The iPhone did not get dearer in bitcoin. Bitcoin got 30% cheaper

A chart doing the rounds says an iPhone cost about 0.007 BTC at the last presentation and costs about 0.015 today, more than double. The long-range version of the same chart says 162 BTC in 2011. One of those figures is roughly right. The other compares two different phones.

Hold the model constant

Work backwards. At the September 2025 presentation bitcoin traded near $112,065, so 0.007 BTC came to $784, which is a base model. Today bitcoin sits near $78,397, so 0.015 BTC comes to $1,176, which is a Pro. The jump measures the gap between two model tiers as much as anything else.

Hold the phone constant and the picture changes:

• An $799 phone: 0.00713 BTC in September 2025, 0.01019 BTC today. Up 43%.
• A $1,199 phone: 0.01070 BTC in September 2025, 0.01529 BTC today. Up 43%.
• Bitcoin over the same year: $112,065 to $78,397. Down 30%.

Both tiers move by the same 43%, because the phone is not what moved. Divide one by the other: 1 divided by 0.70 is 1.43. The whole rise in the bitcoin price of an iPhone is the fall in the bitcoin price, and nothing else.

An iPhone in bitcoin is a ratio, and that is what pricing anything in a volatile unit does. The object stands still and the ruler moves, and a chart drawn that way tells you about the ruler.

What the 2011 figure really says

The 2011 number is a different matter. An iPhone 4S launched in October 2011 at $649, and bitcoin ran from $5.14 at the start of that month to $3.25 at the end, with a low of $2.27 along the way. The phone cost somewhere between 126 and 200 coins depending on the day, and the quoted 162 sits inside that range rather than being a single correct answer.

“Bitcoin ran from $5.14 to $3.25 across October 2011, so a $649 iPhone 4S cost between about 126 and 200 coins depending on the day.”

— Intokened calculation, intokened.com, 10 September 2026

Our own calculation from the iPhone 4S launch price and the recorded October 2011 price range

From that range down to 0.015 is a fall of four orders of magnitude. Take the middle and it is about 10,600 times; take the first of October and it is 8,200; take the last and it is 13,100. Which day you pick moves the multiple by half again, and none of those choices changes the shape.

So the fifteen-year story is real and enormous even with that imprecision. The year-on-year story is a model swap wearing the same clothes.

Why this chart travels in a down year

There is a reason this kind of chart keeps circulating in a year when bitcoin is down. Priced in bitcoin, everything looks more expensive when bitcoin falls, and the same chart drawn in October 2025 would have shown an iPhone getting cheaper every month.

We measured the other side of that this morning: SOPR has held above breakeven for 22 days by two tenths of a percent, and the average ETF buyer paid about $83,800 against today's price, which we worked out this week.

If you want the honest version of the iPhone chart, it needs one line per model and a note that the y-axis is a currency that moved 30% in a year. Without those, it measures bitcoin and labels it Apple.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.