You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics. You are capturing Bitcoin's price when it is down.
If we were to do the same thing at the end of the year last year we could say it went up 70% in 2021 (and that was after a big drop from it's ATH) whereas the S&P only went up 26%. See how that isn't the whole story?
> You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics.
I mean, you certainly can if you're taking the "buy and hold" approach, or hodl amongst the cool kids. It simply points out that buy and hold crypto is not guaranteed to be better than something like SPY, and the excess volatility is maybe not a good thing?
The highest possible returns != what investors actually achieve.
Pointing out that at the peak it was up higher than SPY, even though it is no longer up higher, and considering that a good thing seems very odd. It would also only relevant if you're able to know when things are at a top and bottom. Did you sell any bitcoin you owned when up 70% and, if so, have we reached a bottom when it is optimal to buy back in?
> Did you sell any bitcoin you owned when up 70% and, if so, have we reached a bottom when it is optimal to buy back in?
This is the ultimate investing question. What signals a top or a bottom? How do I sell just before the price falls and buy just before it climbs back up? Is there even an answer? There must be since there are literal trading bots out there making millions.
That's low risk but inefficient because it fails to exploit market movements. People say the markets are unpredictable but somehow people managed to automate trading. There must be some method to it.
>It simply points out that buy and hold crypto is not guaranteed to be better than something like SPY
There are no guarantees in life, much less in financial markets of any kind. The whole concept of markets is that different investors make different assessments of different assets.
Bitcoin is 41 times higher in the same time period
Nasdaq is down 6% in a week
Bitcoin is up 4% in the last year, it was 40,254 on the 9th Jan 2020, and currently 41,766. Its lowest point in Dec 2019 was 6,540.05. Dec 2020 was 17,619.53. Dec 2021 was 42,874.62.
None of that really tells you anything about the relative worth or the direction.
S&P 500 was up 26 percent last year.