Glossary

All-time high, or ATH, is a term that refers to the highest historical price a cryptocurrency has reached since its initial launch.

All-time-high, often abbreviated as ATH, means the highest ever price of an asset. This term has been used in traditional financial markets, when referring to stocks, for decades. The meaning of ATH in crypto is the all-time high of a cryptocurrency. Prices will vary between exchanges, but a weighted average between the exchanges is calculated to give the price as announced. 

Due to the volume of trades that occur, the ATH may not be the price of the highest single trade, but rather a highest daily average, or a price sample on the day of the ATH. Several indexes are used by different cryptocurrency price and market cap aggregator websites, including CoinMarketCap, Coin Gecko and Coindesk. All have slightly different calculation methods, but all will give virtually the same price.  

Being the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, the ATH of Bitcoin attracts the most attention in the world of crypto and beyond. The ATH for 

 was reached in the crypto bull run of 2017, when it mooned and peaked at close to $20,000 on December 18 of that year. 

Indeed, many ATH’s were reached for many altcoins as well at this time, including for 

. It took nearly three years for the ATH on Bitcoin to be topped. This occurred on November 10, 2021. On Bybit, the price for the trading pair BTC/USD peaked at $69,045. 

When an asset hits an ATH, it will be down to several factors but it is essentially down to supply and demand. It means that someone, somewhere, is willing to pay that amount for the asset. Many long-term investors, or hodlers, will look at the potential for an asset to hit ATHs in the coming years when they look at its viability as a long-term investment. 

Taking Bitcoin as an example, looking at some of the times when the cryptocurrency hit its ATHs can paint a picture of its history. 

All-Time High (ATH)

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