Bitcoin’s Volatility Should Burn Investors. It Hasn’t.
Wild price swings normally have a way of reversing fortunes. So how do you explain when they don’t?
Are Bitcoin's investors a new, savvier breed?
Photographer: Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty Images
Just over 10 years old, Bitcoin might already be the best-performing investment of all time. It might also be the most volatile, and volatility has a way of luring people into ill-timed and costly investing choices. So with all the headlines about Bitcoin’s meteoric rise, it seems reasonable to ask how its investors are doing.
There’s no denying Bitcoin’s astonishing success. Its price has grown a stupefying 796,933 times since 2010. For perspective, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has grown 869 times since its inception in 1896. That means Bitcoin’s price appreciation has been 917 times that of the Dow in less than a tenth of the time.