November 2021 | ~A$94,000 | 545 (after May 2020 halving) |
| 2024-? cycle | TBD (in progress) | TBD | TBD (after Apr 2024 halving) |
The November-December clustering reflects late-year mania driven by Q4 retail-flow seasonality, year-end bonus inflows, holiday narrative cycles, and accelerated media coverage. Days-post-halving has lengthened with each cycle: 365 → 525 → 545. The 2024-2025 cycle's analogous peak window (using 550+ days from the April 2024 halving) would be late-2025 through mid-2026.
Methodology
- Data. Monthly BTC/AUD closes from January 2014 onwards. Each year's "high" is the highest monthly close in that year; "low" is the lowest. Intraday extremes would be slightly more extreme but are not captured in the monthly dataset.
- Open/close. Open = January's open value. Close = December's close value (or latest available month for the current year).
- Return. (close / open - 1) * 100. Pure price return, not compounded with intra-year DCA or fees.
- Range. (high / low - 1) * 100. Measures intra-year volatility independent of direction.
- Resilience. Static-first: the monthly data file in the repo is the source of truth. The fetch script refreshes on every site build via CryptoCompare primary + CoinGecko fallback. If both sources fail, the previous data file is preserved.
Related tools
- Bitcoin Monthly Returns Heatmap (AUD) - same data at monthly resolution with colour-coded heatmap.
- Bitcoin Log Regression Bands (AUD) - long-run fair value reference.
- Bitcoin Rainbow Chart (AUD) - sentiment-labelled cycle positioning.
- Bitcoin Halving Countdown - days to next halving + 3-cycle performance overlay.
- Charts Dashboard - all cycle indicators on one page.
- Crypto CGT Calculator - apply the ATO 50 percent discount to any Bitcoin disposal.
Frequently asked questions
Bitcoin's all-time high during 2025 was approximately A$135,000, printed in December 2025. This is below the broader all-time-high to date (A$165,000+ recorded earlier in 2025) reflecting BTC's late-year consolidation. The table below shows the high and low for every Bitcoin year from 2014 onwards with the specific month each extreme was hit.
Across Bitcoin's history, the widest intra-year ranges occurred in 2017 (high to low spread of over 1400 percent) and 2020 (over 600 percent). The narrowest ranges occurred in 2015, 2018, and 2019 (under 200 percent each), all in bear or mid-cycle phases. The intra-year range column in the table below shows the (high / low - 1) percentage for every year.
Bitcoin's three completed cycle tops have all printed in November-December: November 2013, December 2017, and November 2021. The pattern reflects late-year mania driven by Q4 retail-flow seasonality (year-end bonus inflows, holiday narrative cycles, accelerated media coverage). The 2024-2025 cycle peak (whenever it ultimately prints) is on a similar trajectory, with cycle-position indicators suggesting late 2025 through mid 2026 as the high-probability peak window.
Across the 2014-2025 sample, Bitcoin's average yearly return in AUD has been approximately +85 percent (arithmetic mean) and +47 percent (geometric/compounded mean). The variance is extreme: best year (2017) printed +1300+ percent; worst year (2018) printed -73 percent. The year-by-year table below shows the actual close-over-open percentage return for every year. Returns are AUD-priced, not USD-priced - the cumulative AUD-USD depreciation over the period adds approximately 20-30 percentage points to AUD-priced returns vs USD over 10 years.
High = the highest monthly close price during the year. Low = the lowest monthly close price during the year. These are MONTHLY extremes, not intraday extremes. The actual intraday high and low for each year would be slightly more extreme but require daily-resolution data which the heatmap dataset does not capture at year-by-year granularity. The chart above visualises the vertical span from low to high for each year with the closing price marked as a horizontal tick.
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