If You Invested $1,000 In Cardano One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Investors who have owned stocks in the past year have generally experienced some big gains. But there is no question some big-name cryptocurrencies have left the stock market in the dust.

Cardano’s Big Run: One cryptocurrency that has been a great investment in the past year has been the world’s fourth most valuable crypto, Cardano (CRYPTO: $ADA).

Cardano has been an exceptional investment going all the way back to its launch in 2017. However, after its market cap briefly spiked from its initial value of $600 million to as high as $10 billion in 2017, the crypto mostly traded at a fraction of that peak valuation until 2021.

Cardano prices started heading in the right direction in 2020 thanks to massive government stimulus spending to support the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic began, the government has spent more than $6 trillion, and investors concerned about the potential for hyperinflation have poured into cryptocurrencies as potential hedges.

At the beginning of 2020, Cardano was trading at just 3.28 cents. When March kicked off, the cryptocurrency had risen to 4.75 cents as news of the virus spreading in China prompted concerns about a U.S. pandemic.

On March 13, 2020, Cardano plummeted to its pandemic low of 1.91 cents as global stock markets tanked. The good news for Cardano investors is that the crypto bounced off that level as the stock market began to stabilize shortly thereafter and the government started printing money.

By Nov. 1, Cardano was back up to 9.31.

Related Link: If You Invested $1,000 In Binance Coin One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Cardano In 2021, Beyond: On Jan. 19, 2021, influential Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk added #Bitcoin to his Twitter bio and tweeted “In retrospect, it was inevitable.” Musk’s tweet sent the entire cryptocurrency market soaring, including Cardano.

Investors are also optimistic about Cardano’s potential to challenge Ethereum ETH/USD once it rolls out new “smart contract” functionality in the near future.

Cardano ultimately hit a new all-time high of $2.46 in May, but has since pulled back significantly. Today, Cardano is trading back down at $1.47.

Still, Cardano investors who bought one year ago and held on have generated huge returns on their investments. In fact, $1,000 in Cardano bought on June 8, 2020, would be worth about $18,000 today.

Looking ahead, it’s impossible to value cryptocurrencies like Cardano because they produce no cash flow, pay no dividend or interest and are still used for only a tiny fraction of global financial transactions. Up to this point, Cardano has made for a spectacular speculative investment.

But until the extreme volatility in the Cardano market dies down, it will likely have a difficult time winning over investors looking for a safe, secure alternative to cash that won’t keep them up at night.

Related Link: Want to learn more about cryptocurrency? Tune into Benzinga's Crypto YouTube show!

(Photo: Executium via Unsplash)