Ethereum
If You Invested $300 in Ethereum 5 Years Ago, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today
The price of Ethereum has been very volatile over the years, but patient shareholders have prevailed.
Ethereum (ETH 2.24%), prices have historically proven to be very volatile. It is not uncommon to see its value double or triple in a few months. In other months, however, its price was cut in half or worse.
But what about in the long term? If you had invested $300 in Ethereum five years ago and held on, you would probably be very happy with the result.
How profitable has Ethereum been over the last five years?
If you had invested $300 in Ethereum five years ago, you would have around $5,600 today. This represents a return of 1,770%, even higher than BitcoinPerformance of 1,000% over the same period. THE S&P500for comparison, increased in value by only 87%.
But before you go ahead and buy some Ethereum, there are a few important caveats to note.
First, Ethereum was still a young and relatively unknown technology five years ago. The crypto industry has come a long way since then, with much greater utility, adoption, and recognition. It’s possible that Ethereum’s greatest growth days are behind it.
Second, these eye-popping returns were only generated by investors with so-called diamond hands — that’s crypto terminology for holding on despite extreme highs and lows. If you bought Ethereum five years ago to sell it in early 2023, for example, you would only realize a gain of 640%. That’s still impressive, but far less than what patient investors earned. Conversely, if you had bought Ethereum at the beginning of 2022 to resell it a year later, you would have lost two thirds of your initial investment!
Ethereum has proven to be a great long-term investment, but its short-term movements are difficult to predict.
Ryan Vanzo has positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool posts and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Mad Motley has a disclosure policy.