Cryptocurrency is one of the most unstable asset classes that investors can pursue. For some, the thrilling highs and horrifying lows can run through the stomach for hard-earned dollars. But its extreme volatility has worked in the favour of many investors who have never jumped into the crypto bandwagon and never made it to the crypto bandwagon earlier.
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Let’s take a look at whether a relatively modest investment of $1,000 in some of the most popular digital tokens has lost hundreds of dollars to you or have made you a billionaire many times.
December 2013: 0.000513 dollars
April 21, 2025: $0.16
Current value of $1,000 investment at launch: $3,125,000
According to CNBC, Elon Musk first expressed interest in Dogecoin when he first began tweeting in 2019. But at the time Musk’s name and brand represented something quite different to how he led the controversial government institutions that adopted Meme Coin’s name as its achromatic.
If you invested $1,000 when Dogecoin was released, you wouldn’t be as rich as Musk today, but you’d be a billionaire three times.
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July 2010: $0.0008
April 21, 2025: $86,882
Current value of $1,000 investment at launch: $108,602,500,000
Bitcoin launched a cryptographic revolution and remains the largest, most widely used and most famous digital coin in the world. It was released in 2009, but early pricing data is clouded because there were no modern exchanges in the early stages of Bitcoin.
What’s known is that it started at $0.0008 per coin when it first launched on the exchange in 2010, but it won’t exceed $0.40 per coin that year. One user is well known for spending 10,000 btc to buy Papa John’s Pizza that year.
Ethereum is the largest Altcoin and the largest cryptocurrency, after only Bitcoin. One of the most practical coins on the market is used for smart contract capabilities and decentralized finance (DEFI) applications.
Solana is similar to Ethereum in that it supports layer 1 blockchains for NFT, Defi, and tokenized real asset applications. However, it is newer, smaller and still evolving, so early investors probably haven’t gotten before. Still, it’s a scary cryptocurrency with practical applications and a seemingly bright future.