Bitcoin and the crypto world in general have really exploded in the mere 12 years or so of existence. The digital currency revolution has taken the world by storm and recently crossed a massive $3 trillion in total valuation. There was this famous guy who paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two Papa John’s pizzas back in 2010 when the worth was less than a Dollar. Now the same Bitcoin is $600 million if a price of $60k is taken into consideration. This massive appreciation in any currency hasn’t been experienced in such a short amount of time in the history of currency, digital or otherwise.
While it is not a positive approach to dwell on the past and wonder about how much one could have made if he/she had invested in the crypto sector back in its early years, it is good for retrospection and see what kind of appreciation we can expect going into the future.
How Bitcoin’s Price Rallies Usually Happen
Bitcoin is a digital currency that usually undergoes a bullish cycle followed by a bearish one. Each successive bull cycle propels the cryptocurrency’s index to new highs and each following bearish cycle cuts it back significantly. The bull cycle usually appears some time after the block reward halving, which essentially cuts the supply of new Bitcoin into the system by half. This results in a supply shock that ultimately leads to the new bull run.
By the way, you can not just HODL bitcoin but earn interest in bitcoin.
Previous Price Rallies
Previously, Bitcoin rallied strongly in 2013, 2017 and now in 2021. Each year followed the latest Bitcoin halving that occurred in 2012, 2016 and the latest one in 2020. While each time, the cryptocurrency rose to new heights, the extent of these bull runs was different overall, which we will cover later on.
Just How Rich You Would be if You had Invested in Bitcoin Previously?
Just for analytical purposes, we are going to invest a fixed $1000 into the median BTC valuation in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Then we’ll see how much we are worth in 2021 using a reference valuation of $60k.
2012
Back in 2012 there were very few crypto analytics and graphical analytics resources available. Here is one such example
Image Source: Rekt Capital
So, 2012 started with a valuation of around $6 and ended with around $15. So, a median valuation is around $10.5. Investing $1000 would have made you the owner of 95.23 BTC. That means you would have been worth a whopping $5.714 million today. Surely a big fortune.
2016
Image Source: CoinMarketCap
2016 started with a BTC valuation of $463 and finished with around $973 which brings out the median to be around $718. If you had invested $1000 back with this median average you would have 1.39 BTC. Taking a valuation of $60,000 you would have $83,565 now, an almost 83565% increase.
2020
Image Source: CoinMarketCap
2020 started with a valuation of $7,200 and ended with around $29,000. So, a median price of $18,100, you would have 0.055 BTC. Once again, taking a price of around $60,000, you would have around $3,315 today, around a 313.5% increase.
Concluding….
So, Bitcoin has appreciated starkly differently over the years but still, there is a lot of potential in the crypto sector to post appreciation in the future. Even if you had invested last year, you would be worth several times more which is better than the majority of conventional assets out there.
