2011 - A Year We Wont Forget
In 2011 my single GPU was mining away at Bitcoin, Magic Internet Money they called it online in abstract forums. Talk about the future of money, a disruptive technology that allows you to be your own bank. Remove the middle man, control your money they said. Satoshi Nakamoto was still active on the Bitcointalk forum and the talk of his Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System whitepaper was spreading like fire.
The single GPU was mining around $1/day in January 2011 - about 1BTC on average, sometimes slightly less as the difficulty adjustments occurred biweekly. The price of Bitcoin is currently $1. Then it happened, the new members to the forum increased exponentially. New members were not the only thing increasing exponentially though. Bitcoin is suddenly worth $32. My (now four) GPUS are mining around $3USD per day, roughly 0.09 or 0.1 Bitcoin.
Bitcoin rose 3200% between March 2011 and June 2011.
In three months, If you had invested $1000 - you would have now had $32,000.
"I'm pretty sure we are now the wealthy elite, gentlemen"
- 2011, Bitcointalk.com
By November 2011 Bitcoin was worth $2.
"Bitcoin is a failure"
"What did you expect, the technology is a joke"
"It's called magic internet money for a reason - it's not real"
If you had invested at the top, you're investment was down 93.75%
$1000 invested in June 2011 was worth on $62.50 in November the same year.
The four GPUs are still mining around $3/day in November, around 1.4 BTC each day
Bitcoin was still up 100% from the beginning of the year - not many investments could boast this.
2013 - Another Year Not to be Forgotten
Bitcoin started trading at $13.40 in January 2013.
By April it was at $220.
By mid-April it was $70.
In December it was suddenly at $1126.
Only three days later it had fallen to only $760.
The decline continued for three years, falling to a low of $315 as 2015 began.
"Bitcoin is dead"
"Bitcoin is failed, it's proven"
The rhetoric was repeated on reddit, on Bitcointalk, on forums across the internet. Bitcoin was ridiculed.
$315 - only a 31,500% increase over 5 years - A failed project?
2017 - Most People Still Remember
Bitcoin has stabilised at the $1000 range at the beginning of the year. It's not an easy year for the technology. Internal arguments over the blocksize limit led to Bitcoin being hardforked on August 1st. This led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash - the coin following the original Bitcoin roadmap.
Despite the internal drama - money was rolling into Cryptocurrency like never before. Ethereum was being hailed as the new king of crypto. People talked about "The Flippening" - Ethereum overtaking Bitcoin's market cap.
On December 17th 2017 Bitcoin hit it's new all time high of just over $20,000.
$1000 invested on January 2011 would have been worth $20,000,000 in less than 7 years.
In March 2019 - Bitcoin crashed to below $4000 with the Stock Markets due to COVID-19.
"Bitcoin is a failure"
"Bitcoin is dead"
2021 - The Year is Now
Here we are, Bitcoin finally re-reached it's previous all-time high in December 2020.
By January 2021 Bitcoin has more than doubled it's previous all time high - it's trading at just over $40,000.
Three days later, it's trading at $28,000 briefly - down over 25%.
What's that - Elon Musk is in Bitcoin?
Say it again? He's in $1,500,000,000 (Don't worry, I had to double check the zeros too.)
Well that's fine - Bitcoin surges over $58,000 on February 21st - 4 days ago.
That $1000 from January 2011 is worth $58,000,000. In 10 years and 1 month.
It's today! February 24th - Bitcoin is currently trading at $48,218.
18% down from it's all time high 4 days ago.
417% up from it's price just 12 months ago.
48,218,00% up from it's price 10 years and 45 days ago.
But.... "Bitcoin is dead"
Yeah, right.
