An all-time high (ATH) is the highest price an asset has ever traded at, from the start of its recorded history to today. As of 25 October 2026, CoinGecko lists Bitcoin's ATH at $126,080, set on 6 October 2025. Bitcoin's price that day was about $80,386, roughly 36% below the peak. An ATH tells you where the market has been. It does not tell you where the price will go.
Bitcoin's ATH as of October 2026
CoinGecko's figures for Bitcoin in US dollars, last updated 25 October 2026:
| Measure | Value | Date |
|---|---|---|
| All-time high | $126,080 | 6 October 2025 |
| All-time low (in CoinGecko's records) | $67.81 | 5 July 2013 |
| Price at time of writing | ~$80,386 | 25 October 2026 |
| Distance from ATH | about -36.2% | 25 October 2026 |
The all-time low applies only to CoinGecko's data, which begins in 2013. Bitcoin traded at much lower prices before then, so this is not the lowest price Bitcoin has ever had.
How an ATH is measured
The number depends on the data source
The same asset can have slightly different ATHs depending on who measures it. Each trading venue has its own order book, and a short spike on one venue may not happen on others. Data aggregators smooth this out with their own methods. CoinGecko's published methodology:
- builds a reference Bitcoin price from the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of selected BTC/USD, BTC/USDT, BTC/USDC and BTC/EUR pairs;
- starts from the top 600 tickers by volume for a coin and removes outliers using median absolute deviation bounds;
- takes the VWAP of the remaining tickers as the final price. Its operations team can also manually exclude anomalous tickers.
So an aggregator's ATH is a blended figure, not the single highest trade anywhere. Media reports also differ. When Bitcoin passed its November 2021 record on 5 March 2024, Bitcoin Magazine put the old high at $69,010, Forklog reported a new peak of $69,324, and other reports rounded the old high to $69,000.
When you quote an ATH, name the source, the currency pair and the date.
Intraday high vs closing high
Stock indices usually report records as closing highs. Crypto aggregators usually report the highest price in their data, which can be a short intraday move. The two can differ a lot on volatile days. Compare like with like.
Nominal vs inflation-adjusted
Most ATHs are nominal, meaning they are not adjusted for inflation. After the Nasdaq Composite regained its dot-com peak in 2015, Fortune noted that the records were "not adjusted for the market's inflation over the past 15 years." In real terms, a nominal ATH reached years after an earlier one can still be below it.
Recovering a lost ATH can take years
Two examples:
- Nasdaq Composite. It closed at a record 5,048.62 on 10 March 2000. It did not close above that level until 23 April 2015, at 5,056.06. That took about 15 years, one month and 13 days, according to the Associated Press.
- Bitcoin, 2021 to 2024. After its November 2021 peak near $69,000, Bitcoin fell to roughly $15,500 to $15,700 in November 2022, depending on the venue. That was a decline of about 77% to 78% (Cointelegraph, Invezz). It set a new record on 5 March 2024, 846 days after the previous peak, according to Forklog.
The arithmetic of drawdowns
A fall from an ATH needs a larger percentage gain to recover. A decline of d needs a gain of d / (1 − d) to get back to the peak:
| Decline from ATH | Gain needed to return to ATH |
|---|---|
| 20% | 25% |
| 36.2% (Bitcoin on 25 Oct 2026) | about 57% |
| 50% | 100% |
| 77% | about 335% |
| 90% | 900% |
This is why "it is 80% off its high" is not the same as "it is 80% cheap." Getting back to the old high would take a 400% rise from there. The old high may also have reflected conditions that no longer exist, such as liquidity, leverage or a popular narrative.
How far must a price rise to regain its ATH?
Enter a decline from an all-time high to see the percentage gain needed to return to that peak.
| Decline from the all-time high | Gain needed to return to the ATH |
|---|---|
| 36.2 % | 56.7 % |
| 20 % | 25 % |
| 50 % | 100 % |
| 77 % | 334.8 % |
| 80 % | 400 % |
| 90 % | 900 % |
- The decline is your own input, measured from the peak price to the current price in the same currency pair.
- The result is nominal and ignores inflation, fees and the time a recovery takes.
This is percentage arithmetic only. It cannot show whether or when a price will get back to its ATH, and a past ATH is not a level the price has to return to.
ATH vs ATL
The all-time low (ATL) is the lowest recorded price. Together, the two figures give the full historical range. Bitcoin's range in CoinGecko's data runs from $67.81 to $126,080. Where the current price sits in that range describes past demand. Neither figure is a forecast.
What research says about prices near highs
Academic work on stocks has looked at how traders react to prices near recent highs. The best-known study uses 52-week highs rather than all-time highs. Thomas J. George and Chuan-Yang Hwang, "The 52-Week High and Momentum Investing" (Journal of Finance, 2004, vol. 59, pp. 2145–2176), studied US stocks from 1963 to 2001. They found that a stock's nearness to its 52-week high predicted future returns better than its past returns did, and that these forecasts did not reverse in the long run. Their explanation is that investors anchor on the high and are slow to bid prices above it. A later study of Oslo Stock Exchange stocks from 1990 to 2019 replicated the core result. A Griffith University study found the strategy unprofitable on emerging-market indices. These findings come from equity markets over specific periods. They have not been shown to apply to crypto ATHs.
How to read an ATH headline
- Check the source and pair. BTC/USD and BTC/USDT, or one venue and an aggregator, can show different peaks.
- Check the date. A "new ATH" headline describes one moment, and prices often pull back soon after. On the day Bitcoin passed its 2021 record in March 2024, Forklog reported about $680 million in leveraged positions liquidated over 24 hours.
- Ask whether it is nominal. Over long periods, inflation changes what a record means.
- Treat it as history, not a target. A past ATH is not a level the price has to return to.
Limitations: price data is CoinGecko's snapshot of 25 October 2026 and will change; the 2022 Bitcoin low and some 2024 figures come from news reports and differ by venue.
