19 May 2021: Bitcoin's May crash
On May 19, 2021 Bitcoin briefly plunged toward $30,000, roughly half its April peak, as China warned against crypto use, leveraged traders were liquidated and some exchanges struggled to keep up. Billions of dollars of bets were wiped out in a single day. Bitcoin recovered and set new highs later that year, then fell even harder in 2022. Volatility, as always, worked in both directions.
The lesson: Leverage turns volatility from an inconvenience into a wipeout; size positions to survive the bad days.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Bitcoin at the start of 2020 → $13,889 today, vs $2,092 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2020, the latest year on the wheel. That is 13.9 times the money, and $11,797 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Bitcoin teaches: Extraordinary returns came bundled with repeated drawdowns of 75 percent or more; the gains went mostly to holders who could survive each collapse without selling.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $315 | $317,460 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $14,000 | $7,143 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $7,200 | $13,889 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Bitcoin? Every starting year and the full story →
More Bitcoin history
- 3 January 2009: Bitcoin's genesis block is mined
- 7 February 2014: Mt. Gox halts bitcoin withdrawals
- 12 May 2021: Musk stops accepting Bitcoin for Teslas
- 22 May 2010: Two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin
- 9 June 2021: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
- 31 October 2008: Satoshi publishes the Bitcoin white paper
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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