Cryptoassets are high risk. Prices can fall as well as rise, and you could lose all the money you invest.
BEFORE YOU BUY

How do I research a cryptocurrency?

Choose a cryptocurrency and use real market and project data to learn what to check, what the figures mean and what they cannot tell you.

14 Research, do not guess We explain the data. We do not tell you what to buy.
CRYPTO RESEARCH TOOL

Choose a cryptocurrency to investigate

Select a cryptocurrency below. The figures come from the latest information stored by Live Crypto Prices UK and are explained in plain English.

Bitcoin logo
RESEARCHING

Bitcoin (BTC)

Use the sections below as starting points for your own research.

£61,614.00
▼ -2.43% (24H)
1 · MARKET SIZE

How large is Bitcoin?

Price per coin is only one number. Market capitalisation gives a broader view by combining price with circulating supply.

Current price £61,614.00 The latest GBP price stored by this site.
Market-cap rank #1 Its position by market capitalisation in the tracked market data.
Market cap £1.24tn Price multiplied by circulating supply.
Fully diluted valuation £1.26tn Estimated value if the relevant full supply were valued at the current price.
What should I learn from this?

A low price per token does not automatically mean a cryptocurrency is cheap. Supply matters. Compare price, market capitalisation and supply together rather than relying on the price of one coin.

Worth investigating: the stored fully diluted valuation is approximately 1.6% above the current market capitalisation. That difference can be a reason to investigate future supply and token issuance, but it is not by itself a judgement about the project.

2 · TRADING ACTIVITY

How actively is it trading?

Trading volume can help show how much market activity has been reported over the last 24 hours.

24h volume£21.45bnReported trading volume.
Volume / market cap1.73%A simple activity comparison, not a quality score.
24h low£61,879.00Lowest stored 24-hour market figure.
24h high£63,774.00Highest stored 24-hour market figure.
Do not read volume on its own.

Higher trading activity can make a market easier to enter or leave, but reported volume does not prove that a cryptocurrency is safe, useful or fairly valued.

3 · SUPPLY

How many coins exist?

Understanding circulating, total and maximum supply can help you see how much of an asset is already in circulation and whether more may enter the market.

Circulating supply20.10m BTCEstimated amount currently circulating.
Total supply20.10m BTCReported total supply.
Maximum supply21.00m BTCThe maximum reported supply where one exists.
Circulating vs max95.70%Useful for investigating how much potential supply is not yet circulating.
4 · PRICE HISTORY

Where is today's price compared with previous extremes?

All-time highs and lows provide historical context. They are not targets and do not tell you where the price will go next.

All-time high£93,529.006 Oct 2025
From ATH34.12%below recorded ATH
All-time low£43.904 Jul 2013
From ATL140,250.80%above recorded ATL
1 hour-0.61%Recent price movement.
7 days-4.80%Seven-day price movement.
A previous high is not a promise.

Seeing that a cryptocurrency once traded at a much higher price does not mean it will return there. Historical prices show what happened before; they do not predict future prices.

5 · KNOW THE PROJECT

What is Bitcoin actually for?

Market numbers cannot tell you whether a project solves a useful problem. Read about the project itself and check primary sources where possible.

Project information

Bitcoin is the world's first decentralized cryptocurrency, created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. It enables peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions without intermediaries like banks or governments, operating on a blockchain secured by Proof of Work mining and the SHA-256 cryptographic algorithm. With a fixed supply cap of 21 million coins and programmatic halvings every four years that reduce miner rewards, Bitcoin is designed as a deflationary digital asset often called "digital gold." Its value stems from solving the double-spending problem without trusted intermediaries, creating the first truly scarce digital asset with censorship resistance and permissionless access that no government, corporation, or individual can control. Bitcoin operates as a decentralized peer-to-peer network where transactions are recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain, distributed across thousands of computers globally. Transactions are grouped into blocks added approximately every 10 minutes through mining, where specialized computers compete to solve complex mathematical puzzles. Bitcoin has achieved mainstream adoption through multiple vectors. The January 2024 SEC approval of 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs opened Bitcoin investment to traditional finance participants, and corporations like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) are using Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset to protect against currency debasement, offering MSTR holders amplified exposure to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin ecosystem continues to evolve with innovations like Ordinals, which emerged in January 2023 to enable NFT-like functionality directly on Bitcoin, and BRC-20 tokens, an experimental standard for creating fungible tokens using Ordinal inscriptions. BTCFi (Bitcoin Finance) represents emerging financial applications extending beyond Bitcoin's traditional role, with protocols like Babylon allowing Bitcoin holders to stake BTC to secure Proof of Stake chains.

Platform
—
Hashing algorithm
SHA-256
Block time
10.00 minutes
Country of origin
—
Genesis date
3 Jan 2009
6 · TREASURY OWNERSHIP

Who holds Bitcoin?

Our treasury dataset tracks reported cryptocurrency holdings by companies and governments or public authorities where data is available. Holdings do not necessarily mean the entity bought the cryptocurrency; assets may be acquired in different ways.

Recorded companies 174 Company treasury records with positive holdings.
Company holdings 1.31m BTC Total across the company records shown in our dataset.
Recorded governments 11 Government/public-authority records with positive holdings.
Government holdings 619.46k BTC Total across the government/public-authority records in our dataset.
TOP COMPANY TREASURIES

Companies holding Bitcoin

Company Country Symbol Holdings Reported value USD
Strategy US MSTR.US 848,250.00 BTC $69,032,149,516
Metaplanet JP 3350.T 44,000.00 BTC $3,580,801,154
Twenty One Capital US XXI.US 43,514.00 BTC $3,583,748,997
MARA Holdings US MARA.US 35,577.00 BTC $2,895,321,878
Strive US ASST.US 32,773.00 BTC $2,667,127,187
Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company US CEPO.US 30,021.00 BTC $2,493,697,958
Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd US GLXY.US 25,723.00 BTC $2,158,293,253
Bullish US BLSH.US 23,800.00 BTC $1,936,887,897
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. US SPCX 18,712.00 BTC $1,522,817,072
Coinbase Global US COIN.US 17,311.00 BTC $1,408,801,108

Showing the 10 largest recorded company holdings from 174 company records.

GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC-AUTHORITY TREASURIES

Governments and public authorities holding Bitcoin

Entity Country Holdings Reported value USD
United States US 329,693.00 BTC $26,843,869,093
China CN 190,000.00 BTC $15,469,952,737
United Kingdom GB 61,245.00 BTC $5,044,048,061
North Korea KP 13,562.00 BTC $1,104,228,942
Bhutan BT 10,769.00 BTC $893,266,784
El Salvador SV 7,474.37 BTC $608,569,214
United Arab Emirates AE 6,333.00 BTC $521,576,559
Venezuela VE 240.00 BTC $19,842,544
Finland FI 90.00 BTC $7,499,732
Texas US 57.47 BTC $4,750,344

Showing the 10 largest recorded government/public-authority holdings from 11 records.

Explore companies holding Bitcoin → Explore governments holding Bitcoin →
What does treasury ownership tell me?

It shows that the asset appears in reported organisational treasury data. It does not prove endorsement, future buying, safety or future price performance. Government holdings may include seized or otherwise acquired assets rather than purchases.

7 · QUESTIONS THE NUMBERS CANNOT ANSWER

Finish the research away from the price chart

Before making your own decision, investigate questions that market data alone cannot answer:

  • What problem is the cryptocurrency or network intended to solve?
  • Who develops or controls it, and how transparent is that structure?
  • How are new tokens issued, unlocked or distributed?
  • Has the software been independently reviewed or audited where relevant?
  • Is there genuine usage, or are claims mainly based on future promises?
  • What could make the asset difficult to sell or cause its value to fall sharply?
  • Are you reading primary information, or relying on promotion and social-media claims?
A SIMPLE RESEARCH ROUTINE

Data → Project → Risks → Decision

Use the numbers to ask better questions, verify the project's own claims from multiple sources, understand what could go wrong, then make your own decision.

View full Bitcoin price page → Understand the risk → Back to Explore Crypto