If You Invested $1,000 In Bitcoin When It Launched, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto founded the cryptocurrency Bitcoin BTC/USD. Here's a look back at the pseudonymous creator and the price history of the leading cryptocurrency.

What Happened: In October 2008, Nakamoto published a whitepaper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” It provided many key details and explained why Bitcoin was being created.

In January 2009, Nakamoto mined the genesis block of Bitcoin, and the first 50 Bitcoins were mined.

When Bitcoin was released, there were only two ways to get the cryptocurrency: You could either mine the Bitcoin yourself or use a peer-to-peer transaction. Bitcointalk, a forum created by Nakamoto to host discussions on Bitcoin, was used for several transactions, which were deemed risky at the time because they required trust from both parties that were mostly anonymous.

In October 2009, one of the first ever recognized Bitcoin transactions happened when a Finnish computer science student sold 5,050 Bitcoin for $5.02 (which represented a value of $0.0009 for each Bitcoin), according to Forbes. The transaction took place on PayPal PYPL.

Less than a year later, in May 2010, one of the most famous Bitcoin transactions of all-time — and what is widely believed to be the first retail transaction — took place when programmer Laszlo Hanyecz sought out a person to buy him pizza in exchange for Bitcoin. A person in England subsequently spent around $41 to buy Papa John’s PZZA pizza in exchange for 10,000 Bitcoin.

“I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas, like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over the next day,” Hanyecz said in the infamous online post.

Now known as “Bitcoin Pizza Day,” May 22 pays tribute to the day of that very famous Bitcoin transaction. At the time, Bitcoin had a value of around $0.0041. 

It wasn't until 2011 and after the launch of several major crypto exchanges that the cryptocurrency hit a price of $1. 

Related Link: How To Buy Bitcoin 

Investing $1,000 in Bitcoin: Using the early transactions referenced above, a hypothetical investment in Bitcoin in the early days could have provided quite the return for its holder, or in this case a “hodler.”

A $1,000 investment in Bitcoin at the time of the first transaction on PayPal would have netted 1,111,111.11 Bitcoin, even though that amount of cryptocurrency probably wouldn't have been available due to mining constraints. That $1,000 investment would be worth $30,949,777,746.80 today based on a price of $27,854.80 for Bitcoin at the time of writing.

In contrast, a $1,000 investment in Bitcoin at the time of the Bitcoin-pizza transaction would have netted 243,902.44 BTC. That investment would be worth $6,793,853,685.71 today based on the same price of $27,854.80 at the time of writing.

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