One of the earliest sharp drops in the virtual currency rate occurred on March 12, 2013. Then an error was found in the bitcoin protocol which caused the expenditure figures not to be saved, so one and the same money could be used twice. That resulted in a panic in the market. Traders started selling the cryptocurrency, and the bitcoin price fell by 23%, from 48 to 37 dollars. However, the problem was quickly resolved by the software recovery to the previous version, and the cryptocurrency was able to regain its positions.

Once again, the bitcoin rate collapsed in April 2013, declining from $233 to $67. For only 12 hours, the virtual currency has fallen in price by 71%. It took the currency seven months to recover. According to some experts, the collapse was caused by the fact that the Mt.Gox exchanger accumulated a debt of $30 million due to high trading activity. Eventually, the procedure for the exchange took more than 70 minutes. The exchange took about 8 hours to return to the normal operation mode, but the panic could not be avoided.

From April to November 2013, the price of bitcoin fluctuated around $120. In late November, the virtual currency increased in price at a rapid speed, breaking the level of $1000. However, in the middle of December, the value of the cryptocurrency sharply went down to the level of $450, and completed the year around $750. Only three years later, bitcoin could achieve the level of 1000 dollars.

In the period of January to February 2014, the cryptocurrency demonstrated growth until its rate suddenly fell by almost 50%, from 867 to 439 dollars. That was due to the fact that as a result of the "double withdrawal" attack, the Mt.Gox exchange lost over 700 thousand bitcoins and stopped trading.

A relatively large recent collapse of the cryptocurrency was recorded in early November 2017, when its value fell by 29%, from $8,882 to $5,605. According to some reports, that was due to the increased popularity of the cryptocurrency fork - Bitcoin Cash, which jumped in price by almost 40% per day.