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 the first 50 Bitcoins.

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 and 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 Holdings Inc 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 International Inc 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.

In 2021, Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $68,789.63 as part of a year that saw increased interest in the leading cryptocurrency and many other cryptocurrencies.

In 2022, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell in value and interest with several notable cryptocurrency trading platforms declaring bankruptcy.

Going forward, there is optimism for Bitcoin with several major financial institutions having pending Bitcoin ETF filings that could be approved and create increased demand from institutions for the crypto with limited supply.

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 $31,247,366,635.40 today based on a price of $28,122.63 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 $6,859,178,076.22 today based on the same price of $28,122.63 at the time of writing.

While investing in Bitcoin today may never be worth billions of dollars in the future, the hypothetical investment illustrates the large increase in value of the leading cryptocurrency over time.

Many have predicted Bitcon's death over the years, but the cryptocurrency remains the leader in the space and has a market capitalization of over $500 billion today.

Read Next: 13 Fun Facts About Bitcoin  

Meet and engage with transformative Digital Asset and Crypto business leaders and investors at Benzinga's exclusive event - Future of Digital Assets. Tickets are flying: Get yours!

Photo: Shutterstock