Is being late into Bitcoin about perspective?

Bitcoin has increased more than 5,000,000% in price between its early days and its all-time price high, but are most of its big gains already done compared to other crypto opportunities?

Over the course of approximately 12 years, Bitcoin (BTC) went from the status as a little-known experiment to trading as an entirely new class of asset recognized by the mainstream financial world. In that time, the price of one Bitcoin has gone from less than $1, all the way up past $60,000 at its peak. People have bought into the asset at varying points along the way, with some users making significant profits from Bitcoin’s upward price journey. Given that Bitcoin now trades for tens of thousands of dollars per coin, is it too late to profit from getting into BTC now? One crypto trader on Twitter thinks so. 

“Tbh I just dont care what bitcoin does anymore,” Moon Overlord said in a March 15, 2021 tweet. “We already made it,” they said, adding: “And yes its too late to buy it, it’s $50-$60k for ONE, time to look elsewhere if you are new or dont have much to invest.”

Folks had months to stock up on BTC for under $0.10 per coin back in 2010, according to BraveNewCoin’s Bitcoin Liquid Index (BLX) on TradingView. The difficulty with buying Bitcoin that early, though, was that the asset had far less publicity and available purchasing on-ramps than it does today.

Even in 2015, however, many opportunities existed to buy BTC for less than $330 per coin, which would yield significant profits if sold at today’s prices. Although Bitcoin had already amassed tremendous percentage gains at $330 per coin, one unit of the asset was still affordable compared to prices above $50,000.

“It’s not too late just DCA”

It is too late, let’s cut the bullshit. You will never make it “dollar cost averaging” when it’s $55,000 FOR ONE.

When $btc was a few thousand sure, that strategy is a lot more sound, but it isn’t anymore.

— BIG DOG (@MoonOverlord) March 15, 2021

DCA refers to dollar-cost averaging. For more on DCA, read: Warren Buffett praises stocks dollar-cost averaging — But does it work for Bitcoin?

“It’s too late to magically get rich on bitcoin, cope,” Moon Overlord said in a separate tweet, adding: “Are you a fortune 500 company or a country / nation? Then it’s probably still OK for you.”

In 2021, on the r/Bitcoin subreddit, Reddit user u/DocumentingBitcoin posted a 2010 statement by user “ichi,” in which the user expressed feelings that they had missed out on Bitcoin. “I have only 600 bitcoins, virtually all generated last week,” ichi explained on July 25, 2010. “I missed the bus,” the user said, followed by a sad face emoji.

Bitcoin’s price around the date of the original 2010 post ranged from $0.05 to $0.06 per coin, according to the daily candles for July 24 to 26, 2010 on the BLX chart on TradingView.

Some crypto industry participants have speculated on Bitcoin’s value reaching significantly higher prices than its near-$65,000 all-time high, with some even thinking $1,000,000 per BTC is not out of the question. More notable upside means more potential profits going forward for BTC, although such percentage gains may be smaller than some of the profit percentages seen in certain altcoins in 2020 and 2021.

Yearn.finance (YFI), for example, rose more than 5,000% in price in 2020. Granted, investing in or trading crypto assets lesser-known than BTC may come with greater risk of loss due to potential project failure, asset price crashes and regulatory changes, among others.