If You Invested $1 In Bitcoin Back In 2012 — Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Bitcoin BTC/USD is trading today (April 25) between $27,000 and $28,000, showing an impressive appreciation since its inception in 2009. For those who caught the Bitcoin wave early, the returns have been nothing short of astronomical.

In this article, Benzinga takes a walk down memory lane to examine just how much you would have now if you had invested $1 in Bitcoin back in 2012.

In 2012, Bitcoin was still in its infancy, having only been launched three years prior by the mysterious and still unidentified Satoshi Nakamoto.

At the time, digital currency was relatively unknown and viewed by many as an obscure experiment. Despite its uncertain beginnings, Bitcoin's value has grown exponentially over the past decade, providing investors who had the foresight to invest early with massive returns.

See Also: Binance Pulls Out Of Deal To Acquire Voyager Digital Assets, Here's What's Next

How Much $1 Of Bitcoin In 2012 Is Worth In 2023: To assess the value of a $1 investment in Bitcoin back in 2012, we'll use an average price for that year.

In 2012, the price of a single Bitcoin fluctuated between $4.72 and $13.51, with an average price of $8.90. Thus, a $1 investment in Bitcoin would have purchased approximately 0.1124 BTC.

Fast forward to 2023 with Bitcoin trading most consistently today at around $27,700 and that initial 0.1124 BTC investment would now be worth $3,113.98.

This represents a return on investment (ROI) of over 311,000% in just 11 years.
To put this into perspective, the S&P 500, a popular benchmark for the overall performance of the U.S. stock market, has had an average annual return of approximately 10% over the past century. Compared to the returns on Bitcoin, traditional investments seem almost quaint.

What If A Person Invested More? If we extrapolate the returns from our initial $1 investment example, the results for a $100 investment and a $1,000 investment in Bitcoin back in 2012 are equally mind-boggling.

With a $100 investment at the average price of $8.90 per Bitcoin, you would have purchased approximately 11.24 BTC. Today, that investment would be worth an incredible $311,398.

If you had invested $1,000 in Bitcoin in 2012, you would have bought around 112.4 BTC. Fast forward to today's Bitcoin price of $27,700, and that $1,000 investment would now be worth a jaw-dropping $3,113,980.

These returns demonstrate the enormous potential of Bitcoin as an investment over the past decade.

It's crucial to keep in mind that past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results and investing in cryptocurrencies still carries inherent risks and volatility.

See Also: 'How Dumb Was I?': Legendary Investor Peter Lynch Missed Out On Apple, Nvidia — Is Crypto His Next Mistake

This illustration of "Satoshi Nakamoto" was generated using artificial intelligence via MidJourney, content was partially edited with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.