Bitcoin price at $85,662 one year after the all-time high: what to watch now

The price of Bitcoin stood at $85,662 on Sunday afternoon, equivalent to 76,487 euros, according to data from price provider CoinGecko. It is exactly one year since the cryptocurrency reached its all-time high: on the morning of October 6, 2025, a single Bitcoin cost $126,080. The gap between that record and today's level comes to $40,418, or 32.1 percent. In euros the gap is smaller, and it is precisely that difference which determines what the Bitcoin price means for investors in Germany, both for tax purposes and in practice.

Bitcoin price on October 5, 2026: $85,662 and 76,487 euros

Over the past 24 hours Bitcoin has gained 0.63 percent in dollar terms. Measured in euros the gain is 1.19 percent, almost twice as much. The daily range ran from $85,172 to $86,949, putting $1,777 or a good 2 percent between the session low and the session high. Over one week the Bitcoin price shows a gain of 3.4 percent, and over one month a gain of 8.4 percent.

Market capitalisation stands at $1.72 trillion and trading turnover over the past 24 hours at $30.3 billion. There are 20,093,759 Bitcoin in circulation. A turnover-to-market-value ratio of roughly 1.8 percent describes a quiet trading day, not a panic in either direction.

The key figures at a glance

Figure	In dollars	In euros
Price on October 5, 2026	85,662	76,487
All-time high of October 6, 2025	126,080	107,662
Gap to the all-time high	40,418 (32.1 percent)	31,175 (29.0 percent)
Rise required to reach the record	47.2 percent	40.8 percent
Change over 24 hours	plus 0.63 percent	plus 1.19 percent

One year after the all-time high: Bitcoin is $40,418 short of its record

An anniversary is not a price story, but it is an honest yardstick. Anyone who bought at the peak on October 6, 2025 is sitting on a paper loss of 32.1 percent in dollar terms. A gain of 32.1 percent is not enough to get back to that entry price. It takes 47.2 percent, because a loss always has to be made up from a smaller base. That asymmetry is why the moment of entry weighs so heavily with a volatile asset.

At the same time, the past year shows that the market has not collapsed but moved sideways. Over 30 days the Bitcoin price is up 8.4 percent, over seven days 3.4 percent. The price is working its way up from below towards the range it occupied over the summer. For an investor that means the question is less whether the market is broken than whether their own position still fits the plan they set out with when they bought.

Paper loss is a term that is often misread. It describes the difference between purchase price and current price for as long as nothing has been sold. For tax purposes it does not exist. Only a sale turns a paper loss into a realised loss, and only then does the question arise whether the tax office recognises it.

Why the euro gap to the Bitcoin all-time high is smaller than the dollar gap

In euro terms Bitcoin was quoted at 107,662 euros on October 6, 2025. Today it is 76,487 euros. That is a gap of 31,175 euros or 29.0 percent, a good three percentage points less than in dollars. The reason lies not with Bitcoin but with the exchange rate. At the all-time high the price ratio corresponded to a euro-dollar rate of around 1.17. Today the implied rate is about 1.12. The euro has therefore lost value against the dollar, and that cushions the balance sheet of an investor who counts in euros.

The same mechanism explains the daily picture. Bitcoin rising 1.19 percent in euros but only 0.63 percent in dollars is down to the euro giving ground on the same day. How wide that wedge can grow was on display on October 3, when the price lost 4.4 percent in dollars and only 0.5 percent in euros. We worked that case through at the time in a separate article on the difference between the dollar and euro quotation.

In practice this means two things. Anyone tracking their holdings in an app that defaults to dollars is looking at a number that is not theirs. And anyone declaring gains or losses to the tax office has to count in euros in any case. The dollar display is market information; the euro amount is the figure that counts for tax.

The one-year holding period under Section 23 EStG: October 6, 2026 is the cut-off for last year's buyers

In Germany Bitcoin falls under private disposal transactions pursuant to Section 23 (1) sentence 1 no. 2 of the German Income Tax Act. A sale is taxable only if less than one year lies between acquisition and disposal. Once that one-year period has run, the transaction is no longer taxable.

This rule has two sides, and the second one is easily missed. A gain after more than a year stays tax-free, which is the familiar side. But a loss after more than a year is equally outside the tax net and therefore worthless for tax purposes. There is nothing left to offset it against.

For anyone who bought around October 6, 2025, that becomes concrete in these very days. The one-year period is calculated under Section 108 of the German Fiscal Code in conjunction with the time-limit provisions of the Civil Code. For a purchase on October 6, 2025 it ends at the close of October 6, 2026; from October 7 the transaction sits outside the period. Which day applies in an individual case depends on the exact moment of acquisition and belongs in the hands of a tax adviser before any decision.

Offsetting crypto losses: what stops working once the one-year period expires

Under Section 23 (3) of the German Income Tax Act, losses from private disposal transactions may be offset only against gains from the same category of income. Such losses therefore do not reduce employment income, nor investment income from shares or interest. Within that limit they can be carried back one year and carried forward without a time limit, so they can neutralise gains from future private disposal transactions.

For anyone who has already realised gains from short-term crypto sales this year, the question is no formality. A loss realised inside the one-year period can reduce those gains. The same loss realised a day later cannot. That is no reason to pin an investment decision to a date, but it is a reason to know the date.

A third point comes on top, the exemption threshold. Since the 2024 assessment period, gains from private disposal transactions remain tax-free up to 1,000 euros a year. An exemption threshold is not an allowance. Once it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable, not just the part above the line.

Which order applies after multiple purchases

Anyone who has bought more over a period of months does not own one Bitcoin holding but many tranches with acquisition dates of their own. For allocating them, the Federal Ministry of Finance set out the first-in-first-out method in its ruling on virtual currencies of May 10, 2022, applied per wallet or exchange account. First in, first out means that the units acquired first count as the ones sold first. Without clean records of the individual purchases this cannot be demonstrated, and that is exactly where many crypto tax returns come apart. A crypto tax tool or portfolio tracker handles that allocation automatically and supplies the supporting documents with it.

Reference rate and conversion: the German tax office counts the euro amount

Gains and losses are determined in euros, even where the trade was settled in dollars or in a stablecoin. The conversion requires a traceable rate at the time of acquisition and of disposal. The euro reference rates of the European Central Bank are set on every bank business day and are a common source, as is the rate of the trading platform on which the transaction took place. What matters is that you stick with one method and can document it.

At weekends there is no new reference rate. Anyone selling on a Sunday like today uses the rate of the last bank business day or the rate of the exchange. Both are defensible; switching between the two depending on the result is not.

Levels above and below: $86,949 from the daily range and $90,000 as the round hurdle

Levels are not a prophecy but places where a lot of trading happened in the past. On the upside the session high of $86,949 is the first marker, followed by the round level of $90,000, where sell orders tend to gather. On the downside the session low of $85,172 marks the edge of today's trading, and below that $80,000 is the next round number.

Translated into euros, that lands at around 77,600 euros for the session high and about 76,000 euros for the session low. Because the exchange rate moves along with it, these euro levels shift even when the dollar price does not budge at all. Anyone placing buy or sell orders in euros should factor that in.

Buying Bitcoin under MiCA: the licence a provider in Germany needs

The European regulation on markets in crypto-assets, MiCA for short, has applied in full since December 30, 2024. It requires every provider that holds, exchanges or brokers crypto-assets in the EU to be authorised as a crypto-asset service provider. In Germany it is accompanied by the Crypto Markets Supervision Act, with BaFin as the supervisor. How large a role that act now plays in practice shows in the fact that it underpins the majority of the recent BaFin warnings about unauthorised providers.

For you as a buyer this has boiled down to a single question that takes a few minutes to settle: is the provider listed with an authorisation in the register of BaFin or of another European supervisory authority? A provider without that licence is not allowed to approach you in Germany, and in a dispute no supervisor stands at your side. Our comparison of the best crypto exchanges gives an overview of authorised venues and their terms.

Fees when buying Bitcoin: spread, order fee and the card payment surcharge

At a price of $85,662, one percentage point of fees weighs more heavily than most daily moves. Three items determine the real price. The order fee is the stated charge per purchase. The spread is the difference between the bid and ask price; it appears in no fee schedule yet costs real money. On top of that come surcharges for particular payment methods.

How large that third item can become is something we worked through on October 4: with a Bitcoin purchase by credit card the surcharge ran up to 9.94 euros per 100 euros of purchase value, depending on the provider. Via a SEPA transfer it usually falls away entirely. Anyone using a savings plan should also establish whether they are acquiring real coins or merely a certificate, because that governs whether the one-year period under Section 23 applies at all.

Custody after a year of sideways Bitcoin trading: exchange, hardware wallet and counterparty risk

A year below the all-time high means that for many investors their holdings have sat on an exchange longer than originally planned. With that, a risk grows that has nothing to do with the price. At an exchange you hold a claim against the company, not the coins themselves. MiCA does require client and proprietary holdings to be kept separate, but a provider failure remains a scenario that only self-custody protects against.

A hardware wallet takes that counterparty risk off your hands and gives you a different one in return, namely responsibility for the recovery words. Lose them and the holding is gone for good. For amounts beyond play money, self-custody is nevertheless the normal case, and the one-year period keeps running throughout: a transfer between your own wallets is not a disposal and does not reset the clock.

Bitcoin after the all-time high: the key points for your decision

1. Dig out your acquisition dates. Look through your transaction history to see which tranches date from October 2025 and when their one-year period ends. A crypto tax tool or portfolio tracker reads the data out of exchange and wallet and allocates it by the first-in-first-out method.
2. Price in the cost of the buying route. Compare your provider's order fee, spread and payment method before you buy more. The crypto exchange comparison sets the terms of authorised venues side by side.
3. Match custody to your holding period. If your holding sits longer than planned, it does not belong on an exchange account permanently. Which devices suit which amounts is covered in the hardware wallet comparison.

(As of October 5, 2026. This article is not investment advice and not tax advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy, and tax questions with a tax adviser.)