A recent report by Goldman Sachs, naming bitcoin as the best-performing asset of the year so far has bitcoiners once again dreaming the $100K dream.
This isn’t the first time that bitcoin has outperformed other assets. Indeed, there have even been reports that have tagged it as one of the ការសម្តែងល្អបំផុត of the last decade. But what are the odds of history repeating itself? In the event of a new bull market, will bitcoin be, as Paul Tudor Jones once said, “the fastest horse in the stable” once again?
Over the past 10 years, bitcoin has seen gains of more than 5,700%. In comparison, the NASDAQ made 336%. When these same figures are examined over a five-year timeframe, bitcoin was up 96% while the NASDAQ made 69%.
But it gets more interesting when the timeframes are shortened further. In the last two years, bitcoin actually dropped 28% while the NASDAQ lost 11%. On a year-to-date basis, bitcoin has made 39% while the NASDAQ has made 8.8%.
For bitcoin to go all the way to $100,000, it would need to make gains of around five times its current price. This is less than the returns made by those bought before the crypto bubble of 2021 and far less than the early risk-takers of years back.
Back in 2019, when bitcoin was hovering at just above the $7,000 mark, going to $100,000 was a mouth-watering dream. But dreaming big with bitcoin seemed very rational. Here was this new decentralized financial asset, which no single entity could control, and that could disrupt the financial system, increase financial freedom, and make many people rich.
Back then, it seemed easier to believe that one can change the world if the disruptive asset that you are promoting might give huge returns. But the bitcoin revolution may appear less alluring as its potential future gains dwindle.
Is bitcoin good or just very lucky?
And there’s the elephant in the room to consider. Was bitcoin’s success in fact due to particularly forgiving financial conditions and a bull market that lasted more than 10 years? What if bitcoin was just lucky enough to be in a position to absorb the excessive capital created in the era of quantative easing?
When bitcoin hit its peak in 2021, interest rates were negative, financial conditions were loose, and the stock market was registering weekly all-time highs. Clearly, considering market and financial conditions, bitcoin had it easy. We’re also yet to learn exactly how much of the incredible bull run had been made possible through leverage and fraud.
Considering the bubbly road that bitcoin traveled to $69,000, the road to $100,000 looks, by comparison, not so easy. Certainly not as trouble-free as many might have thought in 2019 and 2020. Tim Draper may still be សុទិដ្ឋិនិយម about bitcoin going to $250,000, but another attempt at going to the moon may have to come in a more orderly manner.