You’ve probably heard a lot about Bitcoin, but little do you know that you missed out by not investing even a hundred quid ten years ago.
That’s right, what you’re about to read is going to make you wish that you could make like Marty McFly and travel back to a time, when you could have inadvertently made yourself a bit of extra cash.
Now, Bitcoin is something that a lot of people are serious about investing in, and it was basically the thing that popularised cryptocurrency for a lot of people in our generation.
Some people scrimped and saved to buy just one Bitcoin, and although they might have cashed out ages ago, others kept hold of it like a lifeline.
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That’s because the returns are getting better and better.
Considering it’s not even tangible money that you can feel in your hand, it sure does look nice when you open your app to find that the £100 you spent in November 2014 has now turned into a mini jackpot.
According to Coin Gecko, the price of one bitcoin has seen a whopping 2,054 percent rise in the last decade, which is great news for those who actually took the leap to buy some.
That’s around a 25.3 percent year-on-year increase of $1,226.31 each year.
Had you invested a hundred back then, you’d have had 0.42 Bitcoin, making you a tasty £28,644 (ish) quid back on your investment today in 2024.
The average price for one Bitcoin ten years ago was about £238, and as Bitcoin is trading near the £68,200 mark, your sliver of Bitcoin would have substantially increased in value.
But it’s not all been shiny for Bitcoin, as it actually had two recent drops that were downright insane.
Between 2018 and 2019, the value of Bitcoin dropped 73 percent, and there was also a 64 percent drop between 2022 and 2023.
The volatile crypto market is well-known, and you’ve got to take the risk to be in for a chance to win the rewards.
And the rewards just keep mounting as it continues to increase its value.
But imagine if your value was so much more than nearly 30k? Say, £495 million?
That would be an amazing thing to have accomplished.
That is, unless you accidentally threw it out, and the council went on to refuse to let you dig it up.
This is exactly what happened to James Howells, 39.
Howells is now set to head for court later this year, as he says he has 'pinpointed' the exact spot where his lost bin bag containing his fortune in cryptocurrency is, and he isn’t taking no for an answer.
He said: "It is what it is. I could spend the rest of my life working nine-to-five and thinking about it every day. I might as well spend my time trying to recover this simple piece of metal.
"Until the courts tells me 'N-O spells no', I'm going to keep going. Obviously my finances are not in the best position at the moment.
"I'm focusing all my current efforts and resources, including money, on the recovery project. I struggle along in the meantime.
"But the legal effort is covered. We're willing to go all the way to the appeals court, the Supreme Court. With a case of this magnitude I'm expecting to go the full distance. I didn't really want to go to court but this is the final shot."
Topics: Money, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency
Britt Jones