Bitcoin crosses the one-dollar barrier, a 1,000 percent rise in six months. The first angel investors start to purchase bitcoin. Among them is Roger Ver, who made his inaugural $25,000 bitcoin purchase as the price arched toward, and then eclipsed, the dollar mark. The knock-on effect would garner more attention through the spring, as prominent economists (and enthusiastic YouTubers) shepherd the cryptocurrency into the mainstream. he price spikes to $31 per bitcoin after a Gawker exposé on darknet drug-market Silk Road goes viral in early June.

A raid of Mount Gox, at that point the leading online bitcoin exchange, prompts a temporary free fall: The dollar value plunges to $0.01 per bitcoin before a swift, partial recovery to $15 moments later. This flash crash begets the first major deflation spiral for bitcoin, as investors, spooked by ongoing security breaches, price volatility, and criminal activity, dial down exposure. Bitcoin’s rate of exchange recedes for almost two years. After nearly two years of inertia, bitcoin hits $100 for the first time on April Fools’ Day and then booms — doubling to more than $200 apiece in the span of a week.

Bitcoin goes from $200 apiece one day to just $67 the next morning as a flash panic sell-off roils the market. Mount Gox, still the leading bitcoin exchange, waves off the event as a technical glitch. The price rises back to pre-rally levels by the end of the week. Bitcoin soars past the $1,000 mark, near doubling in value in the span of a week. The frenzied buying appears to be propelled by Chinese investors, who, it’s assumed, want to move their money into untraceable accounts. Bitcoin peaks at $1,216.70 by the end of the month. The price won’t break $1,000 again for three years.