It’s highly volatile, but Bitcoin turned out to be the single best investment of the 2010s and if you got in early, you are likely now laughing all the way to the bank.
A report from Bank of America Securities shows that if you had bought just $1 worth of Bitcoin in 2010, it would now be worth over $90,000.
Bitcoin has emerged as the world’s most widely accepted cryptocurrency, but it is also known for being a highly speculative and volatile commodity to trade in. Two years ago the value of one Bitcoin peaked at around $20,000 but it now trades around the $7,400 mark with big daily swings up and down.
That’s still incredibly high considering the first real-world transaction involving bitcoin was when a cryptocurrency “miner” used 10,000 Bitcoins to buy two Papa Johns pizzas back in 2010 — which is about $74,000,000 at today’s value, ouch.
Bitcoin is now accepted by many retailers, and it has gained a lot of clout after investment firms have started futures trading of the currency. Companies like Facebook, which is working on its own cryptocurrency, the Libra, are now vying for a share of the market, which has also helped validate Bitcoin.
Netflix was the Stock Investment of the Decade
As far as stocks go, Netflix’s returns since 2010 were remarkable to say the least.
The streaming giant joined the S&P 500 in 2010, when it was only worth a few billion dollars and most of its 12 million subscribers were still using its service to receive physical DVDs in the mail. Netflix launched its streaming service in 2007, but it hadn’t yet come close to gaining the traction it has today.
If you trusted Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ idea to morph Netflix into the streaming megalith it now is, you struck stock market gold. Since Jan 1, 2010, the return on Netflix stock has exploded to 4,181% as of Friday’s close. That’s better than any other company in the S&P 500 index, which is up 189% over the last decade.
The streaming service now boasts a $148 billion market cap, but there are some questions surrounding its future as more competition, like Disney+, enters the market. The stock has “only” gained 26% in 2019, which lags the S&P 500 YTD gain by four percentage points.