With bitcoin news all over our feeds, you’re not alone if you too have begun wondering what amount of money you could make if you had invested in bitcoins. The rise of bitcoins is well documented. Don’t mean to make you feel worse, but let’s do some calculations and come up with hypothetical numbers anyway. Let us try and understand the maximum and minimum prices that the Bitcoin underwent to reach its peak today.
Ever since 2010, bitcoin’s value has multiplied over 879,999 times. The price of Bitcoins has been extremely volatile over the past few years. Bitcoins jumped to nearly $1,000 each in late 2013, but unfortunately plummeted in its value and took more than three years to climb back to that price point.
A “regret” chart by Jeroen Blokland, the portfolio manager of the Robeco Global Allocation team, showed how a $1,000 investment in bitcoin in July 2010 would be worth more than $35 million today!
2011: The beginning
In January 2011, you could purchase about 50 bitcoins with Rs 1000 since they were at a low market value of Rs 20 per Bitcoin. However, by December, the same year, the Bitcoin was trading at Rs 225. So the Rs 1000 investment would have turned into Rs 11,250.
2012: A gradual increment
The first few months of 2012 would have boosted your investment to Rs 13,250 at Rs 255 per Bitcoin. And by May, that year, it increased up to Rs 284/bitcoin and then ended the year with Rs 700+/bitcoin! Your investment would have been Rs 35,000 already by 2012!
2013: A big hit
2013 started off with a slight dip. Attacks by hackers that took place against numerous bitcoin exchanges and also the FBI seizure of more than 170,000 bitcoins from criminal online portal — Silk Road added to the cause of the market price to waver that year.
However, when the Chinese media started to promote the Bitcoin as an alternative currency, it peaked at more than Rs 51000/bitcoin. Hence, your investment would have become Rs 25.5 lakhs. But this did not last too long as the bitcoin did not fare well for the rest of the year. By the end of December 2013, the price dipped to Rs 40,000 — still a significantly high return from 2011.
2014: Big plunges
By December 2014, unfortunately, your investment would have dropped down to Rs 10 lakhs only, with a Bitcoin value of Rs 20,000. However, unlike previous years, in 2014, you could have spent your bitcoins at many companies like Overstock.com, Microsoft, Dell and Time. You could have also withdrawn funds through a network of bitcoin ATMs around the world that year.
2015: Strong Ends
It was only after October that the Bitcoin price had an upward curve. By December that year, the Bitcoin traded at Rs 28000. Hence, at that point, your investment would have been worth Rs 14 lakhs and would also be a 140,000% return on your initial Rs 1000.
2016: Steep increases
In January 2016, the bitcoin started off at Rs 30,000 and remained relatively stable the following few months. There was a steep increase that happened due to the sudden Chinese demand which pushed bitcoin up to Rs 38200 by August end. Hence, your investment would be worth Rs 19 lakhs in 2016.
2017: Profit Prices
In February 2017, Bitcoin broke its 2013 record and hit a mark of Rs 78650+ per bitcoin. And to everyone’s surprise, it hit bigger milestones too. It even went beyond the price of one Troy ounce of gold. And by May first week, it heaved again to a price of Rs 1,40,000 per bitcoin.
So, the initial Rs 1000 worth of bitcoin is now worth Rs 70 lakhs, which is almost 7000 times your initial investment!
Conclusion
Even if you’d missed your initial 2011 bus and invested years later into bitcoin, you’d still be making a conservative 2000–3000 times your initial investment. Is it too late then?
Your initial investment of a Bitcoin 7 years ago would have only lead to more profits today, granted, along with some stress throughout the process. However, investing in the Bitcoin does come with its own risks, but then which investment doesn’t? And that too with such returns. It isn’t too late to start. Why? you ask. We’ve detailed that in a separate blog post here.
Also Read:
https://blog.unocoin.com/indians-are-welcoming-bitcoin-with-open-arms-b38c8ae35a6
