Stocks are what created wealth for many people, families, institutions in the 20th and 21st century. They are a fundamental part of the capitalist system, to fund new endeavors, innovation and competition. Although stocks have more volatility and therefore more risk than some other asset classes, they have outperformed all others – until Bitcoin came along.
It is a wonderful world in which anyone can research a company, their business and sector they operate in, their plans and goals, and their management team, and decide to invest in that company by buying stocks on the open market. This way the company gets the chance to thrive, to build, and the investor has the chance to financially benefit in case of success.
More recent developments have helped to make the stock market more accessible and inclusive for everyone, such as apps on the mobile phone and fractional shares. Of course with power and freedom comes responsibility. Stocks are one of the riskier asset classes, and without proper diversification one can lose a substantial part of everything invested.
The authors of this website have a positive attitude towards the financial system with publicly traded companies. Here comes a comparison of the past performance of stocks vs. Bitcoin, and the authors believe that there is a good chance that Bitcoin will keep outperforming stocks in the time to come.
S&P 500 vs. Bitcoin
The performance of the S&P 500 stock index vs. Bitcoin. The S&P 500 is a stock market index tracking the performance of the 500 largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
1st chart: 1 year (Jun 2021 – May 2022).
S&P 500 lost 3.29%, Bitcoin lost 24.77%.
Stocks performed better. Bitcoin has a higher volatility, and in the short term this can mean a big loss.
2nd chart: 2 years (Jun 2020 – May 2022).
S&P gained 33.29%, Bitcoin gained 213.19%.
3rd chart: 5 years (Jun 2017 – May 2022).
S&P gained 67.97%, Bitcoin gained 1,242.27%.
4th chart: Beginning to now (2009 to May 2022).
S&P gained 164.31%, Bitcoin gained 9,476.17%.
The blue line is the index price for the S&P 500, the yellow line is the price of Bitcoin.
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